“Congress gave the Kennedy Center its name,” Cooper wrote in his opinion, “and only Congress can change it.”

The twin rulings throw the center’s near future into uncertainty. Leaders had laid off staff in anticipation of a closure, and the decision could now leave the institution open with an empty performance calendar.

Trump added to the havoc in a lengthy social media post Friday evening, suggesting he will give up his involvement with the center if the courts continue to limit him.

The judge’s decision is the most significant point in two lawsuits filed against Kennedy Center leadership over the Trump administration’s involvement in affairs big and small at the performing arts institution.

In December, Beatty, an ex officio member of the Kennedy Center’s board, sued her fellow trustees days after they voted to rename the institution “The Donald J. Trump and The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts.” Beatty said she was muted during the virtual board meeting when she tried to voice opposition to the name change, a claim the center disputed. She later amended the lawsuit to seek a broader halt to the closure, and the court granted her request for key documents related to the renovation plan, including building assessments and budget materials.

Last year, the Kennedy Center’s board changed its bylaws to ensure that ex officio members such as Beatty could not vote. Cooper on Friday also declared that change unlawful.

In a second lawsuit filed in March, a group of historic preservationists argued that officials had not gone through proper federal review before voting to close.

Both cases landed before Cooper, who has been pressing both sides on a central question: whether the Kennedy Center renovations must follow the same review process that governs nearly every other major federal construction project in the capital.

The judge Friday ruled that Beatty had shown that closing for two years would cause irreparable harms. But he left the door open for the board to revisit its decision to close the building “after independently balancing its multiple obligations to the Center in a prudent fashion.”

“Today’s ruling rightly affirms that this administration’s efforts to rename and close the Center have no basis in law,” Beatty said in a statement. “The Kennedy Center is an institution that belongs to the American people, not to Donald Trump. He has desecrated this sacred memorial for his own vanity. I am proud to have fought for the rule of law and to protect this sacred institution.”

Daravi added that “even the plaintiff” acknowledges the center’s need for repairs. “With $257 million secured by President Trump and approved by Congress, the resources are in place and we remain committed to pursuing every lawful avenue to ensure the Trump Kennedy Center is restored as a national cultural landmark for all Americans to enjoy.”

Trump blasted the rulings on social media Friday evening, saying the judge “should be ashamed of himself.” But rather than vow to fight for the closure, he appeared to wash his hands of the project — and the Kennedy Center entirely. The president insisted the building must close in order for renovations to proceed safely, and he said if that doesn’t happen, he wants out.

“Unless I am free to do what I do better than anyone else, bring this Institution back, physically, financially, and artistically, I have no interest in continuing what could only be a hopeless journey into ‘NEVER NEVER LAND,’” he wrote.

Trump said he would work with Congress and the Department of Commerce to facilitate “a full and complete transfer of this Institution, giving them the responsibility for its Operation, Maintenance, and Management.”

The White House did not respond to messages seeking clarity on the president’s plan. According to the law establishing the Kennedy Center, its board of trustees is responsible for managing the institution.

Plaintiffs in the second lawsuit against the center were less successful Friday.

Cooper denied the preservationists’ request for a similar injunction, ruling that the Kennedy Center wasn’t subject to laws governing agency renovations. He ordered both parties to confer and propose next steps, and allowed that “this preliminary ruling may not be the ‘final word in this case.’”

In the second lawsuit, a coalition of eight architectural and historical preservation organizations, including the DC Preservation League and the National Trust for Historic Preservation, argued that the center must complete several steps of federal review before work can begin.

The group also alleged that the administration has already caused historic harm to the building without those reviews by repainting its “original and character-defining” 200 gold exterior columns white and affixing Trump’s name to its facade.

The government countered that the Kennedy Center’s board is not a federal agency subject to those review requirements and that Congress effectively authorized the renovation when it appropriated $257 million for the center’s “capital repair, restoration, maintenance backlog, and security structures” in last year’s One Big Beautiful Bill. Justice Department lawyers also argued that no demolition is planned and that the lawsuit is animated by fears rooted in Trump’s social media posts rather than the actual construction plans.

The preservationists pushed back, noting that the center’s own 2022 building plan had contemplated making repairs while remaining open, and that Floca himself had been developing just such a plan until Trump announced the closure on social media in February. Floca testified that he could not speak to the president’s intentions for the building — only his own.

Earlier this week, Floca said in a court filing that Trump has raised “tens of millions of dollars” for the Kennedy Center and has committed to raise $150 million more from private donors over the next two years.

He argued that Trump’s name had become central to the Kennedy Center’s fundraising. Removing it would cause “irreparable harm,” he wrote, and could make much of the center’s operations “financially nonviable.”

The legal fight is unfolding against a backdrop of broader tumult at the center. Since Trump installed himself as board chair in February 2025, several productions have canceled or withdrawn from the calendar, among them the tour of “Hamilton” and shows of the Washington National Opera, which ended its 55-year residence. Ticket sales and subscriptions have plummeted. Dozens of staff members have been laid off in waves, and a group of remaining employees filed last year to form a union, citing a culture of fear and a lack of transparency from the center’s new leadership.

Rep. Chellie Pingree (Maine), the ranking Democrat on the House Appropriations subcommittee that oversees the Kennedy Center, criticized Trump for “using a national memorial as a vehicle for his own ego” and hurting it in the process. Closing was never about renovation but covering up the “catastrophic damage Trump has already inflicted,” she said Friday.

About 200 protesters rallied at the center’s northern steps Friday evening while patrons arrived for a performance by the National Symphony Orchestra. The gathering was planned as a vigil marking what would have been Kennedy’s 109th birthday, but the somber affair turned partly celebratory after news of the rulings spread.

“The name coming off of the building will allow the community to start to rebuild trust for what has been destroyed over the last 18 months,” she added.

Journalist Maria Shriver, John F. Kennedy’s niece, praised the ruling, noting that it came on her uncle’s birthday.

“I know they’ll probably appeal and the story isn’t over,” she wrote on social media, “but for today let’s celebrate a great birthday gift.”