The Kennedy Center is now the Trump Kennedy Center, White House says

President Donald Trump’s handpicked board voted Thursday to rename Washington’s leading performing arts center as the Trump Kennedy Center, the White House said, in a move that made Democrats fume, saying the board had overstepped its legal authority.

Congress named the center after President John F. Kennedy in 1964, after his assassination. Donald A. Ritchie, who served as Senate historian from 2009-2015, said that because Congress had first named the center it would be up to Congress to “amend the law.”

Richie said that while Trump and others can “informally” refer to the center by a different name, they couldn’t do it in a way “that would (legally) stick.”

But the board did not wait for that debate to play out, immediately changing the branding on its website to reflect the new name.

House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries told reporters that legislative action was needed, “and we’re going to make that clear.” The New York Democrat is an ex officio member of the board because of his position in Congress.

Trump has teased the name change for some time

Press secretary Karoline Leavitt announced the vote on social media, attributing it to the “unbelievable work President Trump has done over the last year in saving the building. Not only from the standpoint of its rec...