How Trump’s Kennedy Center Takeover Failed

Three months ago, a 75-year-old lawmaker filed a complaint as part of an ongoing lawsuit in federal court, claiming that she had been unlawfully excluded from an upcoming board meeting that would determine the fate of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.It turned out that the invitation had landed in her spam folder—an admission that quickly became a political punch line, a real-life Veep episode in Washington politics.Today, the plaintiff—Representative Joyce Beatty—feels vindicated, she told me, after a federal judge last week ruled in her favor, ordering the removal of President Trump’s name from the Kennedy Center and temporarily halting his plan to close the institution this summer for a two-year renovation project. On Thursday, the Kennedy Center moved to implement the first half of that ruling, instructing staff to remove Trump’s name from signage and center materials. In a new filing yesterday, Beatty’s legal team told the court that the Kennedy Center has yet to clearly indicate that it will comply with the judge’s preliminary injunction requiring the institution to remain open past July 5.“It appears, unfortunately, that Defendants may intend to proceed—full steam ahead—with the shutdown, or simply to effectuate a shutdown by inertia,” the lawyers wrote.Beatty, an Ohio Democrat and an ex officio member of the Kennedy Center board, has been the lone lawmaker behind the monthslong legal fight. (A coalition of historic preservationists and architects asked for a similar injunction in a separate lawsuit, which the judge denied because the plaintiffs had not shown that the renovations were subject to certain federal-review laws.) Now, as the Kennedy Center board faces a June 12 deadline to comply with the ruling—and 60 days to potentially appeal it—Beatty finds herself at the center of one of the most consequential cultural clashes of Trump’s second term. The ruling, she said, was just the “first step.”She and other lawmakers are now discussing l