Congresswoman Beatty Fights Back Against ‘Delusional’ Threats to Demolish Kennedy Center
August 26, 2026
In her response, Rep. Beatty calls Trump administration’s threat a “breathtaking assault on the rule of law”
WASHINGTON, D.C.—Today, Congresswoman Joyce Beatty (D-OH-03) replied to Monday’s filing by Donald Trump’s Department of Justice, urging the Court to immediately enter an order granting a temporary stay until September 8, 2026, and then permanently enjoin the Kennedy Center Board’s latest attempt to deface the building with Trump’s name. The filing includes the following response to Trump’s latest threat to demolish the Kennedy Center: “Defendants have not-so-subtly said: ‘This is a nice Kennedy Center you have here, and what a shame should something happen to it.’ This is a breathtaking assault on the rule of law. It is delusional. And it must stop.”
Last week, Rep. Beatty filed an emergency motion asking the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to block the Kennedy Center Board of Trustees from once again attempting to deface the Kennedy Center by adding President Donald Trump’s name through a hastily adopted resolution. Responding to that filing, the Justice Department threatened to demolish the Kennedy Center, stating that the building could be “required to be taken down.”
“Donald Trump’s handpicked Board is playing a dangerous game with the law,” said Rep. Beatty. “The Defendants have repeatedly ignored the law, flouted the Court’s rulings, and threatened the destruction of the Kennedy Center in the name of one man’s vanity. I’ll always stand up for the law and against the Trump administration’s unlawfulness and corruption.”
“The Trump administration has offered the Court nothing but a cocktail of outrageous pronouncements and stunning inaccuracies untethered by law and reality,” said Beatty’s counsel, Amb. Norm Eisen (ret.) of Democracy Defenders Action and Nathaniel Zelinsky of the Washington Litigation Group. “This breathtaking assault on the rule of law must stop.”
Rep. Joyce Beatty is represented by Nathaniel Zelinsky, Kyle Freeny, and Alex Kristofcak of Washington Litigation Group, and Norm Eisen, Steve Jonas, and David W. Ogden of Democracy Defenders Action.
Read the response here.
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Democracy Defenders Action brings together a nonpartisan team to work with national, state and local allies across the country to defend in real-time the foundations of our democracy.
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