President Donald Trump sharply criticized a federal judge on Friday after a court blocked his administration’s effort to rename the Kennedy Center and halted plans to shut down the landmark venue for a major renovation project.

The dispute centers on a ruling by U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper, who sided with a legal challenge brought by Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-Ohio), an ex officio member of the Kennedy Center board. The decision stopped a proposal that would have closed the performing arts complex beginning July 5 for an extensive two-year overhaul.

Reacting to the ruling, Trump argued that experts had warned of serious structural and safety concerns within the building and accused the judge of disregarding those findings.

“Judge Cooper was given a presentation by leading Building and Construction Experts as to how structurally dangerous the Building is, with rotting beams, parking areas that are subject to collapse, and various other Life and Safety problems, in addition to the fact that it also needs a MAJOR renovation, from an aesthetic standpoint, but he was not ‘swayed,’ and said he wants the Building to, incredibly, remain open and, therefore, dangerous,” the president wrote in a Friday post on Truth Social.

Trump followed up with a direct rebuke of the judge and suggested the ruling could place the public at risk.

“Judge Cooper should be ashamed of himself!” Trump added. “I cannot be involved with a situation where danger to the Public is allowed to flourish in plain and open sight.”

The president also announced that he had instructed the Department of Commerce to take steps that would place responsibility for the institution’s maintenance and future oversight under congressional authority.

In his written opinion, Cooper pointed to federal law governing the Kennedy Center and concluded that any change to the institution’s name would require action by Congress rather than a vote of the board.

“The Kennedy Center’s organic statute makes crystal clear that the Center is to be named for President Kennedy, and it cannot bear any other formal name or public memorial based on the Board’s unilateral say-so,” Cooper wrote in his ruling.

The renovation proposal is part of a broader initiative by the Trump administration to modernize prominent federal sites throughout Washington under the banner of the D.C. Safe and Beautiful Task Force.

Other high-profile redevelopment efforts pursued by the administration have also encountered legal opposition, including plans involving the East Wing of the White House and a separate project focused on renovating the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.