Workers began the process of removing President Trump’s name from the front of the Kennedy Center early Saturday morning, after thunderstorms caused the Trump administration to narrowly miss a court-ordered Friday deadline for the name to come down.
U.S. District Court Judge Christopher Cooper determined last month that the president’s name was illegally added to The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and ordered that it be removed by the end of the day on Friday, June 12. He also blocked the Trump administration’s plans for the Kennedy Center to close for renovations for two years.
Workers erected scaffolding outside the Kennedy Center Friday afternoon, but did not begin prying the president’s name off the building’s front facade early Saturday morning.
Photos showed a tarp covering the work area, so it is not clear if the removal of Mr. Trump’s name is complete. A filing in the court case orders that the Trump administration file a certification confirming the president’s name is removed by noon Saturday.
Valerie Plesch / Bloomberg via Getty Images 
The name remained on the building after midnight as crews continued to work onsite, prompting a crowd of onlookers to chant: “Take it down.” Lawyers for the Justice Department said in court filings late Friday the work had been “delayed because of thunderstorms in the District of Columbia that presented safety concerns for workers,” but would be complete by early Saturday.
On Friday, Cooper denied the Trump administration’s last-minute request for a stay of his injunction pending appeal, meaning his original deadline remained in place. Shortly after midnight, the Kennedy Center asked a judge to extend the deadline until noon EDT, citing the storms for delaying the work. The court agreed to that request Saturday morning.
On Friday, the Justice Department asked the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to stay Cooper’s ruling and allow the president’s name to stay up. But in a one-page order, a panel of appellate judges rejected the request for an immediate stay, instead directing the parties in the lawsuit to file briefs later this month. The unsigned order was issued by two Obama-appointed judges and one Trump appointee, with no noted dissents.
In its emergency motion to the appellate court, the government wrote that “it does not make sense to alter the Center’s name and signage now, only to potentially revert the name again after what should be a successful appeal.”
The Trump administration argued it could cause public confusion for the Kennedy Center to change its name multiple times in the span of a year, and said some donors specifically gave money to the center because of Mr. Trump’s name.
“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 government wrote.
AP Photo/Cliff Owen 
The motion echoed some of the arguments raised by Mr. Trump himself for renovating the Kennedy Center, including that the building is in “bad shape” and is “unsightly to look at.”
“It is unable to compete with other such venues throughout the United States, but when completed, as planned, will be the envy of the World, something that everyone, including this court, will be proud of,” the filing said.
Attorneys for Democratic Rep. Joyce Beatty of Ohio, who sued over the planned name change and two-year closure, asked the appeals court on Friday to reject the Trump administration’s emergency motion, calling it “a frivolous stay request, filed at the eleventh hour, in a transparent effort to jam the Court and game the judicial system.”
In a scathing 12-page filing, Beatty’s lawyers argued that the administration will not prevail on appeal. They also accused the government of “gamesmanship” and “running out the clock” by waiting weeks before asking the appellate court to step in, in what they called a “manufactured emergency.”
“There is no reason they should not finish complying with the district court’s order — as they have been planning for the past two weeks,” Beatty’s lawyers wrote. “In the extremely unlikely event the Court grants Appellants a stay pending appeal, Appellants can easily restore Donald Trump’s name to the Kennedy Center during the appeal, should they choose.”
Valerie Plesch / Bloomberg via Getty Images 
The center, run by a Trump-aligned board of trustees, voted in December to add the president’s name to the institution, rebranding it as the Trump-Kennedy Center. The center is the premier arts venue in the nation’s capital and was established by Congress as a memorial to President John F. Kennedy.
Beatty, who sits on the Kennedy Center’s board, challenged the move in court. In May, Cooper ruled that only Congress could approve a name change to the institution and set a deadline of June 12 for complying with his order.
Earlier this month, CBS News reported that lawyers for the center were instructing staff to immediately begin the process of switching the name of the facility back to its original title. The instructions were laid out in a memo sent by the center’s general counsel and obtained by CBS News.
Cooper’s original order also blocked plans by the administration and trustees to close the center for nearly two years for major renovations.
The Kennedy Center’s website has already removed the president’s name from much of its online material.
Mr. Trump made moves to put his mark on the center soon after his return to office last year, removing Democratic-appointed members of the board and installing allies and top administration officials instead. The president and his allies also sought to make changes to the types of performances at the institution.