Creator: Daniel Torok/White House

A three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit ruled Wednesday that the Trump administration failed to prove “irreparable harm” from stripping the President’s name off the building while the full appeal plays out. Tarps and scaffolding remain in place.

The panel determined that lawyers for the President and the Kennedy Center did not sufficiently demonstrate that irreparable harm would occur if the name stayed off the facade, website, and materials during the ongoing challenge to a lower court order.

This is the latest chapter in a blatant lawfare campaign against President Trump’s efforts to rescue and revitalize a once-failing national institution.

As The Gateway Pundit previously reported in May, Obama-appointed U.S. District Judge Christopher R. Cooper blocked President Trump from temporarily closing the Kennedy Center for critical structural renovations and ordered his name removed from the building within weeks. The ruling came in a lawsuit filed by Democrat Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-OH), with radical lawyer Norm Eisen playing a key role.

The 36-member Kennedy Center Board of Trustees, which had elected President Trump as Board Chair, unanimously voted to add “TRUMP” to the name in honor of his leadership in securing more than $257 million for desperately needed renovations. The center had been losing hundreds of millions, plagued by rotting beams, collapsing risks in parking areas, and years of mismanagement.

President Trump announced the closure starting July 4, 2026, for two years of world-class upgrades, declaring it would become “the finest Performing Arts Facility of its kind, anywhere in the World.” Financing was fully in place.

Judge Cooper overruled the unanimous board, claiming only Congress can change the statutory name honoring JFK. He and the radical left would apparently rather watch the center continue its decline than let President Trump transform it.

In June, as The Gateway Pundit reported, the D.C. Circuit rejected a last-minute bid to keep the name up past the court-ordered deadline. Tarps went up. Scaffolding went up. The name came down.

Now the appeals court has ruled again, this time denying a stay while the broader appeal of Cooper’s order proceeds.

In a three-page order issued by a unanimous three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, the court concluded that the administration failed to satisfy the legal standard required for a stay pending appeal, finding that it had not demonstrated irreparable harm if the lower court’s order remained in effect.

According to the appeals court, the administration’s first argument, that significant time and expense had already been invested in installing the signage, could not justify emergency relief because the removal had already taken place.

The panel also rejected claims that removing Trump’s name would significantly damage the Kennedy Center’s fundraising efforts.

The judges wrote that the administration presented only conclusory statements from the Center’s executive director without specific factual evidence supporting claims of financial harm.

The district court had likewise found no proof that current or future donations depended on President Trump’s name remaining on the building.

In addition, the court declined to consider a new argument regarding a fundraising entity called the “Trump Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts Foundation,” noting that the contention had not been presented before the district court and therefore could not establish an abuse of discretion on appeal.

Jim Hᴏft Jim Hᴏft is the founder and editor of The Gateway Pundit, one of the top conservative news outlets in America. Jim was awarded the Reed Irvine Accuracy in Media Award in 2013 and is the proud recipient of the Breitbart Award for Excellence in Online Journalism from the Americans for Prosperity Foundation in May 2016.

You can email Jim Hᴏft here, and read more of Jim Hᴏft's articles here.

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