Did Trump order that weeping willows be cut down outside Kennedy Center?

In late August and early September 2026, a claim (archived) circulated online that U.S. President Donald Trump ordered the removal of weeping willow trees outside the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C.

“The iconic weeping willow trees outside the Kennedy Center have been cut down by Trump,” Adam Parkhomenko, a former Hillary Clinton adviser, wrote on X.

The iconic weeping willow trees outside the Kennedy Center have been cut down by Trump. pic.twitter.com/5bZ0AnaPDx

— Adam Parkhomenko (@AdamParkhomenko) September 1, 2026

Similar claims also circulated on Facebook (archived), Instagram (archived), Threads (archived), Bluesky (archived) and Reddit (archived). Snopes readers contacted us to verify them. One reader asked, “Did Trump have the willow trees at the JFK center cut down?”

That was not the case. Rather, Matthew Floca, the Kennedy Center’s vice president of facilities, said in April 2026 sworn testimony that the center felled its weeping willows “because they were falling down” (Page 27). Floca’s testimony was part of a lawsuit seeking to block Trump’s planned renovations of the center.

Floca said in his testimony that the center felled the trees because of a “maintenance need” (Page 28) and that it was “contemplating” their replacements. Floca added that he had not spoken to Trump, who is the chair of the Kennedy Center Board of Trustees, about the weeping willows or what should replace them (Page 28).

Given the above, we rate the claim that Trump ordered the removal of the Kennedy Center’s weeping willow trees false. Rather, the center’s management said it felled the trees because of a maintenance need and confirmed Trump was not involved in the decision.

We contacted the Kennedy Center to ask when it cut down the weeping willows and whether it had any plans to replace the trees, but did not receive a response by the time of publication. A White House spokesperson referred our request for comment to the Kennedy Center.

Citing a spokesperson for the Kennedy Center, Newsweek reported that the center removed its weeping willow trees in October 2025. Snopes found one image published by Reuters that showed weeping willows at the Kennedy Center in September 2025 and a geo-tagged image from Google that showed at least one such tree cut down in October, supporting this reported timeline.

The neighborhood blog PoPville, which covers Washington, D.C., reported on the removal of the weeping willows on October 14, 2025. Snopes could not view metadata for the images in order to establish their authenticity, but had no reason to believe they were inauthentic.

What we know about the trees

Floca told a Washington, D.C. district court on April 29, 2026, that the weeping willows at the Kennedy Center had to be removed because they were in poor health. He said (Page 28):

Ninety percent of the trees were decaying and every time there was a heavy wind or rain a tree would fall down. If you walk around the center at that time, you would see limbs falling and trees falling down.

When asked whether he discussed what tree would replace the weeping willows with the Kennedy Center chairman (meaning Trump), Floca said (Page 28):

We haven’t specifically talked about the weeping willows or the replacement. I think that a weeping cherry tree would be perfect. But we are going to come up with a complete landscape — a comprehensive landscape plan that doesn’t only talk to the planters and the willow trees, and that will be part of the plan, the replacement.

As of this writing, it was unclear what tree would replace the weeping willows, which lawyer Abbe David Lowell claimed were meant to represent “the grief of the nation” for the death of former U.S. President John F. Kennedy (Page 27).

Trump posted digital renderings of his suggested “new, highly improved” Kennedy Center in March 2026 that replaced the weeping willows with either pink or orange-leafed trees. Though weeping willows change color in the fall, their leaves turn yellow or gold, not orange, red or pink like the trees in Trump’s renderings, which appeared to suggest the president wanted to replace the weeping willows with a different kind of tree.

Floca’s testimony was part of a lawsuit brought by several conservation groups that sought to stop Trump and the Kennedy Center’s board from carrying out proposed renovations without third-party review. On May 29, a federal judge denied the conservation groups’ request for a preliminary injunction that would stop the renovations while the court case was ongoing.

Nonetheless, the center remained open at the time of this writing, despite Trump initially saying it would close on July 4, 2026, for renovations.

For further reading, Snopes previously investigated whether Trump cut down dozens of cherry trees in Washington, D.C., to make way for a golf course.

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