Judge Calls Out Trump’s Desperate Kennedy Center Stunt

A judge is hitting back at Donald Trump’s seemingly childish response to having his name scrubbed from the Kennedy Center.

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Last month, U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper found that the president had illegally put his name on the performing arts center when it was added in December. Further, the Obama-appointed judge ruled that only Congress had the power to change the name of the Kennedy Center, formally known as “The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.”

On June 13, workers complied with the judge’s order, removing Trump’s name from the once-storied performance center. But in its place, they erected scaffolding and a tarp that almost completely obscures the name on the building.

The scaffolding and tarp extend almost entirely up the side of the building. Crews even ensured that the doors to the center below the sign remained accessible, suggesting the cover-up would stay in place for some time.

Cooper, for his part, appears to have caught on. On Wednesday, the federal judge ordered a status report by the last day of July detailing “the purpose for and status of the tarp and scaffolding that Defendants have erected on the front portico of the Center, to the extent they remain at that time,” Deadline reported.

Legal representation for Democratic Rep. Joyce Beatty, who sued Trump and the Kennedy Center after he slapped his name on the institution, slammed the scaffolding scandal as a “petty act of defiance,” according to the outlet.

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The Kennedy Center Board of Directors, which Trump stacked with loyalists last year, did not respond to a request for comment from the Daily Beast. Last week, a Kennedy Center employee on the scene said they had not been told when the construction equipment would come down, if at all.

Cooper’s July 31 deadline isn’t the only one the Kennedy Center is scrambling to meet. Last week, the federal judge gave the center just days to update the court on its plans to remain open after blocking the president’s plan to shutter the institution for two years.

The controversies are playing out just days before the annual Mark Twain Prize event on Sunday, which will be presented to anti-woke comedian Bill Maher—likely rubbing salt in Trump’s wounds.

While Maher previously sat down with Trump for a headline-grabbing White House dinner, the president went on to slander him as “very boring” and relentlessly “ANTI-TRUMP.”