'This Is a Desecration!' DC Residents Rage After Trump Slaps His Name Atop Kennedy Center

Residents of Washington, DC reacted with outrage on Friday after construction workers slapped President Donald Trump's name on the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts.

One day after it was announced that Trump's name would be added to the Kennedy Center, which was originally named by the US Congress in the wake of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination in 1963, construction workers were spotted altering the lettering on the outside of the building.

When their work was complete, the building had been unofficially renamed as "The Donald J. Trump and the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts."

From a legal perspective, the Kennedy Center still retains its original name, as the power to change its name rests with the US Congress and not with the Trump-appointed Kennedy Center board of directors whom the president appointed earlier this year.

Andrew Howard, a Washington, DC resident, reacted with rage during an interview with MS Now when asked about Trump's decision to put his name on the side of the official national cultural center of the US.

"We should be shocked... that a felon, a convicted felon, and a thug, and, by all means, a grift has just stuck his name on top of a national monument," Howard fumed. "This is a desecration!"

Former CNN host Jim Acosta also delivered a report from outside the Kennedy Center, which he described as "the scene of yet another crime committed by Donald Trump."

"He has vandalized the Kennedy Center by putting his name on it," Acosta said.

The former CNN anchor explained that only Congress has the power to make changes to the Kennedy Center's name, before noting that Trump "doesn't care about the law, doesn't care what's appropriate," and concluding that the Kennedy Center stunt was symbolic of "a childish and lawless administration."

Former Republican political operative Tara Setmayer wrote in a post on X that Trump's decision to illegally rename the Kennedy Center demonstrated his authoritarian ambitions to rule America by decree.

"This desecration of the Kennedy Center is another grotesque example of Trump’s 'Dear Leader' behavior," she wrote. "This has been a week of one wretched act after another by Trump. It’s got to stop."

Kerry Kennedy, a niece of the late president, vowed to personally tear Trump's name from the building.

"Three years and one month from today, I’m going to grab a pickax and pull those letters off that building," she wrote, before adding, "But I’m going to need help holding the ladder."

Other members of the Kennedy family condemned the renaming of the center on Thursday when it was first announced.

Former US Rep. Joe Kennedy III (D-Mass.) wrote on Bluesky that “the Kennedy Center is a living memorial to a fallen president and named for President Kennedy by federal law,” and “can no sooner be renamed than can someone rename the Lincoln Memorial, no matter what anyone says.”

Journalist Maria Shriver, a niece of the late president, also expressed her disbelief at the decision.

“It is beyond comprehension that this sitting president has sought to rename this great memorial dedicated to President Kennedy,” she said. “It is beyond wild that he would think adding his name in front of President Kennedy’s name is acceptable. It is not. Next thing perhaps he will want to rename JFK Airport, rename the Lincoln Memorial, the Trump Lincoln Memorial. The Trump Jefferson Memorial. The Trump Smithsonian. The list goes on.”