The John F. Kennedy Center for Performing Arts has officially been renamed the Trump-Kennedy Center after a unanimous board vote. This is the biggest piece of news to hit the arts world this week. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt announced the decision, stating that the highly respected board had just voted on the change. Leavitt claimed that the renaming was due to the “unbelievable work President Trump has done over the last year in saving the building.”
But here’s where things get really interesting. As reported by The Hill, a writer known for his work on South Park and MadTV, Toby Morton, perfectly anticipated this move months ago and set a brilliant digital trap. Morton, who has a history of buying political domains to create satirical websites, saw the writing on the wall.
He explained that he started paying close attention earlier this year when President Trump began removing existing board members and installing close political allies. Morton correctly assumed that if the president was taking over the center, the name change was going to follow.
That sounds like a top-tier satirical site, and I can’t wait to see what the South Park writer cooks up
Morton told The Washington Post that as soon as the board gutting began, he thought, “Yep, that name’s going on the building.” Back in August, Morton went ahead and purchased the digital real estate for the inevitable change, snagging both the trumpkennedycenter.org and trumpkennedycenter.com domains. He later noted that after he bought the domains, the rest of the events “followed on schedule.”
The renaming has already sparked a constitutional legal battle. Rep. Joyce Beatty, a Democrat from Ohio who serves as an ex officio board member for the center, filed a lawsuit seeking to force the removal of President Trump’s name. Beatty argues that adding the president’s name to the venue is a “flagrant violation” of the Constitution. She maintains that Congress intended the Center to be a “living memorial to President Kennedy” and a non-partisan “crown jewel of the arts for all Americans.”
The lawsuit contends that unless the court intervenes, the defendants will continue to defy Congress and thwart the law for improper ends. It’s clear this fight is just getting started, and you can expect this legal challenge to be highly publicized.
So what happens now with Morton’s digital trap? He told USA Today that both domains are currently parked through GoDaddy, waiting for the perfect time to launch. Since the news broke that he secured the domains, the response has been “overwhelmingly positive,” Morton said. He received a large number of messages from creatives, designers, writers, and performers who want to contribute and help elevate the project.
Morton plans for the new site to focus squarely on President Trump’s narcissism, his branding impulses, and the broader cultural implications of attaching a personal name to institutions that should be purely civic, not personal.
Published: Dec 26, 2025 03:30 pm