Appeals court denies Trumps’ application for an emergency stay of order requiring his name be removed from Kennedy Center
Donald Trump’s bid to keep his name on the facade of the Kennedy Center failed on Friday when an appeals court in the District of Columbia denied his request to stay an order that requires the deletion of his name by the end of the day.
A three-judge panel denied the emergency motion for a stay filed on Friday by justice department lawyers for Trump and the members of his hand-picked Kennedy Center board.
Shortly after the court’s ruling, a livestream showed workers appear outside the Kennedy Center, where they had erected scaffolding earlier in the day around Trump’s name on the facade. Protesters cheered “take it down”!”
One of the three judges who denied the stay, Gregory Katsas, is a former clerk to supreme court justice Clarence Thomas who worked in the Trump White House in 2017 before being nominated to the bench that year by Trump. The other two judges, Robert Wilkins and Patricia Millett, were nominated by Barack Obama.
Key events
Closing summary
This concludes our live coverage of the day in US politics, but our colleagues are still providing updates on the Iran war and the World Cup, both presided over, in a sense, by the 2025 Fifa peace prize winner. Here are the latest developments:
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Donald Trump’s bid to keep his name on the facade of the Kennedy Center failed on Friday when an appeals court in the District of Columbia denied his request to stay an order that requires the deletion of his name by the end of the day.
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The tiny crew of about a dozen workers dispatched to remove Trump’s name, vastly outnumbered by spectators waiting to witness the detrumpification, made slow work of the job, erecting scaffolding at a snail’s pace hours after a court-ordered deadline passed.
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Trump’s Department of Justice decided to approve the $111bn merger of Paramount Skydance, controlled by his political allies the Ellison family, and Warner Bros Discovery, the parent company of networks like CNN and HBO.
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A federal judge extended a court-ordered block on the creation and operation of the Trump administration’s $1.8bn “anti-weaponization fund”.
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Another federal judge declined to block Trump from staging a UFC event on the White House South Lawn on Sunday, his 80th birthday.
Uwa Ede-Osifo
A US district court judge has ordered the Trump administration to reinstate any history or science materials it removed from the nation’s public monuments, finding that the White House’s actions “set a dangerous precedent of censorship and sanitization”.
In March 2025, Donald Trump signed an executive order titled “restoring truth and sanity to American history”, calling upon the secretary of interior to examine monuments, memorials and statues to see if they had been altered after January 2020 to represent a “false construction of American history”.
2020 was a year marked by national protests for racial justice. The ensuing public reckoning about race and equity spurred the removal of statues commemorating Confederate leaders.
The Trump directive came as the White House waged war on so-called liberal “wokeism,” rolling back Biden-era diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) practices and policies (in the past, the president has described DEI as divisive and particularly discriminatory against white people).
The Trump administration also sought to purge “corrosive” or “ideological indoctrination” from exhibitions at the nation’s historical and cultural institutions.
As work appears to have paused at the Kennedy Center, where scaffolding has been erected but Donald Trump’s name remains on the facade, hours after a court-ordered deadline for it to be removed, another memorial to an assassinated president nearby, the Lincoln Memorial, is being used to promote the UFC fight the president is holding at the White House for his 80th birthday on Sunday.
After UFC fighters were escorted down the steps of the memorial to the president whose most famous speech, the Gettysburg Address, is shorter than many of Trump’s social media posts, the UFC president, Dana White, announced that “World Liberty Financial will serve as a presenting partner and are adding another $250,000” to the prizes for the winners.
World Liberty Financial is a cryptocurrency business partly owned by Trump and Steve Witkoff, his Middle East envoy, with five of their sons. As the New Yorker’s David Kirkpatrick reported in February, “four days before Trump’s second Inauguration, a company controlled by the U.A.E.’s ruling family agreed in secret to pay half a billion dollars for a forty-nine-per-cent stake in” World Liberty Financial.
California attorney general says Paramount takeover of Warner Bros ‘is not a done deal and remains under investigation’
While the federal government appeared to bless the sale of Warner Bros Discovery to Paramount on Friday, the attorney general of California, Rob Bonta, said on social media the merger “ is not a done deal and remains under investigation by my office.”
Work resumes on Kennedy Center scaffolding as crowds await removal of Trump’s name from facade
After a long delay, workers at the Kennedy Center in Washington DC have started erecting more scaffolding around the facade, an MSNOW livestream shows, suggesting that they will be acting on a court order to remove Donald Trump’s name from the memorial to the late John F Kennedy.
