Kerry Kennedy, daughter of former senator and attorney general Robert F. Kennedy, vowed Friday she will “grab a pickax” and remove President Donald Trump’s name from the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts the day he leaves office.
“Three years and one month from today, I’m going to grab a pickax and pull those letters of that building,” she posted on X and on her Instagram account.”
She added, “But I’m going to need help holding the ladder. Are you in? Apply for my carpenter’s card today, so it’ll be a union job!!!.”
Trump’s name was added to the historic entertainment venue after its board of trustees, reportedly hand-picked by Trump, unanimously voted to make the change. Kennedy Center officials said the vote recognized Trump’s work to revitalize the institution.
The Associated Press reported:
Congress named the performing arts center as a living memorial to Kennedy in 1964, the year after he was assassinated. The law explicitly prohibits the board of trustees from making the center into a memorial to anyone else, and from putting another person’s name on the building’s exterior.
On Thursday, Kerry Kennedy also tore into Trump, writing on her X account:
President Trump and his administration have spent the past year repressing free expression, targeting artists, journalists, and comedians, and erasing the history of Americans whose contributions made our nation better and more just.
President Kennedy proudly stood for justice, peace, equality, dignity, diversity, and compassion for those who suffer. President Trump stands in opposition to these values, and his name should not be placed alongside President Kennedy’s.
Others besides Kerry Kennedy, including some Democratic lawmakers and JFK niece Maria Shriver, were critical of the new name for the building, also saying it was an illegal modification.
“The Kennedy Center was named by law. To change the name would require a revision of that 1964 law,” Ray Smock, a former House historian, told AP. “The Kennedy Center board is not a lawmaking entity. Congress makes laws.”
Kerry Kennedy’s brother Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is the Trump administration’s Secretary of Health and Human Services. He has not commented on the name change.
Contributor Lowell Cauffiel is the best-selling author of Below the Line and nine other crime novels and nonfiction titles. See lowellcauffiel.com for more.