President Donald Trump has spent months teasing that he wants to rebrand the Kennedy Center after himself. On Sunday evening, the building was his in all but name, as MAGA faithful packed the aisles, and the president reveled in his control of Washington’s flagship arts facility and its signature awards show.
“This is the greatest evening in the history of the Kennedy Center,” Trump boasted during one of his stints as the show’s host, with a dash of self-deprecation as the crowd laughed. “There’s never been anything like this.”
Indeed, Trump on Sunday became the first president to host the Kennedy Center Honors, recognizing artists that he said he had handpicked to win. The role, his latest intervention in an organization he once snubbed, spotlighted the president’s increasing appetite to conquer Washington’s institutions, sometimes through a hostile takeover. On Sunday night, the audience cheered Trump onstage and some clamored for him during breaks.
The show on Sunday brought out a different Trump than the politician who often uncorks long, freewheeling speeches — a phenomenon that visibly bored some Kennedy Center donors at a reception the night before as they stood through the president’s 37-minute disquisition on topics spanning the New England Patriots, a Ultimate Fighting Championship event scheduled at the White House next year and crime in U.S. cities, among other points.
Instead, Trump was loose, funny and generally focused Sunday night as he worked to deliver the punchy material that typically makes for good TV, mocking the crowd and occasionally the performers themselves.
“It’s an honor to see so many of my friends … some I love and respect, some I truly hate,” the president said to laughter, one of several times he leaned on insult comedy. At another point, he suggested that some of the highest-profile performers onstage “probably don’t like me very much” but that didn’t matter in service of the show, which is scheduled to air nationally in two weeks on CBS and stream on Paramount Plus.
“We don’t care if they like Trump. We want bigness, right?” the president said, without naming any performers. Cheap Trick, the rock band that closed the evening with a tribute to Kiss, one of the honorees, had once declined to play the 2016 RNC that nominated Trump.
Trump’s takeover of the Kennedy Center has antagonized many members of the arts community, with some refusing to perform at the center, citing the president’s right-wing politics. After taking little interest in the facility during his first term and skipping its annual awards show, the president this year terminated the center’s past leaders, shifted the programming to encourage more Christian-themed events and has begun renovating the building.
Some Democratic lawmakers have launched investigations into how the president has remade the organization and allowed political allies to use the facility at low- or no-cost.
Trump allies, including Kennedy Center Director Richard Grenell, say his focus in critical to the institution’s success. Trump has secured more than $250 million in funding from Congress, and officials said this year’s Honors raised $23 million, nearly doubling last year’s total and setting a record.
“What we’re seeing with President Trump and Ambassador Grenell is a big focus on putting arts back into the center of American culture,” Mary Helen Bowers, a former ballerina with the New York City Ballet and a Trump-appointed member of the Kennedy Center’s board, said in an interview.
The president entered the building just 12 minutes before the show — and his hosting duties — were scheduled to begin. But he still savored the red carpet, inching down with first lady Melania Trump to stop for photos and questions from more than a dozen reporters for 23 minutes. He joked about nominating himself for an award next year and spoke at length about the Kennedy Center’s renovations.
Asked if he’d prepared to host the show, Trump countered: “maybe I haven’t prepared.”
“Maybe you want to be a little bit loose,” Trump added, invoking past TV hosts like Johnny Carson and Bob Hope as models, and seizing the moment to denigrate current TV host Jimmy Kimmel — a frequent foe — as “terrible.”
“You know what you have to be? You have to be yourself,” Trump said. He told another reporter to ask him after the show if it had been harder than delivering the State of the Union. He spent about 15 minutes onstage, supplemented with about five minutes of prerecorded clips from the Oval Office.
During breaks, attendees in the crowd jockeyed to get Trump’s attention. “Mr. President! Mr. President!” one woman yelled from the orchestra section, trying to engage with Trump, who was in a balcony above.
The evening’s honorees, who included actor Sylvester Stallone and singer Gloria Gaynor, also appeared to swap seats so they would be seated next to the president when it was their turn to be celebrated onstage — and ensuring that Trump would persistently be in a TV camera frame.
The performers and presenters included several country music legends, such as Garth Brooks, Miranda Lambert, Vince Gill and duo Brooks and Dunn. But Hollywood star power was noticeably light compared to past Kennedy Center Honors, with fewer performers or presenters on the level of George Clooney and Julia Roberts — high-powered actors who appeared at recent honors, and were also top Democratic fundraisers last year. Guests could be heard at points murmuring questions about who was onstage.
In this new universe, Trump was arguably the biggest star, and the weekend orbited around him. In a late switch, the president elected to recognize the honorees on Saturday afternoon in the Oval Office, rather than at a planned State Department reception later that night.
The red carpet before Sunday’s show was packed with tuxedo-clad Trump appointees, such as Stephen Miller, the president’s deputy chief of staff for policy, or Todd Blanche, a former personal lawyer for Trump who is now the deputy U.S. attorney general. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth skipped talking with reporters to briefly huddle with Grenell.
MAGA supporters also spilled into the foyer during show breaks. Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) spoke with conservative influencer Nick Sortor about his experiences in Washington, as Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kansas) stood nearby, surveying the crowd. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick was besieged by well-wishers; a man presented Mehmet Oz, the former TV host and now head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, with an autograph pad.
The event also drew past Trump officials who are making waves beyond Washington. Brian Harrison, who served in the president’s first administration and is now a Texas state representative at the center of the state’s higher-education battles, spoke to reporters from conservative media outlets. Paul Dans, who also served in Trump’s first term before becoming the architect of the Project 2025 playbook and launching a bid to unseat Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina), accompanied his wife, Bowers, the Kennedy Center board member.
Meanwhile, executives from Paramount Skydance — which owns CBS and Paramount Plus — buttonholed Trump allies and GOP officials, hours before the company formally launched its hostile takeover bid for Warner Bros Discovery on Monday morning.
Many of Trump’s supporters maintained that the 54-year-old building, originally named to honor President John F. Kennedy Jr. after his assassination, should be renamed to celebrate the current president.
“Why not?” said Kari Lake, a Trump appointee at the US Agency for Global Media. “Just like he’s saving America, he’s saving the Kennedy Center. ”
Janay Kingsberry, Allie Caren and Alisa Shodiyev Kaff contributed to this report.
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