The resumption of work, cheered by anti-Trump protesters gathered nearby, could mean that a final appeal to the US supreme court either failed or was not filed by lawyers for Trump and his hand-picked Kennedy Center board members, who tried to change the name without the assent of Congress, which created the performing arts center as a “living memorial” to the late president in an act of Congress passed in 1964, two months after his assassination.
The supreme court justice the Trump administration would have had to convince to intervene is John Roberts, the chief justice, who oversees appeals of rulings issued by federal courts in the District of Columbia.
As darkness falls, workers have still not removed Trump’s name from Kennedy Center
As a livestream from MSNOW shows, workers outside the Kennedy Center are still milling about beneath scaffolding erected earlier in the day around the name Donald Trump on the facade of the building, more than an hour after a court-ordered deadline for the president’s name to be removed from the memorial to the late John F Kennedy.
As darkness descends, the exterior lights on the center came on, to cheers from the crowd assembled to watch Trump’s name come down.
Norm Eisen, the former Obama administration ethics official who filed suit to have the addition of Trump’s name ruled illegal, noted on social media that “Trump’s desperate effort to keep his name on the Kennedy Center” has already “been rejected by the trial court and the DC Circuit” court of appeals on Friday.
“We are standing by for whatever may come next but he’s losing & just making the spectacle worse for him”, Eisen added, perhaps referring to the possibility that Trump could next ask the supreme court to intervene and let his name stay on the center Congress created as a memorial to another president.
Joyce Beatty, Democratic congresswoman who sued over Kennedy Center name change, celebrates with protesters
Joyce Beatty, the Democratic congresswoman from Ohio who filed suit over Donald Trump’s name being added to the Kennedy Center, celebrated with protesters outside the performing arts venue on Friday night, after a court ruled that the president’s name must be removed from the facade by the end of the day.
Beatty, an ex officio member of the Kennedy Center’s board, sued in December after she was not allowed to vote on the name change approved by board members appointed by Trump, including the Fox News hosts Laura Ingraham and Maria Bartiromo; Trump’s former caddy turned social media guru, Dan Scavino, and the former modeling agent Paolo Zampolli, who introduced Trump to his future wife Melania Knauss.
The congresswoman thanked protesters who rallied outside the center to watch for Trump’s name to be removed. The center, Beatty reminded protesters, was created by Congress as a memorial to the late John F Kennedy, and it would take an act of Congress to change its name.
Protesters cheered for Beatty and then celebrate a rainbow that appeared in the sky after a day of thunderstorms.
Appeals court denies Trumps’ application for an emergency stay of order requiring his name be removed from Kennedy Center
Donald Trump’s bid to keep his name on the facade of the Kennedy Center failed on Friday when an appeals court in the District of Columbia denied his request to stay an order that requires the deletion of his name by the end of the day.
A three-judge panel denied the emergency motion for a stay filed on Friday by justice department lawyers for Trump and the members of his hand-picked Kennedy Center board.
Shortly after the court’s ruling, a livestream showed workers appear outside the Kennedy Center, where they had erected scaffolding earlier in the day around Trump’s name on the facade. Protesters cheered “take it down”!”
One of the three judges who denied the stay, Gregory Katsas, is a former clerk to supreme court justice Clarence Thomas who worked in the Trump White House in 2017 before being nominated to the bench that year by Trump. The other two judges, Robert Wilkins and Patricia Millett, were nominated by Barack Obama.
David Smith
Before lawyers for Donald Trump filed an emergency appeal to keep his name on the Kennedy Center, there was a festive atmosphere outside the venue earlier on Friday afternoon as a crowd gathered to cheer about 15 workers, wearing white hard hats and yellow vests, as they built scaffolding around a section of the wall that includes the president’s name.
A Washington bus arrived at the campus and tooted its horn in apparent solidarity. The crowd roared its approval. But just after 4pm, amid thunder and heavy rain, the workers paused their efforts and many spectators took shelter beside an entrance.
Among those seeking catharsis from watching Trump’s name come off the building was Sharon, 56, a retired preschool teacher who preferred not to give her surname. “I needed to have a little hope that we are gonna get through this craziness,” she said. “I needed to see something where the good guys win.”
Sharon recalled coming to the Kennedy Center as a child and bringing her own children here. “I feel very emotional. I feel like I could cry. I feel like I could shout with joy. I feel a whole lot of different emotions. It was a special place and it makes me very sad to see how much they’ve destroyed it.”
Wearing a T-shirt that said “Libraries = strong communities”, Sharon added that Trump’s effort to shape arts and culture in Washington smacked of authoritarianism. “Walking around the city, his face is on banners, his name’s on everything, he’s changing everything. I mean, you see that in North Korea, not in America.”
