Republicans put one of President Donald Trump's most significant goals on ice on Monday by refusing to change the John F. Kennedy Center's name officially.
Trump has been trying for months to rebrand the Kennedy Center as the "Trump-Kennedy Center," a move that has caused a swarm of musicians to boycott the acclaimed concert hall. He has affixed his name to the building's exterior, although officially changing the name requires an act of Congress because the center was created by federal law.
Republicans had a chance to make that change in the most recent appropriations bill for the Department of the Interior, which has some say in the center's operations.
However, Republicans rebuffed Trump by leaving out any provisions that would officially change the name, Matt Rice, Washington correspondent for The New York Sun, reported on Monday.
The move happened at a time when Trump's base had fractured over several recent scandals. For instance, the administration released documents from the FBI's investigation into disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein that painted Trump's relationships with the convicted sex criminal in an unsavory light.
The administration also arrested Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro and his wife over the weekend in a clandestine mission to secure the country's oil reserves.
Some top Republicans like Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), who leads the Senate Judiciary Committee, spoke out against the administration for leaving them out of the decision-making process.
