The 2025 Kennedy Center Honors were held Sunday night at the Kennedy Center, marking the first edition since Donald Trump took over the prestigious Washington, D.C., venue and remade it in his own image. Unlike his first term, when he pointedly skipped the ceremony, in Trump 2.0 the president not only showed up, he essentially produced the entire event: from selecting the conservative-leaning honorees (KISS, Sylvester Stallone, George Strait, Gloria Gaynor, and Michael Crawford), to redesigning the medals they received, to serving as the night’s emcee.
Per Deadline, Trump explained during his opening monologue that he was “going to try and act like Johnny Carson.” He proceeded to do a bit around the word “persistence.”
“If there its one thread that connects all of these amazing artists together, it is the word persistence,” Trump commented. “I can say that with a lot of members of our audience. I know so many of you. You are persistent. Many of you are miserable, horrible people. You are persistent. You never give up. Sometimes I wish you’d give up, but you don’t.”
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He also joked (?) about his desire to rename the Kennedy Center as “the Trump Kennedy Center,” and predicted that the event would likely receive bad reviews from critics but good television ratings (it is set to air on CBS on December 23rd).
Among the evening’s other luminaries was Kelsey Grammer, who was ostensibly there to honor Crawford but also praised the president. In a red carpet Q&A with Fox News, he called Trump “one of the greatest presidents we’ve ever had.”
Kurt Russell and Neal McDonough participated in a tribute to Sly Stallone, Vince Gill, Brooks & Dunn, Alan Jackson, and Miranda Lambert all performed in honor of Strait, Elle King, Mike Farris, and Deniece Williams sang the music of Gaynor.
As for KISS, they were curiously commemorated with a performance by country star Garth Brooks, in addition to Marcus King and Cheap Trick. Trump, pointing out that some of the artists such as Garth Brooks (who played Biden’s inauguration) likely weren’t fans of his, commented: “They probably don’t like me very much. But all I know is they’re big, right? We want bigness. We don’t care if they like Trump—we want bigness, right?”