White House correspondent April Ryan says the court-ordered removal of President Donald Trump's name from the Kennedy Center is the single most painful defeat of his second term — a humiliation that cuts to the core of a man who built his entire identity on his brand.
Speaking on MS NOW Sunday, Ryan argued that the episode was uniquely wounding for Trump. "That brand, to have his name pulled off — that hurts," she said. "That is the biggest L," she added, not just on the world stage, but personally, "for him to see his name pulled down."
The blow she was describing became official this weekend. Crews began stripping Trump's name from the marble facade of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts around 3 a.m. Saturday, complying with a federal court order. U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper had ruled in May that "Congress gave the Kennedy Center its name, and only Congress can change it," after Trump's hand-picked board voted in December to rebrand the institution the "Trump-Kennedy Center" and bolted his name to the building the next day.
Ryan laid out why the reversal stung so badly for a man who spent decades as a brander, developer and builder. You cannot attach your name to a federal institution, she noted, "unless you're a dead president and Congress approves it." The Kennedy Center is a memorial to a president who was assassinated — and, she pointed out, a Democratic president tied to the civil rights movement, making Trump's decision to graft his name beside Kennedy's all the more jarring given his crusade against DEI and "woke" policies.
She credited Rep. Joyce Beatty, the Ohio Democrat who sued to force the name's removal, with landing "a major win" and checking the president's power. Beatty has called the outcome a "victory," declaring that "the rule of law prevailed."