The Kennedy Center has fully removed President Donald Trump’s name from its building, following a court’s orders to reverse the center’s name change before an extended deadline, Executive Director Matt Floca told a judge in court documents Saturday.

Crews placed a tarp over the signage on Friday, blocking any view of the progress made on the removal of Trump’s name. The tarp was still on the building’s facade on Saturday after Trump’s name was said to have been taken off.

A judge had granted the Kennedy Center’s request for additional time to fully remove Trump’s name from the building, giving the arts center until noon ET Saturday after the organization missed an 11:59 p.m. Friday deadline.

The 12-hour extension came after Justice Department attorneys representing the center said late Friday that while work was ongoing, thunderstorms in the Washington area caused delays.

Workers began removing Trump’s name from an exterior wall of the Kennedy Center early Saturday morning, video from a CNN crew showed.

On Saturday morning, a small crowd had gathered to watch the president’s name come down, some of them stopping to take a photo. One man took a selfie with the tarp-covered building behind him, crossing his fingers.

“I just wanted to see (Trump’s) name gone,” JoAnn Jones told CNN. “When a person wants to put their name on a building that you had nothing to do with, you did no work, you just, you don’t deserve it.”

Crews began assembling scaffolding underneath the exterior signage of the building Friday. Shortly before 2 a.m. Saturday, workers started to drape a covering around the scaffolding, essentially blocking the view of their progress, as people in a crowd that had gathered to witness the removal chanted, “Shame!”

A little after 3 a.m., crews appeared to be removing the letters, video shot through a small opening in the scaffolding covering showed.

On Friday, an appeals court rejected a last-minute effort by the center to freeze the ruling by US District Judge Christopher Cooper that imposed the 11:59 p.m. deadline, arguing more time was needed for court proceedings play out.

The appeals court did not explain its reasoning for its decision in a brief, unsigned ruling. The panel included Judge Gregory Katsas, a Trump appointee; Patricia Millett, an appointee of former President Barack Obama; and Robert Wilkins, also an Obama appointee.

The judges asked for more written legal arguments to be submitted later this month over the center’s bid to pause the lower-court’s ruling that said it must remove Trump’s name from its building, website, promotional materials and other areas. But even as the legal wrangling plays out in coming weeks, the center must take steps to comply with the judge’s directive.
https://edition.cnn.com/2026/06/12/politics/trump-kennedy-center-name-change-deadline