The Kennedy Center’s free Christmas Eve Jazz Jam did not take place in 2025 for the first time in more than two decades. The long-standing holiday tradition was canceled after the board of trustees voted to rename the venue the “Trump Kennedy Center,” adding President Donald Trump’s name alongside John F. Kennedy’s.
Jazz drummer and vibraphonist Chuck Redd, who had hosted the concert since 2006, canceled the performance after seeing the name change appear on the Kennedy Center website and then on the building itself. The decision was announced only days before Christmas, with no replacement programming and no detailed explanation, leaving families who had planned their holiday around the event without the concert they had attended for years.
The Christmas Eve Jazz Jam was a completely free public-service event held at 6 p.m. as part of the Kennedy Center’s Millennium Stage program, which was created specifically to make the performing arts accessible to everyone.
The concert typically featured seven professional jazz musicians and drew families, students, elderly residents, and visitors who could not afford ticketed Kennedy Center performances. The tradition dated back to the early 2000s, with Redd taking over hosting duties from bassist William “Keter” Betts in 2006.
Redd is an internationally recognized musician with a long and secure career. The Christmas Eve Jazz Jam was a free public-service performance, meaning its cancellation carried no meaningful financial or professional cost to him.
The cancellation removed one of the few professional-caliber holiday events in Washington that required no ticket purchase and disproportionately affected members of the public who relied on free programming for access to the arts. It did not affect political leaders, Kennedy Center board members, President Trump, or major donors, none of whom depended on Millennium Stage performances.
The Christmas Eve cancellation occurred amid a broader wave of artist withdrawals from the Kennedy Center following Trump’s second inauguration. At least 26 performances were canceled, including self-withdrawals by Issa Rae, Lin-Manuel Miranda, and the Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington.
During the same period, Trump personally hosted the Kennedy Center Honors, announced honorees publicly, and selected performers with broad popular appeal, including Sylvester Stallone, KISS, George Strait, Gloria Gaynor, and Michael Crawford.
Aside from the irreverence toward Christmas, the disrespect shown to the performers, and the decision to rob families of a long-standing free public Christmas Eve concert, there is also a serious legal issue involving statutory interpretation.
Critics of the renaming argue that federal law explicitly prohibits adding Trump’s name to the Kennedy Center. They cite three statutory provisions: 20 U.S.C. § 76q, which designates the Center as “the sole national memorial” to John F. Kennedy in Washington; 20 U.S.C. § 76i, which names the building by statute; and 20 U.S.C. § 76j(b), which bars the installation of “additional memorials or plaques in the nature of memorials” in public areas after 1983.
Legal experts and Democratic lawmakers argue that because Congress named the building through legislation, only Congress has the authority to alter that designation. Rep. Joyce Beatty’s lawsuit characterizes the renaming as a “flagrant violation of the rule of law.”
The statutory language, however, is more limited than critics claim. Under 20 U.S.C. § 76q (1964), Congress designated the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts as “the sole national memorial to the late John Fitzgerald Kennedy within the city of Washington and its environs.” That provision establishes the Center’s purpose as a memorial to Kennedy, but it does not explicitly prohibit adding another name to the building’s designation.
Congress addressed additions directly in 1983 when it enacted 20 U.S.C. § 76j(b), titled “Restriction on additional memorials.” That amendment prohibits the designation or installation of additional memorials or plaques in the public areas of the Kennedy Center after December 2, 1983, with narrow exceptions for plaques acknowledging foreign gifts, plaques on theater chairs or boxes, and inscriptions recognizing major contributions. The restriction applies specifically to interior public areas and to physical memorials or plaques.
That distinction is critical. Trump’s name was added to the exterior building designation, not installed as an additional memorial or plaque inside the Center. The statute prohibits transforming the Kennedy Center into a memorial for someone else, but adding Trump’s name does not replace Kennedy or strip the Center of its identity as a memorial to JFK. Kennedy remains named, honored, and memorialized exactly as before.
If Congress intended to impose an absolute prohibition on modifying the building’s designation or adding any other name under any circumstances, it could have stated so plainly. Instead, when Congress wanted to restrict additions, it did so with precise language in 1983, narrowly targeting interior memorials and plaques. The absence of similarly explicit language barring exterior designation changes undermines claims of a clear statutory violation.
Democrats argue that “sole memorial” must mean Kennedy alone and that the board lacks authority to approve any renaming without congressional action. But that reading goes beyond what the statute actually says. The law designates the Center as a memorial to JFK; it does not state that no other individual’s name may ever appear alongside his, nor does it prohibit co-honoring another president in the building’s exterior designation. Claims that the renaming is an obvious violation of federal law rely more on political outrage than on statutory text, which is far more ambiguous than critics admit.
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