President Donald Trump's persistent effort to put his name on a memorial built to honor a different president is becoming increasingly difficult to defend, with even his own strategists and Republican allies warning him one by one to abandon what they describe as a "juvenile" crusade.

The building at the center of the dispute is the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts, the performing arts complex on the banks of the Potomac in Washington that Congress designated a living memorial to Kennedy following his 1963 assassination. Because that memorial designation is written into federal law, an official renaming would require an act of Congress. Trump, who installed new leadership at the institution and was elected chairman of its board in February 2025, has kept up the effort, which critics group with his other Washington projects, including a ballroom at the White House.

Among the most pointed critics was David Urban, a strategist who worked for Trump during his first term, speaking with CNN anchor Anderson Cooper on Wednesday night.

"Right. There's no way to defend the Kennedy Center piece or some of these other moves," Urban said. "The president needs to pivot from what he's doing and get back to talking about what people around the kitchen table care about. I guarantee you, nobody in Beaver County, Pennsylvania, gives one hoot about the Kennedy Center, either way."

"They care about gas prices. They care about what that $20 bill in their pocket does for them when they go to the grocery store, or when they go to the pump," Urban continued. "And the president needs to tell them what he's going to do to make their life better and make that $20 go a little bit further."

Urban found himself in unfamiliar territory: agreeing with Democratic strategist Meghan Hays.

Cooper asked Hays: "You heard the president say that if the Trump administration doesn't get recognition for the Kennedy Center it's going to end up being ripped down. Given all the other problems he's facing, does it make any sense to you that he is still fighting this?"

"No, his priorities are completely misaligned, but I think it because he knows that he's made some really dumb mistakes when it comes to the economy with the Iran war and tariffs. And he doesn't know how to pivot out of it. So, he's being focused on all these vanity projects," Hays said.

"But what David said: the American people don't care about that. They care about their gas prices and their cost of groceries and how much they're paying for health care and child care. They could care less if their reflecting pool has water in it, or if there's a ballroom at the White House, or if the Kennedy Center has his name on it. They literally just want some relief."

Democratic strategist David Axelrod, however, pushed back on Hays' framing of Trump's focus on such projects as a deliberate "pivot."

"I disagree with Meghan a little. I don't think he's talking about those things to pivot away from the economy. He's interested in vanity projects because it may be because of vanity," Axelrod said. "... [H]e wants to put his name on things. He can legitimately put his name on the highest diesel prices in history, because he does own that."