Donald Trump blasts ‘hater’ judge who blocked Kennedy Centre renovation

Donald Trump (Jacquelyn Martin/AP)

Donald Trump has branded a federal judge who blocked his renovation of a prestigious cultural centre as “an anti Trump Hater” and predicted that the Kennedy Centre will “soon be closed, probably never to open again”.

In a lengthy post on his Truth Social platform, the president fumed about the decision by US District Judge Christopher Cooper, who also ordered Mr Trump’s name removed from the site.

The president claimed it was “impossible for me to be treated fairly” tying Judge Cooper’s ruling to earlier losses, including the Supreme Court’s rejection in February of sweeping tariffs.

His post aimed to make the case for the project but did not clarify whether he would continue to defend it in court.

Hours after Judge Cooper’s decision, Mr Trump said he was backing away from the renovations and making arrangements to relinquish control to Congress of what, until the Republican president’s second term, had been known as the John F Kennedy Centre for the Performing Arts.

Without offering evidence, Mr Trump suggested Judge Cooper’s wife, lawyer Amy Jeffress, was to blame in part for the ruling. The president noted that Ms Jeffress, a partner at the Hecker Fink law firm, is a former federal prosecutor who served as a counsellor to attorney general Eric Holder during the administration of Democratic president Barack Obama. Judge Cooper was nominated for the bench by Mr Obama.

Mr Trump also noted that Hecker Fink is representing former president Joe Biden in a lawsuit against the Department of Justice to block the release of audio recordings and transcripts from the Democrat’s interviews with a ghostwriter that were obtained in an investigation into Mr Biden’s handling of classified documents from his time as a senator and as vice president.

Mr Trump claimed the Kennedy Centre, named for the late Democratic president and opened in 1971, was “rusted, rotted, and rat and bug infested”, and that the ”new Building would have been incomparable”.

Judge Cooper said in his ruling that the centre board’s March 16 vote to close the venue was “ill-informed and seemingly preordained” with no regard for its legal obligations.

The administration had announced the work would begin in July and last approximately two years. Judge Cooper’s ruling halts those plans for now.

The judge also found that the board “overstepped its statutory bounds” by adding Mr Trump’s name to the centre. Congress gave the Kennedy Centre its name, and only Congress can change it, he said. Judge Cooper ordered that Mr Trump’s name be removed within two weeks.

The president said on Saturday that it was the board, not him, that added his name to the centre. “They thought it would be good for this dying Institution,” he wrote.

Shortly after returning to office in January 2025, he ousted the centre’s previous leadership and replaced it with a handpicked board of trustees that named him chairman.

Judge Cooper held hearings in late April for parallel lawsuits challenging the project, one filed by a group of cultural and historic preservation organisations, and the other by Joyce Beatty, an Ohio Democrat who serves as an ex-officio member of the board through her position in Congress.

He ruled in favour of Ms Beatty’s request but rejected the other challenge.

Mr Trump, in his post, also noted that Ms Jeffress’s firm represented E Jean Carroll, the longtime advice columnist who has said the president sexually assaulted her in a New York department store 30 years ago.