What did Donald Trump do today?

He threatened to destroy the Kennedy Center if he couldn't chisel his name into it.

There is an ongoing lawsuit challenging Trump's decision to rename the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts for himself and, now, his attempts to circumvent a judge's ruling preventing him from doing so. Today, the DOJ told a court that if he couldn't do that, he would tear down the entire complex and replace it with an "outdoor amphitheater" like those found at amusement parks.

Trump's theory of the case—as detailed in a legal filing mimicking the odd style of his social media posts—goes like this: if the Kennedy Center board he appointed can't literally chisel his name into buildings thanking him for his leadership, donations will dry up. That will cause the "decrepit" buildings to fall into ruin, necessitating their destruction.

In the real world, there are two problems with this argument. First, the Kennedy Center just underwent major renovations in 2023 and is in pristine condition. This is what its "decrepit" buildings currently look like:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Second, donations to the Center plummeted because Trump fired its original board and began inserting himself into its programming. This isn't speculation: its own internal reports show gifts and ticket sales dropped dramatically after Trump had his name put on the building.

In other words, Trump is threatening in writing to tear down one of the largest and best-appointed performance spaces in the world and replace it with a cheap outdoor auditorium if he's not allowed to put his name on it, even though courts have already ruled he can't under the law that established it.

Neither Trump as president nor the political loyalists he appointed to its board have any legal authority to destroy the center, but that hasn't stopped him in the past. If he carries out the threat, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts would be the second American cultural treasure associated with the Kennedys that Trump has demolished since returning to office. 

Why does this matter?

• This is how gangsters in movies from Trump's childhood acted.

• You'd think that Trump would know from experience what substandard building practices and dangerously shoddy construction looks like. 

• There's ego, and then there's throwing a temper tantrum over not being able to put your name on any building you like.