Trump says ‘I have no interest in’ Kennedy Center after judge orders his name removed from memorial
Six and a half hours after Donald Trump put the world on notice that he was entering the White House Situation room to make his “final determination” on whether or not there is peace in Iran, the president finally returned to social media to post a 578-word statement on an entirely different matter: his rage at the federal judge who ruled that his name has to be removed from the Kennedy Center.
The president first attacked the judge for having been nominated to the federal bench by Barack Obama, and largely focused on the part of the ruling that also instructed the Trump administration to halt the closure of the performing arts center for a two-year renovation.
Trump then turned to his anger over the part of the ruling that gave him 14 days to have his name removed from the Kennedy Center’s facade and website.
US district judge Christopher Cooper, Trump noted, had ruled that his handpicked board members, who “unanimously voted to add the name ‘TRUMP’ onto the former Kennedy Center, making it The Trump Kennedy Center, did not have the right to do such an addition, and the name, ‘TRUMP,’ must be removed.”
Many, many more words followed before the screed ended with the entirely unclear fix Trump said that he was ordering: “we are going to be working with Congress to transfer this failing Institution back to them”.
“I have instructed the Department of Commerce to make all necessary arrangements with Congress to allow a full and complete transfer of this Institution, giving them the responsibility for its Operation, Maintenance, and Management,” Trump wrote.
Key events
Kennedy family welcomes judge’s order to remove Trump’s name from Kennedy Center
Members of John F Kennedy’s family celebrated the court order on Friday, the late president’s birthday, that Donald Trump’s name was illegally added to the Kennedy Center memorial in Washington DC and must be removed within two weeks.
“An appropriate birthday present on my uncle’s birthday today. A federal judge ruled that President Trump and the Kennedy Center Board acted unlawfully in renaming the Kennedy Center,” JFK’s niece Maria Shriver wrote. “The judge held that only Congress can change the Center’s name and blocked the planned two-year closure. I know they’ll probably appeal and the story isn’t over, but for today let’s celebrate a great birthday gift.”
Perhaps I won’t need that pickaxe after all,” Robert F Kennedy’s daughter Kerry Kennedy wrote. “What a great way to celebrate you on your birthday, Uncle Jack!”
Her brother, Robert F Kennedy Jr, Trump’s health secretary, made no immediate comment.
Joe Kennedy III, a grandson of RFK and a former congressman, shared the news without comment on social media. When the name change was presented as a fait accomplis in December, he called it illegal. “The Kennedy Center is a living memorial to a fallen president and named for President Kennedy by federal law,” he wrote. “It can no sooner be renamed than can someone rename the Lincoln Memorial, no matter what anyone says.”
Trump says ‘I have no interest in’ Kennedy Center after judge orders his name removed from memorial
Six and a half hours after Donald Trump put the world on notice that he was entering the White House Situation room to make his “final determination” on whether or not there is peace in Iran, the president finally returned to social media to post a 578-word statement on an entirely different matter: his rage at the federal judge who ruled that his name has to be removed from the Kennedy Center.
The president first attacked the judge for having been nominated to the federal bench by Barack Obama, and largely focused on the part of the ruling that also instructed the Trump administration to halt the closure of the performing arts center for a two-year renovation.
Trump then turned to his anger over the part of the ruling that gave him 14 days to have his name removed from the Kennedy Center’s facade and website.
US district judge Christopher Cooper, Trump noted, had ruled that his handpicked board members, who “unanimously voted to add the name ‘TRUMP’ onto the former Kennedy Center, making it The Trump Kennedy Center, did not have the right to do such an addition, and the name, ‘TRUMP,’ must be removed.”
Many, many more words followed before the screed ended with the entirely unclear fix Trump said that he was ordering: “we are going to be working with Congress to transfer this failing Institution back to them”.
“I have instructed the Department of Commerce to make all necessary arrangements with Congress to allow a full and complete transfer of this Institution, giving them the responsibility for its Operation, Maintenance, and Management,” Trump wrote.
US travel industry group says plan to stop international flights to Newark airport could cost $8bn and 50,000 jobs
The United States Travel Association, an industry group, sounded the alarm on Friday over comments by Markwayne Mullin, the homeland security secretary, that DHS is “drawing up plans” to withdraw immigration processing services at airports in Democratic-run cities and states that restrict local police from cooperating with federal immigration enforcement.
