Donald Trump announced the list of this year’s Kennedy Center Honorees on Wednesday, the first since he took control of the institution, while he said that he will host the event.
The honorees this year include George Strait and Michael Crawford.
By making the announcement himself, Trump is taking on the role of producer/showman, elevating the attention to the show, which has been aired on CBS since its origin yet is hardly a ratings blockbuster. In the past, the Kennedy Center and CBS have announced the honorees via press release, embargoed to some outlets.
Trump has previous bashed the selections as including “radical left lunatics,” but the center has honored country music performers, like Amy Grant and Garth Brooks, and others who have kept their political opinions to themselves. Last year’s honorees included Francis Ford Coppola, the Grateful Dead, Bonnie Raitt, Arturo Sandoval and the Apollo Theater.
Unlike his first term, when Trump avoided the ceremony, he has taken a special interest this time around. He ousted Joe Biden’s nominees to the Kennedy Center board, ensuring that he would be appointed as the chairman of the institution, a first for a president. He’s also taken a special interest in renovating the center, with the GOP-controlled Congress including $257 million in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act to do so. Democrats have pointed out that Trump has sought to zero out funding for the National Endowment for the Arts, which spreads its grants out to arts organizations around the country, yet boosted the Kennedy Center, which has a core audience concentrated around the Beltway.
