Wow! The Trumpiest Kennedy Center list ever

In the most-hyped announcement of Kennedy Center Honor nominees ever, President Trump appeared this morning at the Kennedy Center, or, as he put it on Truth Social last night, the “TRUMP/KENNEDY CENTER, whoops.” Now all the teasing is done, and the nominees stand revealed as: country superstar George Strait, the original Broadway Phantom of the Opera Michael Crawford, Sylvester Stallone, Gloria Gaynor and, yes, KISS. It’s 2025 and Donald Trump is enshrining KISS at the Kennedy Center. We live in the greatest timeline.

While there will certainly be objections, this isn’t a particularly objectionable list. But it is the Trumpiest Kennedy Center list ever. Last year, the Biden administration honored the Apollo Theater and the Grateful Dead, among others. Fat chance Trump would include those. In 2022, George Clooney, the anti-Trump, got the call. During Trump’s first term, honorees included Lin-Manuel Miranda, Sesame Street and Joan Baez. But Trump wasn’t in charge of our nation’s leading cultural institution then. He is now.

The President had kind words about all the nominees, but he seemed most excited about Stallone, telling the origin story of the Rocky movie at great length. “He’s a little bit tough,” Trump said. “He’s a little bit different. He’s a little tough guy… The only one that’s a bigger name on the Hollywood Wall of Fame is a guy named Donald Trump. I’m on the Hollywood Walk of Fame too, believe it or not.”

We believe it, sir.

Then Trump fulfilled the dream of every 12-year-old boy from Detroit Rock City by reciting the names of the band members of KISS: Paul Stanley, Ace Frehley, Gene Simmons and Peter Criss (the cat), all of whom, younger readers might not know, put out solo albums in 1978. “They’re great people,” Trump said. “They work hard. They’re still working hard. It’s an honor.”

Trump spent many words tying in the revitalization of the Kennedy Center with his overall plan to make Washington, DC sparkling and safe again. “We ended the woke political programming,” he said. “We’re going to have the best entertainment in the world… We have completely reversed the decline of this cherished national institution. Look at this marble. These columns, the next time you see them, will be magnificent. The bones are so good. If you don’t have the bones of a building, you might as well forget it.”

The Kennedy Center Awards ceremony will take place in December. The host will be Donald Trump. “It’s gonna be a big evening,” said Trump. “I said, I’m the President of the United States. Are you fools to ask me to host? They said, sir, you’ll get much better ratings.”

Against all odds, the Kennedy Center board managed to persuade their chairman, a man who loves being on stage and on TV more than any other person who’s ever lived, to host the ceremony. It will be huge, Trump said, bigger than the Academy Awards, which has been bleeding audiences because it became too political. Trump said he finally agreed to do the show because he used to host live finales for The Apprentice, which were very successful and got ratings almost as big as the Academy Awards themselves.

“I don’t want to make it political,” Trump said. “Maybe I will make it political. But it will be our kind of political… We’re going to have a tremendous day in December. It’s going to be very special.”

This is an important moment for President Trump because he’s long coveted his own Kennedy Center Honors nomination. “I wanted one, but they never gave me one,” he said. “I waited and waited and waited. Instead, I became chairman. Maybe next year they’ll honor Trump.”

Shout it, Mr. President. Shout it. Shout it out loud.