Double rainbow formed over Kennedy Center on day Trump's name was scheduled to be removed

In 2025, Trump renamed the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., to "The Donald J. Trump and the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts." In late May 2026, a judge said U.S. President Donald Trump's renaming was illegal and ordered that his name be removed from the building by June 12. As scaffolding appeared on the day of the deadline to remove Trump's name from the Kennedy Center, many claimed they spotted a rainbow appear above the performance venue. 

One Facebook post had the caption: "MAGICAL. A rainbow appeared over the Kennedy Center as workers removed the president's name from it."

(Facebook user "Christina Lorey"/Tom Brenner/Getty Images)

The above image is authentic, and it shows a real double rainbow that appeared over the Kennedy Center on June 12, as seen in photographs on media repository Getty Images and in news reports. As such, we rate this claim as true.

The photograph above is available on Getty Images, where it appeared on June 12 with the caption, "Rainbows are visible following a storm near The Kennedy Center on June 12, 2026 in Washington, DC. Friday marks the court-ordered deadline to remove President Donald Trump's name from the Kennedy Center." The scaffolding to remove Trump's name from the center is visible on the right of the image.

Below is the same image directly from Getty Images.

(Tom Brenner/Getty Images)

Other photographs taken on the same day from different angles show the rainbows framed by the Kennedy Center's columns, as well as behind demonstrators. The Washington Post reported on the scene as bystanders and demonstrators watched a crew set up a scaffolding to remove the letters on June 12: "The atmosphere was festival-like: People brought their dogs, their partners and their children. They oohed as lightning spidered across the sky and ahhed at a double rainbow." 

While the scaffolding went up on June 12, workers reportedly began taking the letters down on June 13 because of a weather-related delay. Workers also hung plastic sheeting over the front of the center, obscuring the letters as they took them down. The Kennedy Center's executive director declared to a federal court on June 13 that the letters were no longer on the building.

For further reading, Snopes reported on Trump posting about potentially adding marble armrests to seats in the Kennedy Center.