JFK’s Niece Kerry Kennedy Vows to Remove Trump’s Name from the Kennedy Center with a ‘Pickax’

More members of the Kennedy family are speaking out after President Donald Trump’s name was added to the Kennedy Center this week.

After a contentious vote by a MAGA-aligned board, workers on Friday, Dec. 19, added new lettering to the venue’s exterior. The update placed “The Donald Trump and” above the existing name, so the facade now reads: “The Donald Trump and The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts.”

Kerry Kennedy — daughter of Robert F. Kennedy and niece of John F. Kennedy — reacted on X after photos of the signage circulated publicly.

“Three years and one month from today, I’m going to grab a pickax and pull those letters off that building, but I’m going to need help holding the ladder,” she wrote. “Are you in? Applying for my carpenter’s card today, so it’ll be a union job!!!”

Her cousin, Maria Shriver, also criticized the move in a separate post, questioning both the symbolism and the intent.

“Adding your name to a memorial already named in honor of a great man doesn’t make you a great man. Quite the contrary,” Shriver wrote. “Putting your name on top of someone else’s doesn’t mean that people will speak of you in the same breath as the other man. Putting your name above another man’s name on his existing memorial… What is that about? Truly? What’s that about? Do you want people to speak the names as one? Dig down deep. What are you trying to say? I’m really interested.”

She continued: “There is no other president who would do this. None. Zero. In fact, it’s not even legal. Congress named the performing arts center as a living memorial in 1964, and only Congress can change that law. This will always be the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Art. A great man would have said to his hand picked board, ‘Thank you, but the building already has its name. Let it stand. Let it be. I don’t need that.’ But then again…”

Shriver’s comments echoed earlier objections from other members of the family, who have argued that adding Trump’s name conflicts with the site’s status as a living memorial to JFK.

Earlier this year, JFK’s grandson Jack Schlossberg pushed back against a bill introduced by Republican congressman Bob Onder that would have renamed the venue entirely as the “Donald J. Trump Center for Performing Arts.” The proposal did not become law.

Schlossberg, 32, posted a screenshot of Public Law 88-260, which states that as of Dec. 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.”

“Plain reading of the statute makes clear — YOU CAN’T DO THAT,” he wrote in the caption.

Schlossberg also amplified concerns raised by Ohio Rep. Joyce Beatty, an ex-officio member of the Kennedy Center board.

After White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the board had “voted unanimously” to rename the building the “Trump-Kennedy Center,” Beatty disputed that characterization on X. She alleged that she and other opponents were muted during the conference call and prevented from voicing their objections.

“For the record. This was not unanimous. I was muted on the call and not allowed to speak or voice my opposition to this move,” Beatty, 75, wrote. “Also for the record, this was not on the agenda. This was not consensus. This is censorship.”

She added: “Clearly the Congress has a say in this. This center, the Kennedy Center, was created by the Congress. I think it’s important for us to know that this is just another attempt to evade the law and not let the people have a say.”