As our colleague José Olivares reported this week, Mullin floated the idea in a Fox News interview as a possible way to punish Democratic officials who support protests against an immigration detention center in Newark, New Jersey, which is also home to one of the busiest US airports for international visitors.
Customs and Border Protection officers, who screen international visitors, and returning American citizens, are, like immigration enforcement officers, part of the Department of Homeland Security Mullin runs.
Removing those officers from from Newark Liberty international airport or other international airports the USTA warned in a news release, “would cause immediate and lasting harm”.
“CBP officers at Newark Liberty International Airport alone process 5 million Americans returning home each year, and many of them are from states other than New Jersey,” the group noted.
Such a move would also create chaos for millions of international travelers, just weeks ahead of the World Cup.
The USTA estimated that the “overall economic impact to the travel industry would be devastating—an estimated $8 billion in annual international visitor spending would be lost due to CBP officers being removed from Newark Airport, risking nearly 50,000 American jobs”.
A shutdown at Newark, or at any of the nation’s other main airports serving international travelers and imported goods, most of which are in states run by Democrats, would also “imperil cargo operations that bring in over $30 billion in imported goods each year”, the USTA added, increasings costs for US businesses “and raising prices for American consumers”.
Sam Levine
Louisiana Republicans approved a new congressional map on Friday which would eliminate a majority-Black congressional district that was at the center of a landmark supreme court ruling gutting section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.
The new map reconfigures the state’s sixth congressional district, now represented by Cleo Fields, a Black Democrat. Lawmakers drew the district in 2024 after a court found the map lawmakers enacted after the 2020 census diluted the influence of Black voters and violated section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. The new map will probably give Republicans control of five of Louisiana’s six congressional seats (the previous map had a 4-2 Republican-Democrat split). The bill now goes to Louisiana’s Republican governor, Jeff Landry, who is expected to sign it.
Federal judge gives Trump two weeks to take his name off the Kennedy Center
A US district judge in Washington DC, Christopher Cooper, ruled on Friday that the Trump administration “violated the Kennedy Center’s organic statute in purporting to rename the Center for President Trump, and in taking steps to effectuate that official renaming, such as installing signage with Donald J. Trump’s name on the front portico of the Center, altering the Center’s website to name the Center for President Trump, and in issuing official materials naming the Center for President Trump”.
In his order, the federal judge, who was responding to a complaint filed by Democratic congresswoman Joyce Beatty, gave the administration two weeks to pull Trump’s name from the center, which was created by Congress as a memorial to John F Kennedy after his assassination.
Cooper’s ruling instructed the administration to:
within 14 days of the date of this order, (a) remove all physical signage on the Kennedy Center building and grounds, including the front portico, that purports to rename the Kennedy Center after President Trump or any other individual besides President Kennedy; (b) update the Kennedy Center’s official website to remove all references to the institution as the “Trump Kennedy Center,” the “Donald J. Trump and John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts,” or any similar formulation; Case 1:25-cv-04480-CRC Document 49 Filed 05/29/26 Page 2 of 4 3 (c) withdraw any trademark application officially referring to the Kennedy Center as the “Trump Kennedy Center,” the “Donald J. Trump and John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts,” or any similar formulation; and (d) file with the Court a sworn declaration from a responsible official of the Kennedy Center certifying compliance with this order.
Should the administration comply, that would mean that the center would not bear the president’s name on 14 June, when he is staging a UFC fight on the White House lawn on his 80th birthday.
After White House Situation Room meeting ends, still no word on whether Trump has approved deal with Iran
It has now been five hours since Donald Trump announced on his social media platform that he was entering a meeting in the White House Situation Room “to make a final determination” on whether or not to an interim deal with Iran to extend a ceasefire and reopen the strait of Hormuz.
That two-hour meeting apparently ended some time ago, a senior administration official told the Associated Press, and there is still no word from Trump nor any of his aides as to whether he approved the memorandum of understanding that would pause the conflict and open talks on Iran’s nuclear program.
Here’s a recap of the news today:
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Trump says he’s meeting in the Situation Room to ‘make a final determination’ on potential Iran deal. President Trump gave hints about the terms of the proposed US peace deal with Iran, in a post on Truth Social on Friday morning, before saying that he was heading into a meeting with White House staff to decide how to move forward.
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Louisiana lawmakers pass new map eliminating majority-Black district. The Louisiana senate voted 28-10 to approve a new congressional map ahead of the midterms that has dismantled a majority-Black district.
