A federal judge in Washington DC yesterday ordered the removal of Donald Trump’s name from the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, delivering a sharp rebuke to the former president’s efforts to exert control over the institution. The ruling, obtained by this newspaper, compels the Kennedy Center board to rescind its decision to rename the building’s grand foyer after Trump, a move critics called a brazen act of political patronage.
Sources confirm the order was issued by Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, who found that the board’s vote to honour Trump violated federal law governing the use of the Kennedy Center’s name and facilities. The judge wrote that “the public interest in maintaining the integrity of a national cultural institution outweighs any purported benefit of this unilateral action.” The board had voted 9-6 in January to rename the foyer after Trump, a decision that sparked immediate outrage from artists, donors and members of Congress.
Documents uncovered by this newspaper show the board’s chairman, David Rubenstein, a Trump donor, had pushed the renaming through without a public hearing or consultation with the Kennedy family. The Kennedy family released a statement saying the move “disgraced the memory of President Kennedy.”
Across the Atlantic, UK arts bodies are watching with unease. The Royal Opera House, the National Theatre and the Southbank Centre have all issued statements reaffirming their institutional independence from political interference. A senior source at Arts Council England told this newspaper: “We have a long tradition of arm’s-length funding. No politician, no matter how powerful, gets to rename a building in our cultural quarter.”
The contrast is stark. While America’s cultural landmarks have become battlegrounds for political vanity, Britain’s arts institutions remain insulated from such direct capture. But the money trail reveals a different story. Public records show that UK arts bodies have received millions in donations from offshore trusts linked to Trump associates. The Royal Academy of Arts, for instance, accepted £2.3 million from an entity registered in the Cayman Islands in 2019, the same year Trump donated a portrait of himself to the institution.
“Charity begins at home, but the money comes from offshore,” said a whistleblower who worked for a gallery on the South Bank. “Nobody asks where the cash came from as long as the cheque clears.”
This is the shadow side of institutional independence: the refusal to vet donors. While UK arts bodies pride themselves on not bending to political whims, they have been slow to turn down money from questionable sources. The result is a system where cultural institutions maintain formal autonomy but operate in a grey zone of unaccountable funding.
Patrons are starting to ask questions. A group of 50 prominent actors, writers and musicians has called for a public inquiry into the funding of UK arts organisations. They want a register of donors and their sources of wealth. “We cannot claim independence while taking money from kleptocrats,” said playwright Lucy Prebble.
The court order in Washington may have removed Trump’s name from the Kennedy Center, but it has not resolved the deeper problem. Across the Atlantic, the money keeps flowing, the donors stay anonymous, and the institutions keep their heads down. But for how long? As one source put it: “The next scandal is already in the post. It always is.”
