A Republican senator has blocked a bipartisan bill that would have prevented Donald Trump from demolishing the Kennedy Center without the approval of Congress.
Mike Lee, of Utah, objected on Monday night when the Oregon Democrat Jeff Merkley asked the Senate to pass the Protecting Presidential Memorials Act by unanimous consent. The bill, co-written with the Alaska Republican Lisa Murkowski, would have banned the demolition of any presidential memorial designated by Congress, including the Lincoln and Jefferson memorials, unless lawmakers explicitly approved it.
“First, he destroyed its programming, and now, he wants to destroy the building itself,” Merkley wrote in a statement. “All because the law says Trump can’t put his name on the building.” He called the president’s threats “straight out of the authoritarian playbook”.
Murkowski, who chairs the appropriations subcommittee that funds the center, said last week that lawmakers had authorized and funded substantial renovation work, but “what was not authorized is a demolition of the Kennedy Center”.
The fight over the Kennedy Center has been one of the longest legal dramas of Trump’s second term. It started when the president seized control of the center shortly after returning to office, clearing out the board and installing allies while attacking what he called “woke” programming.
Trump’s handpicked board voted last December to rename the venue the Trump-Kennedy Center, but in May, federal judge Christopher Cooper ruled the change illegal and halted a planned two-year closure. On 15 September, Cooper rejected a second attempt to put Trump’s name on the building, and Trump said the $257m renovation would not go ahead unless the decision was reversed.
In August, justice department lawyers warned in court that the building could decay until it had to come down, and floated an outdoor amphitheater as a replacement. A judge has since ordered 30 days’ notice of any demolition plans, and the center’s leader has told the court the building will stay standing.
Lee has been closely aligned with Trump since 2020, and supported his efforts to overturn that year’s election result. More recently, he has repeatedly brought the Trump-backed Save act, which would impose voter ID and citizenship-proof requirements, to the Senate floor, and in April urged Trump to force lawmakers back to Washington to end a partial shutdown and pass it.
“Democrats should join us in lowering the cost of living and securing American elections instead of wasting the Senate’s time with partisan scaremongering they haven’t even tried to run through the appropriate committee process,” Lee told the Guardian.
