President Donald Trump on Wednesday named country music star George Strait, “Rocky” actor Sylvester Stallone, singer Gloria Gaynor, the rock band Kiss and actor-singer Michael Crawford among the first batch of Kennedy Center Honors nominees under his leadership as the center’s chairman and said he’ll host the awards program.
Trump also said he’ll “fully renovate” the entire infrastructure of the Kennedy Center to make it a “crown jewel” of arts and culture in the United States.
“We’re going to bring it to a higher level than it ever hit,” the president said, adding the venue would be featured in next year’s celebrations of America’s 250th anniversary.
Trump said he didn’t want to host the program but was invited to do so and agreed.
The Republican president avoided the Kennedy Center Honors awards program during his first term after artists said they wouldn’t attend out of protest. This year, he has taken over as the Kennedy Center’s new chairman and fired the board of trustees, which he replaced with loyalists.
In a Truth Social post on Tuesday, Trump teased a name change for the center, formally the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, and said it would be restored to its past glory.
“GREAT Nominees for the TRUMP/KENNEDY CENTER, whoops, I mean, KENNEDY CENTER, AWARDS,” Trump wrote. He said work was being done on the site that would bring 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!!!” he wrote.
In a statement on its social media feed, the Kennedy Center said it was “honored” to host Trump, who was visiting for the third time since January.
“Thanks to his advocacy, our beautiful building will undergo renovations to restore its prestige and grandeur,” the venue said.
Trump complained during a March visit that the building is in a state of “tremendous disrepair.”
Trump, who had indicated he wanted a more active role in the selection process, said he was “about 98% involved” in choosing the honorees. He said he “turned down plenty” of names, saying those individuals were “too woke,” or too liberal. He described the artists he announced on Wednesday, including several of his favorites, as “great people.”
Historically, a bipartisan advisory committee selects the recipients, who over the years have ranged from George Balanchine and Tom Hanks to Aretha Franklin and Stephen Sondheim. A message sent to the Kennedy Center press office asking how this year’s honorees were selected wasn’t returned Tuesday.
In the past, Trump has floated the idea of granting Kennedy Center Honors status to singer-songwriter Paul Anka and Stallone, one of three actors Trump named as Hollywood ambassadors earlier this year. Anka was supposed to perform “My Way” at Trump’s first inaugural and backed out at the last moment.
The Kennedy Center Honors were established in 1978 and have been given to a broad range of artists. Until Trump’s first term, presidents of both major political parties traditionally attended the annual ceremony, even when they disagreed politically with a given recipient.
Prominent liberals such as Barbra Streisand and Warren Beatty were honored during the administration of Republican George W. Bush, and a leading conservative, Charlton Heston, was feted during the administration of Democrat Bill Clinton.
In 2017, after honoree Norman Lear declared he wouldn’t attend a White House celebration in protest of Trump’s proposed cuts to federal arts funding, Trump and first lady Melania Trump decided to skip the Kennedy Center event and remained away throughout his first term. Honorees during that time included such Trump critics as Cher, Lin-Manuel Miranda and Sally Field.
Since returning to office, Trump has taken a more forceful stance on the Kennedy Center and inserted himself into its governance. Besides naming himself chairman and remaking the board, he has indicated he’d take over decisions regarding programming at the center and vowed to end events featuring performers in drag.
The steps have drawn further criticism from some artists. In March, the producers of “Hamilton” pulled out of staging the Broadway hit musical in 2026, citing Trump’s aggressive takeover of the institution’s leadership.
House Republicans added an amendment to a spending bill Trump signed into law in July to rename the Kennedy Center’s Opera House after Melania Trump, but that venue has yet to be renamed. Maria Shriver, a niece of the late President Kennedy, a Democrat, has criticized as “insane” a separate House proposal to rename the entire center after Trump.
Italie reported from New York. Associated Press writer Darlene Superville in Washington contributed to this report.