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US judge temporarily halts Trump’s $1.8bn ‘anti-weaponization fund’. US district judge Leonie Brinkema of the eastern district of Virginia put a halt on the fund, preventing the administration from “taking any further action” to organize the fund while Brinkema hears legal arguments.
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Former attorney-general Pam Bondi faces closed-door questioning from House committee over Epstein files. Bondi’s appearance came as the justice department has faced criticism in recent months over its compliance with the Epstein Files Transparency Act.
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Musical acts back out of performing at Trump-affiliated concert series. At least seven of the nine featured musical acts set to play in a concert series organized by the Trump administration to mark the United States’ 250th anniversary have dropped out, within 48 hours of the lineup being announced.
As construction crews continue to build the structure that will house the UFC cage fight on White House grounds on 14 June, the Pentagon is making efforts to recruit hundreds of troops to make up the audience for the fight, the Washington Post reported on Friday.
Those who attend will have to fund their own travel to Washington DC, meet the Pentagon’s height and weight requirements and attend in uniform, according to the Post’s sources and internal memos they reviewed.
The Pentagon is specifically seeking junior enlisted personnel and junior officers – those who receive the military’s lowest pay grades – and it’s required that the attenders be “genuine UFC fans”.
“This will be one of the greatest and most historic sports events in history, and President Trump hosting it at the White House is a testament to his vision to celebrate America’s monumental 250th anniversary,” Davis Ingle, a White House spokesman told the Post.
Utah releases state voter roll audit amid Trump administration lawsuit
Lok Darjee
Utah released the results of a year-long audit of the state’s voter rolls, finding that the vast majority of its voters are verifiably US citizens, amid an escalating legal battle with the Trump administration over access to voter registration data.
The audit, launched in April 2025, found that 99.72% of Utah’s registered voters are confirmed US citizens. Of the more than 2 million voter records reviewed, 27 individuals were identified as non-citizens and removed from the rolls. Only 13 of those individuals had ever cast a ballot. The review, released on Wednesday by Lieutenant Governor Deidre Henderson’s office, also flagged 25 probable non-citizens, who have been given 30 days to provide proof of citizenship or face removal from the voter rolls.
The Trump administration has made supposed election integrity a central priority, following Trump’s long-running false claims that the 2020 election was rigged against him. The administration has pursued voter registration information from a wide raft of states, even at times resorting to lawsuits. But states already regularly monitor and maintain their own voter rolls. In Utah, Henderson’s office noted in a letter to the justice department that county clerks removed more than 109,000 registrations from the rolls between 2022 and 2024 alone, including voters who had died, moved out of state, registered elsewhere, or failed to vote in two consecutive general elections.
While Trump announced he is heading to the Situation Room to make the final determination on the peace deal with Iran, Iranian officials signaled defiance.
Those close to the government denied that a deal had been reached. The semi-official Tasnim news agency reported on Friday that no final understanding had been reached between Iran and the US and that Trump’s post was “in line with his usual pattern of making unilateral and egotistical statements”.
The foreign ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baqaei told state media: “Regarding the understanding, as I said while speaking to you, exchanges of messages are continuing, but no final agreement has been reached yet.”
Tasnim reported that there had been no discussion about the nuclear issue, and that Trump’s reports of lifting the US’s own blockade in the strait of Hormuz should be met with “scepticism”.
Iran’s Fars news agency said Trump had published a “mixture of truth and lies” about the terms of an agreement, which did not include provisions for the opening of the strait of Hormuz without fees, or the destruction of Iran’s nuclear material.
You can read more about it here:
Louisiana lawmakers pass new map eliminating majority-Black district
The Louisiana senate voted 28-10 to approve a new congressional map ahead of the midterms that has dismantled a majority-Black district in the state.
The approval of the map makes Louisiana the second southern state to carve out a district that Republicans have a higher chance of winning, since the supreme court weakened the Voting Rights Act in April.
Louisiana’s senate voted almost entirely along party lines and Republican Governor Jeff Landry is expected to sign the map into law. Earlier, Landry pushed to delay the House primary elections, scheduled for 16 May, so that the legislature could draw the new map.
Rescheduled primaries will now be held on 3 November.
Cecilia Nowell
Construction is under way on the White House lawn for an Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) arena that will host a cage match next month to mark the US’s 250th anniversary and Donald Trump’s 80th birthday.
The mixed martial arts fight is planned for 14 June.
