The 5 Most Outrageous Things Donald Trump Said in Announcing the 2025 Kennedy Center Honorees

By now we all know that Donald Trump has no filter. At a press conference at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts on Wednesday (Aug. 13), at which he announced this year’s five Kennedy Center Honorees, he blurted out some doozies, which we rounded up here.

In case you missed it, country icon George Strait, 1970s rock veterans KISS, Broadway star Michael Crawford, disco queen Gloria Gaynor and actor Sylvester Stallone are the 2025 Kennedy Center Honorees.

None of those selections was a shock, though Gaynor has a fairly slim resume to receive an honor of this magnitude – just two top 10 hits on the Billboard Hot 100.

The real shocker of the press conference came when Trump revealed that he will host this year’s ceremony. It will mark the first time a president – sitting or not – has hosted the show. Most of the previous hosts have been performing artists, but there have been three exceptions. Caroline Kennedy, daughter of President Kennedy, hosted from 2003 to 2012 and opened the show in 2017 (when there was no formal host). Two renowned broadcast journalists have hosted – Eric Sevareid in 1979, followed by Walter Cronkite from 1981 to 2002.

In his first term, Trump never once attended the Kennedy Center Honors gala, making him the first President to never attend the event during a term in office.

This is the first class of honorees since Trump took over the Kennedy Center in February, firing trustees who had been appointed by President Biden and replacing them with his own picks.

Here are the five most outrageous things Trump said in announcing this year’s Kennedy Center Honorees.