On Friday, a judge said Donald Trump’s name was put on the Kennedy Center in the wrong way. The judge also stopped the government from closing the place for big repairs. This was another legal problem for Trump’s plan to leave his mark on the nation’s capital.

Trump said he is stopping his plan and giving control back to Congress.

"If I cannot be free to do what I do best and bring this Institution back, in body, money, and art, I do not want to keep going on a journey to ‘NEVER NEVER LAND,’" Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.

Judge Christopher Cooper in Washington, D.C., said the Kennedy Center board voted on March 16 to close the place. He said the vote was "ill-informed and seemingly preordained" and did not follow the law. The administration said the work would start in July and last about two years, but Cooper’s ruling stops those plans for now.

AP Washington correspondent Sagar Meghani reports a federal judge says it was not allowed to add President Trump’s name to the Kennedy Center.

"The trustees may have checked if closing was right in some careful ways. This was not one," he wrote.

Cooper also said the board went too far when it added Trump’s name to the center by itself. Congress gave the Kennedy Center its name, and only Congress can change it, he said.

The judge, who was chosen by Democratic President Barack Obama, told the defendants to remove Trump’s name from the building’s front and any “official materials,” like digital or paper signs, in two weeks.

"Can the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts be renamed without Congress saying yes? The answer is no. No other person can also be named on the front portico of the building," Cooper wrote.

Trump said the judge "should be ashamed of himself" after the decision.

The Republican president said he told his government to "make all necessary arrangements" to move the center to Congress.

Trump wants to change old places in Washington in his second term. He took down the East Wing of the White House to build a ballroom. His name or picture is on government buildings, including the U.S. Institute of Peace and Justice Department headquarters. He wants a big arch over the Potomac River.

People against other Trump building projects went to court and won. But the district court judges will probably not make the final choice because the administration is trying to appeal.

Roma Daravi, the Kennedy Center’s vice president of public relations, said Friday the group is "sure that on appeal the court will support the Board’s wish to recognize President Trump’s big work for our nation’s cultural center." She said the decision would be looked at "carefully."

"The Center still needs a lot of repair," Daravi said. "President Trump got $257 million, and Congress approved it. The money is ready, and we will keep trying to fix the Trump Kennedy Center for all Americans to enjoy."

Cooper had hearings in late April about two lawsuits about the project. One was by a group that wants to protect old places and history. The other was by Rep. Joyce Beatty, an Ohio Democrat who is a board member of the Kennedy Center. He said yes to Beatty's request but no to the other one.

Beatty said the decision was good for the Kennedy Center and the performing arts. “Now hopefully people can come back to work, we can keep being the Kennedy Center we were meant to be,” she said.

Justice Department lawyers said the building plans are small and the board can make them without outside approval.

The people suing worry the president and his board friends will break the rules to keep the building’s old parts. In earlier court talks, lawyers for Beatty and the groups that want to save the building said the project may be too small, and they pointed to Trump’s words that he would “fully expose” the building’s steel skeleton.

Beatty said she was "very afraid that we will see what happened with the East Wing and what happened with the Rose Garden" if the center is closed and the changes are not watched, about big changes the president made at the White House.

Mike Floca, the Kennedy Center’s top boss and chief worker, spent many weeks in the spring walking a group of lawmakers from both parties and their staffs, with journalists and Washington city officials, through the big building that covers 1.5 million square feet.

The tours were to show that the Kennedy Center started in 1965 and needed big repairs. The walks showed very bad water damage, seen in some places by color changes and water on the floor. Some equipment, including several 800-ton chillers that help cool the building, is very old and needs new parts.

Floca told reporters in April that he thought about fixing the repairs one by one, but he said it was his advice to Trump to close the building and do the renovation all at once.

Trump has been interested in the Kennedy Center since he came back to the White House last year. He chose the board, and it made him chairman. His name was put on the front of a building that is a living monument to Kennedy.

The Kennedy Center had shows before it closed, but it had fewer shows than in past years. Trump went to the first show of the musical “Chicago” in March, and other shows, including “Moulin Rouge,” will be in June.

Bill Maher is a comedian. He has had good and bad times with Trump. He will get the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor on June 28. This may be one of the last big events at the Kennedy Center before it closes.