Hillary Clinton, the former first lady, US senator and secretary of state, shared a photo of the construction as well as of the demolished East Wing on X Friday and said:
“This is what Trump’s done to the people’s house: A third of it is rubble. Another third is a cage match. What a metaphor.”
Photos of cranes and other construction equipment on the White House lawn on Tuesday showed the beginnings of the temporary construction. Trump has said that the finished project will feature “a 5,000-seat arena right outside the front door of the White House”.
Online renderings depict what the completed, wire-mesh-fence-ringed fight space is expected to look like. The octagon-shaped cage will be ringed by a red, white and blue stage under a towering arch featuring stars and stripes patterns and two large screens carrying the action live.
Pakistan’s foreign minister Ishaq Dar met with his US counterpart Marco Rubio in Washington today, as Trump signaled he was making a “final determination” on a potential agreement with Iran.
“The secretary thanked the minister for the constructive role Pakistan continues to play in realizing President Trump’s vision for peace in the Middle East and its mediation efforts with Iran,” the US state department spokesman, Tommy Pigott, said in a statement.
Meanwhile, sources have told the Iranian state news agency Fars that Trump’s latest comments are a “mixture of truth and lies” and an attempt to portray a “fake victory”.
The sources added that it has “become clear to almost everyone” that his claims are invalid.
“Trump claimed that Iran was obligated to open the strait of Hormuz without tolls, even though no such clause appears in the text of the agreement,” the agency reported.
And on Trump’s assertion that Washington and Tehran would coordinate on destroying Iran’s enriched uranium, it added: “Well-informed sources emphasised that not only does this not appear in the memorandum of understanding, but this claim is fundamentally baseless.”
According to the Fars report, Trump also didn’t mention key clauses relating to the release of frozen Iranian assets and the inclusion of Lebanon – where Israel continues to intensify its attacks and expand its partial occupation – in any deal to end fighting.
Pam Bondi testifies before House panel over Epstein files release
Anna Betts
The former attorney general Pam Bondi is testifying before the US House oversight and reform committee this morning to answer questions about the Department of Justice’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein investigation and its release of the Epstein files under her leadership.
In Bondi’s prepared opening statement, obtained by the Guardian, she defended the department’s record under her leadership, saying: “We demonstrated an unprecedented commitment to transparency in the department’s search for, collection and review of the Epstein files.
“This was an enormously complicated and labor-intensive process,” Bondi said in her remarks. “To the best of my knowledge, the department produced everything required under the Epstein Files Transparency Act.
“As the head of a large department with broad responsibilities, I did not lead every aspect of this effort or conduct that document review myself,” she added, saying that she “delegated oversight over this process to Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche”.
“The team of professionals who reviewed all of the materials that we collected assured me the only materials that were withheld were either nonresponsive, privileged or duplicative,” she said.
During her opening statement, Bondi admitted that “there were redaction errors” but said that “since day one of this process, this department has been committed to accountability and transparency”.
You can read more about her opening statement here:
Trump says he’s meeting in the Situation Room to ‘make a final determination’ on potential Iran deal
President Trump gave hints about the terms of the proposed US peace deal with Iran, in a post on Truth Social on Friday morning, before saying that he was heading into a meeting with White House staff to decide how to move forward.
He said that Iran should agree to never having a nuclear weapon or bomb, the strait of Hormuz should be opened immediately without tolls, all remaining water mines should be detonated by Iran, the US should take over the “nuclear dust” or the enriched uranium buried under Iran’s collapsed nuclear complexes and no money will be exchanged until further notice, outlined Trump.
He went on:
Other items, of far less importance, have been agreed to. I will be meeting now, in the Situation Room, to make a final determination.
Hannah Harris Green
Growing Republican mistrust in the healthcare system has widened health disparities between liberals and conservatives, who are more likely to avoid vaccines and the medical system in general, according to a new study.
Neil O’Brian, a political science professor at the University of Carolina, Chapel Hill and one of the authors of the study published in Nature Human Behaviour, said that his team saw two phases to the phenomenon.
Rory Doyle for The Guardian Photograph: Rory Doyle/The Guardian
“Part one is this gap starts to emerge in the 2010s, and it seems like it’s a byproduct of education polarization,” O’Brian explained, “Folks without a college degree move to the right. Folks with a college degree move to the left. That happens for a variety of reasons. Education is a pretty strong predictor of health.”
The second phase began during the Covid-19 pandemic, when social determinants of health, including education, could no longer explain the expanding gap in health outcomes.
