Donald Trump said that the slate of honorees for this year’s Kennedy Center Honors will be announced on Wednesday.
This will be the first awardees announced since Trump ousted board members and ensured that he would become chairman of the Kennedy Center. That gives him and his allies to pick the recipients.
Trump wrote on Truth Social, “GREAT Nominees for the TRUMP/KENNEDY CENTER, whoops, I mean, KENNEDY CENTER, AWARDS. They will be announced Wednesday. Tremendous work is being done, and money being spent, on bringing it back to the absolute TOP LEVEL of luxury, glamour, and entertainment. It had fallen on hard times, physically, BUT WILL SOON BE MAKING A MAJOR COMEBACK!!! President DJT”
CBS will broadcast the ceremony in December, but its deal for rights expires after the next event. No new deal has been announced.
In his first visit to the Kennedy Center since becoming chairman, Trump suggested names including Sylvester Stallone, Paul Anka and Johnny Mathis, per The Washington Post, as well as giving posthumous honors and to those outside of entertainment. He also suggested that he himself could host.
The ceremony itself is hardly a ratings blockbuster, but CBS has carried the event since its start in 1978. It’s been a way for network executives to mingle with D.C. power players, as the event in the past has drawn congressional leaders, the chief justice of the Supreme Court and the president himself.
During his first term, Trump declined to attend the ceremony, after some of the honorees in 2017 said that they would boycott a traditional White House pre-reception.
Although Trump has called for zeroing out funding for the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities, he has taken a special interest in the Kennedy Center, not just the honors but in the arts complex. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act provides $257 million to renovate and restore the Kennedy Center, which opened in 1971.
The president’s reference to the “Trump/Kennedy Center” comes from proposed legislation to rename the complex after himself. A House committee last month also passed legislation to rename the Opera House at the Kennedy Center after First Lady Melania Trump.
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