President Donald Trump joked about renaming the Kennedy Center after himself while hosting the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts’ annual awards gala in Washington, D.C., on Sunday.
“This place is hot,” the president said during remarks at the 48th annual Kennedy Center Honors, where he praised the building’s latest transformation to his own specifications. “The Trump-Kennedy Center. I mean, the Kennedy Center. I’m sorry. It’s so embarrassing.”
The president went on to pay tribute to veteran Hollywood action star Sylvester Stallone, Kiss frontman Gene Simmons, disco icon Gloria Gaynor, country singer George Strait and Michael Crawford, who played the role of the Phantom in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s film “Phantom.” Phantom of the OperaTrump’s favorite.
President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump on the red carpet at the 48th Annual Kennedy Center Honors Sunday night (AP)
The event was attended by Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles and Attorney General Pam Bondi, forming a strong conservative contingent in the audience.
The show, which will air on CBS on Dec. 23, will be preceded by an awards ceremony at the White House and a formal State Department dinner for the winners on Saturday night.
Ahead of Sunday’s festivities, Trump, accompanied by his wife Melania Trump, took questions from reporters on the red carpet and was asked directly: “Would you change the name of the Kennedy Center to the Trump Center?”
“It’s not up to me,” he replied. “We have a board of directors. The first lady is the honorary chair.”
Trump presented the medal to Sylvester Stallone in the Oval Office of the White House on Saturday (Getty)
Melania is actually one of five honorary chairs of the agency, along with her four predecessors as first lady, while the president appointed himself chair of the agency’s board of directors and replaced the center’s slate of Democratic-appointed trustees with hand-picked allies.
Trump did so in February to purge the Kennedy Center of its liberal leanings as part of his culture war against “woke” values, describing the institution’s previous programming as consisting largely of drag performances and “anti-American propaganda” and claiming it promoted divisive left-wing political ideologies.
President attends opening night of new Broadway musical after leaving his mark on its production Les Misérables In June, he was both booed and cheered when the night was picketed by drag queens and boycotted by some performers.
The selection of winners at Sunday’s ceremony also reflected his personal taste. According to CNN, Trump admitted in August that he was “98 percent involved” in selecting the lineup, a decision typically made by a committee of artists based on input from the board of directors and public demand.
Trump Kennedy Center honorees pose with their medals at the White House on Saturday (AP)
The president paid tribute to Stallone, Simmons, Gaynor, Strait and Crawford on stage, saying: “Tonight we saw pure talent on full display. Nothing could have been done better and perhaps no one more inspiring than the people you watched and respected tonight.”
“That’s great, isn’t it?” Trump continued. “It’s unbelievable. It’s the greatest night in Kennedy Center history, and it’s not even a game. Our country is back – and they’re trying to get [Joe] Biden has done this four years in a row. I would have watched it. “
His comments and the political allegiances of most in attendance ran counter to a promise made by Kennedy Center Chairman Richard Grenell at Saturday’s State Department banquet, where he declared that the venue “needs to be a place of bipartisanship.”
“It needs to be a place where we come together and celebrate together and we don’t care who you voted for president,” Grenell said.