In the dead of night, behind a screen, the president’s name was purged from the facade of the Washington building

In the dead of night, behind a screen, the president’s name was purged from the facade of the Washington building

Donald Trump’s name has been removed from the facade of the Kennedy Center in Washington DC, hours after a judge rejected an emergency appeal to block the removal of the president’s name.

Work began in the early hours of Saturday, shortly after the performing arts venue missed a federal judge’s two-week deadline to excise the words “The Donald J Trump and” from its exterior by Friday at 11.59pm local time.

The extra words were added last December after Trump’s handpicked board of trustees voted unanimously to rename the venue, which was designated as a living memorial to the 35th US president, John F Kennedy, by Congress in 1964 and opened in 1971.