The administration of Republican Donald Trump has announced that the board for the John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts has moved to rename the structure after the sitting president.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt revealed the change on social media on Thursday, saying the Trump-appointed board had made the decision earlier in the day.

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“I have just been informed that the highly respected Board of the Kennedy Center, some of the most successful people from all parts of the world, have just voted unanimously to rename the Kennedy Center to the Trump-Kennedy Center,” Leavitt wrote.

She said the change would recognise “the unbelievable work President Trump has done over the last year in saving the building”. Leavitt credited the sitting president with overseeing the facility’s “reconstruction” and bolstering its finances and “reputation”.

It is unclear, however, whether the name change would move forward without congressional approval.

Opened in 1971 in Washington, DC, the arts centre is home to the Washington National Opera and the National Symphony Orchestra. It includes seven stages and hosts touring shows as well as local performances.

Ground was broken on the structure in 1964, a year after Kennedy, the 35th president of the US, was assassinated during a public appearance in Dallas, Texas.

While the idea for a national arts centre predated Kennedy, the Democratic leader was credited with supporting the fundraising efforts that helped transform the project into a reality.

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On January 23, 1964, Kennedy’s successor Lyndon B Johnson signed into law an act of Congress naming the arts centre after the slain leader. Previously, the arts complex was slated to be called the “National Cultural Center”.

The Kennedy Center, the congressional act proclaimed, would serve as a “living memorial” to the late president. The act noted that Kennedy had been “particularly devoted to the advancement of the performing arts”.

“It is only fitting and proper that a suitable monument be dedicated to the memory of this great leader,” the act read, adding that no other memorial would be erected in Kennedy’s honour in Washington, DC.

Reimagining the capital

But Trump, a reality TV star and real estate entrepreneur before his rise to the presidency, has sought to leave his mark on the nation’s capital, including by renaming structures and undertaking large-scale construction projects.

In October, for instance, Trump demolished the White House’s East Wing to make way for a ballroom. Since taking office in January, he has also teased plans to raise a triumphal arch in the capital, similar in style to Paris’s Arc de Triomphe.

Just this month, the US Department of State announced that a congressionally established think tank, the US Institute for Peace, had been renamed after Trump to honour “the greatest dealmaker in our nation’s history”.

The Trump administration had forcibly taken control of the institute in March, and leadership over the think tank remains the subject of an ongoing lawsuit. A federal judge in May, however, called the nonprofit’s seizure “unlawful”.

Trump has long had his eye on the Kennedy Center in particular, and changes to the art centre arrived quickly after the Republican president took office in January.

Just a week into Trump’s second term, the president of the Kennedy Center, Deborah Rutter, stepped down amid rumours of a pressure campaign.

By early February, Trump had announced a purge of the Kennedy Center’s board members, claiming on social media that they stood against his “Vision for a Golden Age in Arts and Culture”.

“At my direction, we are going to make the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., GREAT AGAIN,” he said, offering a twist on his “Make America Great Again” campaign slogan.

He added that he would take the helm as the centre’s chairman, overseeing programming.

“Just last year, the Kennedy Center featured Drag Shows specifically targeting our youth — THIS WILL STOP,” Trump wrote. “The Kennedy Center is an American Jewel, and must reflect the brightest STARS on its stage from all across our Nation. For the Kennedy Center, THE BEST IS YET TO COME!”

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The leadership shakeup was greeted by protests and cancellations, with touring productions of hit shows like the musical Hamilton and Fellow Travelers dropping out of the Kennedy Center’s lineup.

Renaming the Kennedy Center

Still, in the months since, Trump has repeatedly referred to the arts institution as the “Trump-Kennedy Center”, signalling his desire to have his name etched on its marble facade.

He also selected the recipients of the Kennedy Center Honors, an annual award given for lifetime achievement in US arts and culture.

While announcing the honorees in August, Trump gave a winking allusion to his petition to change the Kennedy Center’s name.

“GREAT Nominees for the TRUMP/KENNEDY CENTER, whoops, I mean, KENNEDY CENTER, AWARDS,” Trump wrote on his platform, Truth Social.

He also played up the changes he had made to the art centre’s structure, including by painting its formerly gold columns white.

“Tremendous work is being done, and money being spent, on bringing it back to the absolute TOP LEVEL of luxury, glamour, and entertainment,” Trump wrote. “It had fallen on hard times, physically, BUT WILL SOON BE MAKING A MAJOR COMEBACK!!!”

Certain Republicans took up Trump’s call to rebaptise the art centre. Representative Mike Simpson of Idaho, for instance, introduced a bill that would name the complex’s opera house after First Lady Melania Trump.

Congressman Bob Onder of Missouri, meanwhile, put forward another piece of legislation to wipe Kennedy’s name away entirely, calling the art complex instead the “Donald J Trump Center for Performing Arts”.

But those kinds of proposals have met significant pushback, including from the surviving Kennedy family.

On Thursday, in the wake of Leavitt’s announcement, President Kennedy’s niece Maria Shriver expressed shock that the art centre might be renamed.

“Some things leave you speechless, and enraged, and in a state of disbelief. At times such as that, it’s better to be quiet. For how long, I can’t say,” she wrote on social media.

When similar proposals had been floated in the past, Shriver called the idea “insane” and said, “It makes my blood boil.”

Jack Schlossberg, Kennedy’s grandson and a Democratic candidate for Congress in the 2026 midterms, appeared to question whether the White House’s announcement was even legitimate.

“Microphones were muted and the board meeting and vote NOT unanimous,” he wrote on social media.

Democrats likewise voiced outrage at the proposed name change, with some questioning if it was even legal, given the congressional act that gives the structure its name.

Representative Steve Cohen of Tennessee, for instance, called the initiative “deeply troubling”.

“Renaming the Kennedy Center to include a sitting or former president’s name, particularly one who is still a partisan political figure, undermines the purpose of the institution,” Cohen said in a statement.

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“The Kennedy Center should remain what it was always meant to be: a living memorial to President Kennedy and a cultural home for all Americans, not a vehicle for personal or political branding.”