Do photos show Trump viewing printout about Kennedy Center demolition?

In September 2026, after the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts announced it would close its doors due to financial difficulties and the need for renovations, an image circulated online that social media users claimed (archived) showed U.S. President Donald Trump viewing a large, illustrated printout about the demolition of the Washington, D.C. landmark. 

For example, the Instagram page Occupy Democrats posted images of Trump and the printout, writing, “BREAKING: A sharp-eyed photographer unearths Trump’s plan to DESTROY the Kennedy Center – catching him staring at a placard that says ‘Kennedy Center Demolished’ through the window of his plane!”

The images and claims about what they showed also circulated on Facebook (archived), Threads (archived), X (archived), Bluesky (archived) and Reddit (archived). Snopes readers wrote in, asking about the authenticity of the images.

Several social media posts correctly credited images of Trump looking at the printout to the Agence France-Presse photographer Brendan Smialowski. One photo, published by Getty Images on Sept. 16, showed Trump viewing a printout with lettering at the top that read “dy Center DEMOLISH.” Another image showed the start of the printout read “Kennedy.” Getty Images and AFP are both reputable photo repositories and trusted sources. 

As such, we rate claims that Trump viewed a printout about the demolition of the Kennedy Center true.

We contacted the White House Press Office to ask what the printout showed and whether Trump planned to demolish the Kennedy Center and await a reply.

Photos circulated amid tensions surrounding Kennedy Center name

Getty Images wrote that Smialowski took the photos of Trump looking at the “Kennedy Center” printout through a plane window after the president landed at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, on Sept. 16. 

Earlier the same day, C-SPAN aired video footage of Trump telling reporters in North Carolina that his administration should be recognized for its work fixing and subsidizing the Kennedy Center, which he claimed had lost “hundreds of millions of dollars” before he stepped in to help.

The president added (time code 06:01): “I think that the Trump administration should certainly have recognition because frankly if we don’t do that it’s going to close, it’ll end up being ripped down.” He was likely referring to fundraising for the center’s renovation work.

The day before, on Sept. 15, a federal judge ordered that the Kennedy Center Board of Trustees, which Trump heads, could not “install memorials for President Trump or anyone or anything else at the Kennedy Center without Congress’s blessing.” Judge Christopher R. Cooper wrote the order as part of a lawsuit brought by U.S. Rep. Joyce Beatty, an Ohio Democrat, who sued Trump in Dec. 2025 to stop the renaming of the Kennedy Center after Trump.

That same day, Trump announced on Truth Social that the Kennedy Center’s board had voted to close the building to carry out “Renovation and Reconstruction” work. However, he wrote, that work would not be carried out unless and until courts allowed “the Board’s approved name.” 

The board voted in December 2025 to rename the Kennedy Center to the “Donald J. Trump and John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts” or “Trump Kennedy Center.” Cooper blocked this change in May 2026 and ordered the center to remove Trump’s name from public view. The center appeared to comply with this order in June 2026, erecting scaffolding to cover Trump’s name on the building facade.

Court ordered 30-day notice period for demolition work

It was unclear at the time of this writing whether the “Kennedy Center DEMOLISH” printout Trump viewed on Sept. 16 was related to his remarks about the center being “ripped down” without “recognition” for his administration, or to what degree it represented the administration’s plans for the center.

According to court documents filed in a separate lawsuit against the Kennedy Center Board of Trustees that sought to stop “demolition, new construction, major reconstruction, major renovation, or major aesthetic transformation” of the Kennedy Center without congressional approval, lawyers for the board said the Center’s position in August 2026 was that “the building will not be demolished and that no new structure will be constructed.”

Lawyers for the Kennedy Center’s Board of Trustees pledged to tell plaintiffs and the court in that case if the center’s position changed. 

Following the publication of Smialowski’s images, Cooper ordered defendants in the Beatty case, which included Trump and the Kennedy Center Board of Trustees, to give “more than 30 days notice” if the center changed its position that the building would not be demolished or have a new structure added.

Neither Trump nor the Kennedy Center Board of Trustees, who were defendants in both lawsuits, had given such notice of by the time of this writing.

For further reading, Snopes previously investigated whether a forklift repeatedly hit the Kennedy Center pillars on Sept. 16, 2026, and whether the Trump administration cut down the center’s weeping willows.

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