Kerry Kennedy, daughter of the late Sen. Robert F. Kennedy — President John F. Kennedy's younger brother and a former U.S. attorney general — sharply criticized President Donald Trump after he defended his effort to attach his name to the memorial honoring a different president.

Speaking with CNN anchor Jake Tapper on Friday night, Kennedy reacted to a recent photograph showing Trump seated aboard Air Force One while holding what appears to be a presentation poster titled “Kennedy Center DEMOLISHED.”

“It’s heartbreaking to me,” Kennedy said. “It’s heartbreaking because this is the monument to our slain president. And this is also the monument to the arts. The most important monument to the arts in our entire country. And these are the actions of a petty little tyrant who can’t get his way. And because he can’t add his name to it, he’s going to blow it up.”

Kennedy suggested that, if he had his way, Trump would put his name on landmarks around the world. “[If he had his way] It would be like the Trump Eiffel Tower or the trump Buckingham Palace or the Trump Tomb of the Unknown Soldier,” she said. Kennedy did not mention that Trump received several military draft deferments as a young man to avoid the Vietnam War.

“Keep your name off our buildings, Mr. Trump. Do your job. Lower our prices, stop the war in Iran and get to work on what’s important,” Kennedy said.

Tapper then played a clip of a White House recording from Friday showing Trump rationalizing his continued push to put his name on the Kennedy Center, despite a judge ordering its removal earlier this year.

“I can save it easily, but why should we be doing that and then raise money for the rest of our lives to keep it afloat, because that’s what you have to do,” Trump told reporters. “If we get recognition, I think the Trump administration should be recognized as having saved the Kennedy Center, because nobody else can do it.”

Kennedy described the remarks as the temper tantrum of a child who does not “get his way,” and argued that Trump’s reasoning does not hold up.

“It’s not that he has to raise the money. The money has already been allocated by Congress in the Big Beautiful Bill, $256 million, more than enough to completely remake the Kennedy Center. So, this is just a false narrative,” she said.

Kennedy added that repairs to the center are funded through three separate streams: government money, charitable donations, and ticket sales — two of which, she said, Trump has disrupted by imposing himself over the building and its board of directors.

The practical stakes of that structure are what lift the dispute beyond a nameplate: the center’s finances rest on a blend of federal appropriations, private giving, and ticket revenue, meaning the standoff now touches a court order, a congressional allocation, and the governance of a national memorial all at once.

“Well, charity and ticket sales plummeted as soon as Trump put his on the building. So, all he has to do is step away and people will come flooding back,” Kennedy said.

For now, several threads remain unresolved: whether the “Kennedy Center DEMOLISHED” poster signals an actual plan for the building, how the earlier court order on Trump’s name is carried out, and how the $256 million set aside by Congress is ultimately spent.

A video of the interview is available on YouTube.