WASHINGTON, May 30, 2026 — The day after a federal judge ordered President Donald Trump’s name removed from the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Sen. Bernie Sanders took to X to weigh in — calling Trump a “narcissist-in-chief” who has turned the presidency into a tool for self-promotion and personal enrichment.
Sanders’ post came hours after U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper issued a landmark 94-page ruling finding that Trump’s board of trustees had acted unlawfully by unilaterally adding the president’s name to one of the nation’s most iconic cultural institutions — a decision that set off months of legal battles, artist boycotts, and a bitter public dispute over who has the authority to govern a building established by Congress as a living memorial to a slain president.
Sanders’ Full Post
In his May 29th X post, the Vermont independent senator did not mince words. Sanders wrote: “A federal judge just ordered Trump’s name removed from the Kennedy Center because it honors JFK, not Donald Trump. America deserves a president, not a narcissist-in-chief who treats public office as a vehicle for self-promotion and personal enrichment.”
The post landed as Washington processed the sweeping scope of Cooper’s ruling — one that not only blocked Trump’s name from the building but also temporarily halted the administration’s plan to close the center beginning July 4, 2026, for a complete two-year renovation. For Sanders, the judge’s decision was validation of a position he had held since the controversy first erupted.
A Pattern of Criticism
Sanders’ language on May 29th echoed a line of attack he has maintained against Trump’s involvement with the Kennedy Center since December 2025, when the board — which Trump chairs and filled with hand-picked allies — voted unanimously to rename the venue the “Donald J. Trump and John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts.” Within hours of that vote, large letters spelling “Trump” were installed on the building’s exterior.
Sanders responded immediately. “What arrogance. What narcissism,” he wrote at the time on X. “I will be introducing legislation prohibiting the naming of federal buildings after sitting presidents.” He followed through in January 2026, formally introducing a bill alongside Democratic Senators Chris Van Hollen and Angela Alsobrooks that would make it explicitly unlawful for any sitting president to name federal buildings after themselves. “For Trump to put his name on the Kennedy Center and other federal buildings is not only arrogant and narcissistic, but it is also illegal,” Sanders said. “Part of that strategy is to create the myth of the ‘Great Leader’ by naming public buildings after himself — something that dictators have done throughout history.”
The Ruling That Prompted the Post
Cooper’s May 29 ruling — issued on President John F. Kennedy’s birthday — concluded that the Kennedy Center’s founding statute, 20 U.S. Code § 76h, established the institution as “The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts” and granted its board of trustees specific enumerated powers that do not include renaming the building. “Congress gave the Kennedy Center its name, and only Congress can change it,” Cooper wrote. “The Kennedy Center’s organic statute makes crystal clear that the Center is to be named for President Kennedy, and it cannot bear any other formal name or public memorial based on the Board’s unilateral say-so.”
Cooper ordered Trump’s name removed from the building’s facade, all interior signage, and the center’s official website within two weeks. He also temporarily blocked the administration’s July 4 closure plan, finding the board had not demonstrated legal authority to unilaterally shut a congressionally chartered institution. Additionally, Cooper ruled that Rep. Joyce Beatty, D-Ohio — who had been stripped of her voting rights as an ex officio trustee — must have those rights fully restored.
The Lawsuit Behind the Ruling
The case was brought by Beatty in December 2025, challenging the renaming, the planned closure, and the board’s removal of her voting rights. In her complaint, Beatty’s legal team argued that “Congress intended the Center to be a living memorial to President Kennedy — and a crown jewel of the arts for all Americans, irrespective of party. Unless and until this Court intervenes, Defendants will continue to defy Congress and thwart the law for improper ends.”
Following the ruling, Beatty issued a statement: “Today’s ruling rightly affirms that this administration’s efforts to rename and close the Center have no basis in law. The Kennedy Center is an institution that belongs to the American people, not to Donald Trump. He has desecrated this sacred memorial for his own vanity. I am proud to have fought for the rule of law and to protect this sacred institution.”
Trump Fires Back — And Walks Away
Trump responded to the ruling on Truth Social Saturday morning with a nearly 600-word post attacking both the judge and the decision. He argued the renovation was not cosmetic vanity but a structural emergency — pointing to aging HVAC systems, deteriorating marble, and steel beams, columns, and girders he said needed urgent replacement to make the building safe. “People shouldn’t be allowed to go into that Building until this is fixed,” Trump wrote.
Trump also attacked Judge Cooper directly, targeting the judge’s wife — attorney Amy Jeffress — as a “Radical Left Democrat” with what he described as sweeping conflicts of interest, alleging ties to the January 6th committee, the Russia investigation, and current representation of former President Joe Biden related to the release of his interview audio tapes. The White House did not issue a formal statement on the ruling itself, though a spokesperson referenced the $257 million in congressionally approved renovation funding Trump had secured, saying the administration remained “committed to pursuing every lawful avenue to ensure the Trump Kennedy Center is restored as a national cultural landmark for all Americans to enjoy.”
Facing the court order, Trump announced he was stepping back from the project entirely, directing his administration to hand control of the center back to Congress. “Unless I am free to do what I do better than anyone else, bring this Institution back, physically, financially, and artistically, I have no interest in continuing what could only be a hopeless journey into ‘NEVER NEVER LAND,'” Trump wrote.
A Broader Battle Over Public Institutions
The Kennedy Center dispute has played out against a months-long exodus of artists and productions from the venue. Following the December 2025 renaming, major theatrical productions including Les Misérables, Washington National Opera, and Hamilton withdrew from the center. The center opened on September 8, 1971 — nearly eight years after President Kennedy’s assassination on November 22, 1963 — and hosts more than 2,000 performances annually. Congress established it in 1964 under the National Cultural Center Act as a permanent living memorial to the 35th president.
Cooper’s ruling is a preliminary injunction and is expected to be appealed by the Trump administration. For Sanders — who has called Trump’s conduct at the Kennedy Center part of a broader “dictator playbook” aimed at consolidating cultural and governmental power — the judge’s order was precisely the intervention he had argued was necessary from the moment Trump’s name first went up on the building.
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