Throughout his time as a real estate mogul, President Donald Trump became famous for stamping his name on hotels and casinos throughout the United States. Trump has ramped up this practice in his second term in the White House, but this time it’s government-related venues that have been renamed for the 47th president. And these renamings are not without their fair share of controversy.
John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
In December 2025, the White House announced its decision to change the name of the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts to the Donald J. Trump and the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts. The change was voted on unanimously by the Kennedy Center board of trustees, which was handpicked by Trump. A spokesperson for the Washington, D.C., building said the name change “honors Trump’s work at the center since taking over early in his second term,” said CNN. The center’s website was also changed to say the Trump-Kennedy Center.
Just a day later, workers “added ‘The Donald J. Trump and’ to the facade of the building just above the current signage,” said ABC News. The change generated anger among Democrats (and some Republicans) given that the building was designed as an official memorial to former President John F. Kennedy. It also appears to be illegal, as Trump “has no authority to actually rename the Kennedy Center in the absence of legislative action,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) told reporters. The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts is officially designated as such by U.S. code, and Trump “cannot rename the building itself or the center itself,” Georgetown Law professor David Super told ABC.
US Institute of Peace
As with the Kennedy Center, Trump placed his name on the headquarters of the U.S. Institute of Peace (USIP), a congressionally funded think tank, in December 2025, with lettering going up on the building to reflect the change. And in another similarity to the Kennedy Center, this change came after Trump “fired the institute’s board in the spring,” as well as every employee, and the Washington, D.C., headquarters was “turned over to the General Services Administration,” said The Associated Press.
Unlike the Kennedy Center, the USIP website does not reflect the name change, though the site also says it is under maintenance. But the change also comes “despite an ongoing fight over the institute’s control” in court, said the AP. The building has become a “flashpoint of what former board members have described as a hostile takeover of the federally funded independent nonprofit in Trump’s second term,” said Fast Company. As with the Kennedy Center, Democrats have noted that the name change is likely illegal.
‘Trump-class’ battleships
December 2025 was a busy period for Trump’s name to make its mark, as the president also announced a new fleet of U.S. Navy vessels to be called Trump-class battleships. The first ship in the future line, the USS Defiant, will be part of a “class of American-designed battleships that will be the most lethal surface combatant ever constructed,” said the Navy in a press release. If built, the USS Defiant would be the “biggest warship the U.S. has constructed since WWII,” Forbes said.
But critics noted that there are several flaws with this plan. For one, these new ships will be “vulnerable to blistering missile attacks, the way once-mighty traditional battleships were to aircraft attacks,” said Forbes. And while much of the reporting has focused on the alleged “impropriety of a president’s naming a military program after himself,” a larger issue is that these “big and overarmed behemoths have been obsolete in warfare for many decades,” said the Los Angeles Times. And because of expected rising costs, future presidential administrations will likely “cancel the program before the first ship hits the water,“ Mark F. Cancian of the Center for Strategic and International Studies said to the Times.
Washington, DC banners
At different points in 2025, people began noticing that there were “large banners with President Donald Trump’s face that can be seen on three federal buildings” throughout Washington, D.C., said CNN, with opponents saying the banners “carry authoritarian undertones.” On at least one of these buildings, the U.S. Department of Labor headquarters, a banner of Trump was hung alongside a banner of former President Abraham Lincoln.
Soon after the banners came out, a report spearheaded by Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) was released, titled “Propaganda: How the Trump Administration is Breaking the Law and Wasting Taxpayer Dollars with Giant Banners of Donald Trump.” The banners “are being made at the public’s expense, with the first three signs costing at least $50,000 in taxpayer funds,” the report alleged, despite a “longstanding legal prohibition against the use of federal funds for propaganda and self-aggrandizement purposes.” The White House has denied that the banners break the law.
Trump Accounts
During his second term, Trump announced the launch of new savings and investment accounts targeted toward children — and he unsurprisingly named them after himself. These Trump Accounts are “tax-advantaged savings accounts available for every American child up to the age of 18, and parents can put in up to $5,000 annually,“ said PBS News. Kids born between 2025 and 2028 will automatically get $1,000 invested toward an account.
The program got a boost from tech mogul Michael Dell, who announced he would be investing about $6 billion into Trump Accounts, or about $250 for 25 million children. While questions still remain about how exactly these accounts will work, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has said they will have essentially no restrictions. They will be a “piece of the American economy for every child, and they will be able to take it out when they’re 18,” Bessent said on CBS News’ “Face the Nation.” When asked by the show’s Margaret Brennan if there would be conditions on using the money for college tuition or a first house, Bessent replied, “no.”
National park passes
The design for America’s national park pass, which provides access to over 2,000 nature areas across the country, typically featured images of the natural landscape. But upon taking office, the White House unveiled new designs for the passes; one features both Trump’s face and George Washington’s face, while another shows Trump saluting. The passes were “reintroduced as part of a broader rebranding effort by the administration,” said Newsweek.
Conservation groups have “filed a lawsuit in federal court, calling the move ‘the most ego-driven action yet’ and arguing it politicizes public lands and violates federal neutrality rules,” said Newsweek. There have been reports of some people also using stickers to cover up Trump’s face on the pass, but it seems the White House is trying to stop this; the U.S. Department of the Interior “recently updated its ‘Void if Altered’ rules for 2026, explicitly flagging stickers and other coverings as alterations that could invalidate the pass,” SFGate said.
The Kennedy Center is the latest thing to be slapped with Trump’s name