The crowd of dozens of people included longtime Kennedy Center patrons who have boycotted its shows since Trump’s takeover and former staff who were ousted by his board of loyalists. Reporters and TV crews also raced to the scene to capture a moment of Washington cultural history.
Katrina Clark, a local performing artist, had brought a sign that quoted William Shakespeare’s Hamlet: “The play’s the thing / Wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the king.” She said: “The last 10 years have been hard in the United States, and in the arts in the United States, and it feels like, after getting beaten down with so much oppression, this is one small step towards something to celebrate. It’s a catharsis.”
Clark lamented the politicisation of the Kennedy Center, an environment she previously considered an artistic home. “It does feel like it’s been desecrated because the institution itself is meant to be apolitical so to see the arts politicised is hard for an artist because it means censorship, it means curation for the oligarchs, not the people.”
Carolina Clarence, a retired public school teacher who lives near the centre, had been waiting and watching outside since 12 noon. “I hate that man,” she explained bluntly. “I want his name gone.” She noted that while the center used to be packed, it is now “maybe half full”.
Many residents of the capital have viewed the rebranding of the Kennedy Center, and Trump’s other architectural ambitions, as narcissistic and anti-democratic. Carolyn, a 50-year-old retired government worker who did not wish to give her surname, said: “Putting his name on everything is right out of the dictator playbook.”
Carolyn said she had been coming to the centre for a long time and noted it was a memorial to former president John F Kennedy, whose birthday she shares. “Of course it’s just a symbol – there’s so many other things that the president does that I disagree with – but I’m happy to be here and have this little splash of hope in the rain.”
For those working in the local special events industry, the takeover was deeply insulting. Bonnie Berry, a 68-year-old retired higher education and events worker, refused to work on the Kennedy Center Honors last year. Asked how she was feeling now, she said: “Oh, lovely, because I can’t say his name. He’s Orange Man 47 to me.”
As the sound of hammering echoed from the scaffold, Berry reflected: “It’s a bittersweet day because I want to make certain it goes down. I haven’t walked on this site for over a year since he put the sign up. I think they should actually auction off T-R-U-M-P and we’ll donate it back to the Kennedy Center to get the opera back and to pay the symphony and the people who got fired. I’d be all in favour of that.”
Lawyers for Trump file emergency appeal to keep his name on the Kennedy Center
Lawyers for Donald Trump, led by an assistant attorney general, filed an emergency application to an appeals court on Friday asking for a last-minute stay of a court order that requires his name to be removed from the facade of the Kennedy Center by 7pm local time in Washington DC.
A video livestream from the center as the deadline loomed showed protesters gathered outside, but no workers visible on the scaffolding they erected earlier in the day around the president’s name.
As Norm Eisen, a former Obama administration ethics official who filed the suit to reverse the name change, noted, much of the text of the emergency motion for a stay reads as if it was written by Trump himself.
“The District Court is not allowing us to close in order to properly fix up and repair the Building, including potentially life threatening structural damage like beams and parking garage ceilings that are rusted, and in serious danger of falling onto people below — Indeed, total collapse!” the introduction to the motion reads, as if ripped from Truth Social.
The president’s distinctive style of argumentation and language also infuses the stay’s claim that money raised for the center since the name was changed last year will not have to be returned, since Trump-appointed board members created a bylaw making his name essential.
Without the name, “Trump” on the Building, our fundraising will not only come to a halt, but any and all monies raised or committed would be obligated to be returned, refunded, or terminated. The Bylaws of The Trump Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts Foundation state, unequivocally: “The Corporation may make donations to the Center in support of its educational, artistic, cultural, and performing arts functions; provided, however, that in so doing, the Board of Directors shall condition such donations to the Center upon the name of the Center remaining unchanged as the ‘Donald J. Trump and John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts.’ In the event the Center should at any time remove the name of President Donald J. Trump from its filings, marketing, branding, façade, or any other affiliated location, the Corporation shall recover from the Center the total of all gifts, donations, and contributions made to the Center by or on behalf of the Corporation.” The reason for this clause is that people and companies, who have given, or will be giving, millions of dollars to the Center were only willing to do so with the name “Trump” on the Building. Many did it because they loved the concept of two Great Presidents, one Republican, one Democrat, working together as one — In many ways, a bipartisan relationship! All of this money, hundreds of millions of dollars, will have to be immediately returned, or not received by the Center.
Eisen’s nonprofit Democracy Defenders Action sued on behalf of Joyce Beatty, a Democratic congresswoman from Ohio who is an ex officio member of the Kennedy Center’s board but was not allowed to vote on the name change last year.
