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President Donald Trump’s name has been removed from the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., after a judge ruled its addition was illegal. The Kennedy Center’s board, which was handpicked by Trump, voted to add Trump’s name to the center late last year. The battle over the Kennedy Center’s name comes during a broader push by Trump to overhaul the institution, which is closed for “renovations” amid mass cancellations by artists.

“We, the American people, have rarely been afforded the decency of a public conversation or process,” says Marc Bamuthi Joseph, who was fired from his role as vice president and artistic director of the Kennedy Center’s Social Impact initiative in March 2025. “There were no procedural protocols in the affixing of this person’s name on a national memorial, and so … this does feel like a small victory for the rule of law.”

The removal of Trump’s name “really does mean something. We have been fighting for it since it went up in December,” says Mallory Miller, who was fired from her job as assistant manager of dance programming at the Kennedy Center in August 2025. Miller is the co-founder of Hands Off the Arts, which has been rallying outside the Kennedy Center every week. “This is just the first step in rebuilding the trust that has been lost,” says Miller, pointing out that Trump “is still the boss” at the Kennedy Center and that workers at the center are still being fired.

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman. We are today broadcasting from Belfast in Northern Ireland. Juan González is in Chicago.

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President Trump’s name has been removed, letter by letter, from the exterior of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, following a judge’s order. But a massive tarp remains in place, covering up the center’s name without Trump. Workers removed Trump’s name at around 3 a.m. on Saturday. The Kennedy Center’s board, which was handpicked by Trump, voted to add Trump’s name to the center late last year, but Congress never approved the name change.

U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper issued the order to remove Trump’s name. Cooper wrote, quote, “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. Congress gave the Kennedy Center its name, and only Congress can change it,” unquote.

The battle over the Kennedy Center’s name comes amidst a broader push by Trump to overhaul the famed institution. In February, Trump announced plans to entirely close the Kennedy Center for two years, beginning in July, supposedly for renovations, but a judge has blocked the center’s closure. Before Trump announced the renovations, dozens of artists and organizations, including the San Francisco Ballet and the Martha Graham Dance Company, pulled out of performances after Trump appointed himself chair of the center.

We’re joined now by two former Kennedy Center programmers who were fired. Mallory Miller co-founded Hands Off the Arts from her job as assistant manager of dance programming at the Kennedy Center. And Marc Bamuthi Joseph is a renowned artist and playwright who was fired from his role as vice president and artistic director of the Kennedy Center’s Social Impact initiative of March — he was fired in March 2025.

Marc Bamuthi Joseph, let’s begin with you. Your response to the demand and the actual removal of Trump’s name from the Kennedy Center, and the judge ruling it cannot be closed or renovated the way he had planned?

MARC BAMUTHI JOSEPH: First of all, good morning, and thanks for having me. Thanks for having us.

I guess I would say that I have — I have lots of feelings. I have three primary responses. The first is intimate and visceral, the feeling of the reversal of a particular defilement of a national memorial and the striking of a person’s name who has contracted the American horizon, whether it’s the defunding of cancer research or the national parks or the Department of Education. Having that particular person’s name above a poet of a president like John F. Kennedy was an affront to us all, and reversing that decision is somewhat emboldening.

I would say my second reaction is more parliamentary. We, the American people, have rarely been afforded the decency of a public conversation or process. You know, you wake up one morning, and we’ve kidnapped a president in Venezuela. You wake up one........

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