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
Closing summary
This concludes our live coverage of the second Trump administration for the day. Here are the latest developments:
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The US Postal Service could throw the upcoming midterm elections into chaos by requiring states to provide lists of voters who received mail ballots, according to a draft rule set to be published on Tuesday.
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An executive order signed with little fanfare on Friday by Donald Trump could have a huge impact on the health of American’s children, because it instructs the CDC to cut the number of recommended childhood vaccines from 17 to 11.
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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 cultural complex in Washington DC and must be removed within two weeks.
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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.
FBI arrests anti-ICE protester seen in rightwing influencer’s video threatening officer outside detention Newark center
The acting attorney general, Todd Blanche, announced on Friday that the FBI has arrested an anti-ICE protester who was seen on video recorded by the rightwing influencer Nick Sortor threatening a federal officer who beat protesters outside the Delaney Hall immigration detention center in Newark, New Jersey this week.
Sortor, a former real estate agent from Kentucky who was involved in multiple physical altercations with protesters in Portland last year, celebrated the arrest of the protester seen in his clip one day after he said he had “forwarded it directly to DHS”.
Sortor’s video showed the protester threatening the life of the officer, and his family, but did not show what preceded the confrontation.
Video recorded by another video journalist offered a clue as to what might have set the protester off. In that clip, apparently recorded earlier, the protester who screamed at the federal officer was recorded standing next to another anti-ICE activist who was shoved under a moving truck by another federal officer. The officer who was seen in Sortor’s clip being screamed at then appeared and beat an anti-ICE protester with a baton.
US Postal Service rule change could throw vote-by-mail into chaos for midterms
The US Postal Service could throw the upcoming midterm elections into chaos by requiring states to provide lists of voters who received mail ballots, according to a draft rule set to be published on Tuesday.
Nearly one in three Americans voted by mail in 2024, but Donald Trump, who wants to restrict the number of voters by limiting ballots cast by mail, signed an executive order in March that prohibits the USPS from delivering ballots to any voters not on a federal list of citizens deemed eligible to vote in each state by the Department of Homeland Security.
The USPS proposal to implement this order, posted on the Federal Register website, seeks to require states to give the postal service the names and barcodes tied to mail-in ballots for federal elections. The public will have 30 days to comment on the proposed rule before the Trump administration can finalize it.
For people who do not trust the mail, comments can by sent by email, containing the name and address of the commenter, to: PCFederalRegister@usps.gov, with the subject line “Ballot Mail”.
The Postal Service rule changes would also require states to provide unique barcodes applied to the outbound and return ballot mail envelopes, saying it “will help determine adherence to federal law and facilitate law enforcement efforts”.
On Thursday, a federal judge in the District of Columbia, Carl Nichols, who clerked for supreme court justice Clarence Thomas and was nominated by Trump in 2019, declined to block Trump’s March order to limit vote-by-mail, but did not rule on its legality.
A federal judge in Boston set a preliminary injunction hearing for Tuesday on a pair of separate lawsuits filed by 24 Democratic state attorneys general and voting-rights groups against Trump and the USPS challenging the voting order.
Trump’s order also directed the administration to use federal data to inform state election officials who is eligible to vote, required the postal service to deliver ballots only to voters on each state’s approved mail-in ballot list, and required states to preserve election-related records for five years.
In April, 37 Democratic senators wrote to the postal service that Trump’s order was “a blatant violation of the Constitution” that would transform the USPS “into an election administration agency with the power to determine who can vote by mail and to establish ballot specifications”.
In 2020, when states relied heavily on vote-by-mail during the pandemic, Trump lost the popular vote by more than 7m votes.
Trump signs order directing CDC to reduce number of vaccines given to children from 17 to 11
An executive order signed with little fanfare on Friday by Donald Trump could have a huge impact on the health of US children, because it instructs the CDC to cut the number of recommended childhood vaccines from 17 to 11.
The vague language of the order, which refers to “a scientific assessment that compared United States childhood immunization recommendations with those of peer nations” published in January by anti-vaccine activist Robert F Kennedy’s health department, disguises the fact that the new recommendation removes vaccines against six diseases from the schedule.
The assessment, co-authored by the subsequently fired Covid vaccine critic Dr Tracy Beth Høeg, concluded that the CDC director should update the childhood immunization schedule “to keep vaccines for 10 diseases – measles, mumps, rubella, polio, pertussis, tetanus, diphtheria, Haemophilus influenzae type B (Hib), pneumococcal disease, and human papillomavirus (HPV) – for which peer, developed nations share international consensus, as well as varicella (chickenpox) … in the category of vaccines recommended for all children”.
Implementing that recommendation would mean removing vaccines for these diseases from the recommended schedule:
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hepatitis A
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hepatitis B
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meningitis
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rotavirus
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influenza
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Covid-19
The assessment also recommended cutting the number of doses of the human papillomavirus, or HPV, vaccine from two or three (depending on the child’s age) to one.
Fifteen states with Democratic governors are suing HSS and Robert F Kennedy Jr over the administration’s proposed changes to the federal vaccine recommendations, arguing that stripping “vaccines of their universally recommended status, in favor of senseless complexity and equivocation” will “make children sicker and strain state resources”. The suit also complained of a CDC memo downgrading the recommendation for a vaccine against respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV.
“There seems to be little scientific basis for altering the recommendations that have gone through,” Dr William Schaffner, a professor of medicine at the Vanderbilt University school of medicine and a former member of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, told the Association of American Medical Colleges in January.
“If we do not progressively vaccinate children from certain diseases, sooner or later we will see the resurgence of these diseases, just as we are seeing with recent outbreaks of measles,” Schaffner added. “The consequences of that will be more sick children, more visits to the doctor, and more hospitalizations.”
The lawsuit from the states also noted that the health department assessment supposedly aligning the US vaccine schedule with those “peer countries” had “a particular focus on Denmark”.
“But Denmark is not a ‘peer country’ in relation to vaccines because, among other things, unlike the US, it has a small, homogenous population and universal healthcare,” attorneys for the 15 states argued. “And Denmark’s vaccine policies are a global outlier that cannot be retrofitted to the US.”
“Even Danish health officials are baffled by Defendants’ reliance on Denmark,” the attorneys added, referring to comments to the New York Times from an official at Denmark’s equivalent of the CDC.
“It’s not at all fair to say look at Denmark unless you can match the other characteristics of Denmark,” the Danish official, Dr Anders Hviid, told the Times in December.
In that interview, Hviid also noted the irony in Kennedy’s health department relying on Denmark, given that he and other Danish health officials had debunked Kennedy’s theories of vaccine harm.
It seems “to get crazier and crazier in public health from month to month” during the Trump administration, Hviid told the Times. “It is surreal, and it is difficult, from a Danish perspective, to understand what’s going on.”
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 cultural complex 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 accompli 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.
