Amna Nawaz
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WATCH: Trump announces 2025 Kennedy Center honorees
Posted
August 13, 2025
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August 13, 2025
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11:40Now PlayingPresident Donald Trump announced Wednesday that he will host the 2025 Kennedy Center Honors, as he revealed the recipients of this year's honors.
The honorees include actor Sylvester Stallone, country music legend George Strait, singer Gloria Gaynor, British actor Michael Crawford and the rock band KISS.
"The 48th Kennedy Honorees are outstanding people, outstanding group, incredible," Trump said.
The president said he was "about 98 percent" in the selection of this year's honorees. “They all went through me,” he said, noting that he turned down some suggestions because they were “too woke. I had a couple of wokesters.”
While speaking from the Hall of Nations, Trump also previewed plans to "fully renovate" the Kennedy Center and make it a "crown jewel of American arts and culture once again."
Trump said all the seats in the venue will be replaced. He also thanked Republicans in Congress for $257 million in funds to go toward renovating the Kennedy Center, which opened in 1971 as a living memorial to President John F. Kennedy.
Trump, who avoided events at the center during his first term, fired members of the Kennedy Center's Board of Trustees and appointed himself as chairman earlier this year.
In July, House Republicans passed an amendment to a spending bill that would rename the Kennedy Center's Opera House after first lady Melania Trump.
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