Lawmakers vote to name Kennedy Center opera house after Melania Trump

[In It to Win It]

WASHINGTON – House Republicans were singing from the same sheet music as the Trump administration July 22 when a key panel voted to name the Kennedy Center opera house after first lady Melania Trump.

"This designation is an excellent way to recognize her support and commitment to promoting the arts," said Rep. Mike Simpson, R-Idaho, who shepherded the Appropriations Committee's spending bill that funds John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

Rep. Chellie Pingree, D-Maine, opposed the change and claimed it's part of giving Trump power to run the Kennedy Center "with very little oversight" from Congress.

"The Republicans snuck in, I think, something that is slightly divisive, which is renaming one section of the Kennedy Center after a family member of this administration,” Pingree said.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/lawmakers-vote-name-kennedy-center-192628181.html

[annalog]

1. Oh my

🤮

[Historic NY]

2. such a patron of the arts

[Traildogbob]

3. She was crotch deep in the

Trump Epstein child sex warehouse.
So get her name the hell if anything in this damn country. Whose plane was her nude photos shot on????
WHEN Trump is fully exposed, will she still be the classiest First Lady in history as GQP Claim.

[RANDYWILDMAN]

4. just name it after Einstein

The only award she won, that can publicly announced


When we get a real president again just change it back....these people are the worst

[Blue Owl]

5. What an empty gesture -- naming it after a pedophile's third wife who is also a Russian spy

She probably hates opera, too...

[tanyev]

6. OK, time for all productions, performers and ticket buyers to boycott the place.

Good luck keeping the lights on with Lee Greenwood concerts.

[Bristlecone]

7. Gross, sycophantic gestures is all they do

[LetMyPeopleVote]

8. Renaming the Kennedy Center for Donald and Melania Trump would violate the law that created it

The Kennedy Center can’t include new memorials or plaques — for donors or presidents — under U.S. law. Republicans would need to change that to rename it for the Trumps.

Renaming the Kennedy Center for Donald and Melania Trump would violate the law that created it

www.nbcnews.com/politics/don...

— Amanda Terkel (@aterkel.bsky.social) 2025-07-29T13:21:42.628Z

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/renaming-kennedy-center-donald-melania-trump-violate-law-created-rcna221505

Three former board members for the Kennedy Center told NBC News that the law creating the center prohibited any of the facilities from being renamed, other than the Eisenhower Theater, after the president whose administration first authorized its construction in 1958. The project stalled and was revived under President John F. Kennedy, whose family led an effort to get the center built and named in his honor following his assassination. Two months later, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the legislation making it a living memorial to Kennedy.

According to U.S. code, “After December 2, 1983, no additional memorials or plaques in the nature of memorials shall be designated or installed in the public areas of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.”

Republicans would have to pass legislation to change that. “Legally, they can’t just slap her name on it without congressional action,” said a spokesperson for Rep. Chellie Pingree of Maine, the lead Democrat on the Appropriations subcommittee on the interior.

“If Republicans can’t pass their budget — which they usually can’t — the Melania Trump renaming provision dies,” the spokesperson continued. “The only real wildcard is whether Trump or his allies ignore the law entirely and try to do it unilaterally. But that would have no legal basis — and would almost certainly trigger a court fight.”.....

President Kennedy’s grandson Jack Schlossberg posted strong criticism of the opera house’s renaming proposal last week. Schlossberg, Caroline Kennedy’s son, wrote, “JFK believed the arts made our country great and could be our most effective weapon in the fight for civil rights and against authoritarian governments around the world,” adding, “The Trump administration stands for freedom of oppression, not expression.”