Maria Shriver has responded to a federal judge’s order to remove President Donald Trump’s name from the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts.
On Friday, District Judge Christopher Cooper in Washington, D.C., blocked Trump from renaming the performing space to “Trump-Kennedy Center,” saying Congress made it “crystal clear” that the building is to be named after former President John F. Kennedy. Cooper also said the center “cannot bear any other formal name or public memorial” based on a “unilateral say-so” from a Trump-appointed board.
Shriver — the daughter of John F. Kennedy’s sister, Eunice Kennedy — expressed her excitement about the decision Friday, on what would have been Kennedy’s 109th birthday.
“An appropriate birthday present on my uncle’s birthday today,” she wrote on Threads. “A federal judge ruled that President Trump and the Kennedy Center Board acted unlawfully in renaming the Kennedy Center after him.
“The judge held that only Congress can change the Center’s name and blocked the planned two-year closure for now. I know they’ll probably appeal and the story isn’t over, but for today, let’s celebrate a great birthday gift.”
Shriver, the ex-wife of former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, has previously condemned Trump’s effort to rename the Kennedy Center.
“It is beyond comprehension that this sitting president has sought to rename this great memorial dedicated to President Kennedy,” she wrote on Instagram in December. “It is beyond wild that he would think adding his name in front of President Kennedy’s name is acceptable. It is not.”
According to the Friday court order, Trump’s name, installed on the center’s exterior in December, has to be removed within the next two weeks. The order also blocked the president’s plans to shut down the Kennedy Center until 2028 to complete renovations.
Trump wrote a lengthy screed against the decision and the judge on his Truth Social account, saying it would be “impossible” to keep the institution open while construction is ongoing, and that he now has “no interest” in renovations. He said he will instead be “working with Congress to transfer this failing Institution back to them so they can make a determination as to what to do with it.”
The order does not block the Trump administration from moving forward with planned capital repair work, “which the record demonstrates is sorely needed,” Cooper wrote. But the president can’t force the board to close it, he said.
The Kennedy Center’s Board of Trustees — which appointed Trump as a member — “was derelict in discharging the full range of its responsibilities to the Center” by agreeing to close it under the president’s request, according to Cooper.
The board based its decision “on an insufficient, one-sided presentation of information and neglected to consider the full range of its statutory obligations and potential adverse consequences of closure on programming and memorial functions,” he wrote.