Washington DC. 2026 February 19. President Donald Trump convened the inaugural meeting of his newly established Board of Peace. The building was formerly the headquarters of the U.S. Institute of Peace (USIP) before renaming. (Photo credit: Robert V Schwemmer / Shutterstock)
A prominent Trump critic says the president's push to stamp his name across Washington just hit a wall, and he thinks he knows why it stings.
Scott Dworkin, co-founder of the anti-Trump super PAC the Democratic Coalition, wrote in his newsletter Monday that President Donald Trump is "terrified America will forget him," and that two federal judges just made that easier.
A divided panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit on Wednesday blocked the administration from carving Trump's name into the facade of the U.S. Institute of Peace, which Congress established in 1984 as an independent body focused on ending wars overseas. Judge Cornelia Pillard, an Obama appointee, and Senior Judge Harry Edwards, a Carter appointee, granted the request in a one-sentence order.
Trump's name already hangs on the building in bolted-on letters, added in December after the administration fired the institute's board and took over its headquarters. Last month, the fired board members filed an emergency motion to stop plans to carve it into stone, sparking fresh outrage.
"Alteration of the design to impose a different message would cause irreparable harm," their attorneys wrote.
The Justice Department told the court it had "no current plans" to engrave the building, but the judges blocked it anyway.
Dworkin, whose newsletter framed the ruling around Trump's fear of being forgotten, noted that the existing letters can still come down.
"Taking the Trump name down will be a job for a screwdriver. I've got one," he wrote.
The fight is the latest front in Trump's broader campaign to put his name and likeness on government property, which has included the Kennedy Center and a commemorative passport.
The order is temporary, lasting only until the court rules on the underlying case, with arguments set for November. A lower court found Trump lacked the authority to fire the board, but the appeals court has let the takeover continue while it weighs the case.