The appeal was filed by the justice department on behalf of Trump, and Kennedy Center board members he appointed, who took the decision to add his name to the performing arts venue last year.
A federal judge ruled two weeks ago that only Congress, which created the Kennedy Center as a living memorial to the late John F Kennedy, has the power to change the name and ordered Trump’s name to be removed by today. The court order also sided with Beatty, ruling that a proposed closure of the center for two years of renovations, should not take place.
Jeremy Barr
Donald Trump’s Department of Justice has decided to approve the $111bn merger of Paramount Skydance, controlled by the Ellison family, and Warner Bros Discovery, the parent company of networks like CNN and HBO.
The deal was approved by the justice department’s anti-trust division after months of review, and despite the concerns of many people in the entertainment and media industries who believe it will hurt competition by reducing the number of film studios and – most likely – merging two news networks, Paramount’s CBS News and CNN.
“The Division has completed its analysis of the proposed merger of Paramount and Warner Bros and determined based on the evidence received in its investigation that the transaction is not likely to result in harm to competition or American consumers, including with respect to: (1) streaming video on demand (“SVOD”); (2) linear television; and (3) studio development, production, or distribution of films for theatrical release,” the agency said on Friday evening.
While the US government’s approval is a major win for the deal, hurdles remain. Earlier this week, the UK competition watchdog opened an investigation into the merger to determine whether it will result in a “substantial lessening of competition” in the UK. The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) set a 7 August deadline to determine whether the merger requires a more in-depth review. In addition to reviewing the deal, European regulators are investigating the funding behind the merger; three sovereign-wealth funds in the Gulf have committed a combined $24bn. Both reviews have July deadlines.
Dharna Noor
Bridget Brink, a candidate for the Democratic nomination in a swing congressional district in Michigan, will hold a Friday evening fundraiser in Washington, DC hosted by a senior director at ExxonMobil.
The invitation, posted on the Democratic fundraising site ActBlue, says the host for the event is Yuri Kim, a former diplomat who is now a senior director of international government relations at the oil giant. Ticket prices begin at $250 and top out at $3,500.
Brink, a former ambassador to Ukraine who resigned in protest last year, accusing the Trump administration of “appeasement” of Russia, is running in a tight primary against Will Lawrence, co-founder of the youth-led climate justice organization the Sunrise Movement, which in 2018 mainstreamed the call for a Green New Deal to slash planet-heating pollution while creating jobs.
Both Brink and Lawrence are attempting to unseat Republican Tom Barrett, who has taken tens of thousands of dollars from the oil and gas industry over his career and voted in favor of fossil fuel expansion. The fundraiser, first spotted by local reporter Brad LaPlante, comes amid a heated fight over energy and artificial intelligence datacenters in Michigan’s seventh district.
Lawrence is backing the proposal for a nationwide datacenter moratorium, introduced by his supporter Bernie Sanders, and told the Guardian he believes the unfettered expansion of gas to power artificial intelligence “a form of climate denial”. Brink, meanwhile, said: “Local communities should hold the decision making power on building datacenters, with transparency and accountability from corporations and government officials.”
Neither Barrett nor the third candidate in the Democratic primary, Matt Maasdam, are backing the datacenter moratorium proposal.
The district’s primary election will be held on 4 August.
Department of Justice antitrust division approves takeover of Warner Bros Discovery by Trump ally David Ellison – report
The US Department of Justice’s antitrust division has approved the $110bn acquisition of Warner Bros Discovery by Donald Trump’s ally David Ellison though Paramount Skydance, Politico reports.
If the takeover is completed, it would give the pro-Trump billionaire control of not just CBS News, but also CNN. Ellison, a Trump supporter, is currently overseeing what CBS News veterans have called the destruction of CBS News as a non-partisan news organization.
Last week, in an Oval Office tirade directed at the CNN host Kaitlan Collins, Trump spoke as if the takeover was already assured and suggested that the broadcaster would soon stop asking him uncomfortable questions.
“CNN’s a very corrupt organization, with a corrupt reporter standing right there,” he said. “CNN does such false reporting. But now they have new ownership, so maybe they’ll straighten it out.”
Ellison has already appointed a conservative opinion journalist, Bari Weiss, to oversee CBS News, leading to a wave of firings at 60 Minutes. Before his acquisition of the CBS owner Paramount was approved, the broadcaster announced that one prominent late-night critic of Trump, Stephen Colbert, would lose his show. Acquiring Warner Bros would also give Ellison control over HBO and so the weekly broadcast of another Trump critic, John Oliver.
