Unless President Donald Trump can attach his name to the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Assistant Attorney General Brett Shumate warned last month, the building "will deteriorate further into an unsafe, decrepit structure that will be required to be taken down." On Wednesday, Trump repeated that threat, telling reporters the Kennedy Center will "end up being ripped down" if he does not get the "recognition" he wants. That night, an Agence France-Presse photographer captured images of Trump looking at a placard labeled "Kennedy Center DEMOLISHED" while sitting on Air Force One.
Christopher Cooper, a federal judge in the District of Columbia who is overseeing two cases involving the Kennedy Center, alluded to those "recent events" in an order he issued on Thursday in Beatty v. Trump. Cooper noted that the Kennedy Center's board of trustees, which is chaired by Trump himself and stacked with his cronies, had said it planned to renovate the building rather than demolish it. If that plan changes, he said, the board must notify the plaintiffs "more than 30 days" in advance to "avoid any confusion on that score."
