Workers at the Kennedy Centre in Washington added Donald Trump’s name to the famed arts venue on Friday, one day after a board the President chairs voted to rename it.
The move has infuriated Democrats, who called it illegal, while John F Kennedy’s family denounced it as undermining the murdered president's legacy.
“The Kennedy Centre is a living memorial to a fallen president and named after President Kennedy by federal law,” Joe Kennedy III, a grandnephew of JFK, said on X. "It can no sooner be renamed than can someone rename the Lincoln Memorial, no matter what anyone says.”
The White House said the centre's board of trustees, hand-picked by Mr Trump, voted unanimously on Thursday to add his name to what was enshrined as a living memorial to the Democratic president.
Congress named the performing arts centre as a living memorial to Mr Kennedy in 1964, the year after he was assassinated. Federal law explicitly prohibits the board of trustees from making the centre into a memorial to anyone else, and from putting another person's name on the building's exterior.
The Kennedy Centre is the latest building in Washington to have Mr Trump's name added to it. The US Institute of Peace was recently renamed after him.
