{"id":497056,"date":"2026-03-01T07:09:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-01T07:09:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/497056\/"},"modified":"2026-03-01T07:09:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-01T07:09:07","slug":"kennedy-center-honors-will-add-trump-to-name-move-to-smaller-venue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/497056\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Kennedy Center Honors’ Will Add ‘Trump’ to Name, Move to Smaller Venue"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\t\u201cThe Kennedy Center<\/a> Honors\u201d have been presented under that longstanding, historic name for the final time. (Or at least for the last time for the next three years.) To the surprise of probably few people, the awards program will henceforth be known as \u201cThe Trump Kennedy Center Honors,\u201d in keeping with the effort of the board installed by President Donald J. Trump<\/a> to rebrand everything related to the institution with his name.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe show will also take place at an alternative, smaller venue for at least the next couple of years, and not at the historic hall in Washington, D.C. that was had its own name change to give the president top billing, under authority that is still disputed by many experts.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe program \u201cwill definitely go forward,\u201d said Richard Grenell<\/a>, the president of the center, in an interview with D.C. news radio station WTOP. \u201cIt will probably just be in a smaller venue, which just means ticket demand will be even higher.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe new location for \u201cThe Trump Kennedy Center Honors\u201d \u201cis yet to be determined,\u201d but \u201cwe\u2019re already looking for different places,\u201d Grenell told the news station.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Washington Post <\/a>confirmed Grenell\u2019s radio revelation about the name change and move with representatives of the center on Saturday.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe reason the show will have to find a different home is due to the fact that the Kennedy Center \u2013 or Trump Kennedy Center, depending on where you stand \u2014 is set to close for a couple of years for an extensive and controversial overhaul. Grenell\u2019s announcement of the closure, scheduled to take place this year, followed a series of news reports about withdrawals from the center by cultural institutions or individual artists that left its calendar for 2026 severely underpopulated. Some who have decried the politicization of the center under the Trump administration have held that the highly unexpected move to submit the center to an extensive makeover is a cover for the inability to draw top acts and full houses amid the current polarization, although Grenell has maintained that it is because the building is dilapidated.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe most recent broadcast of what was then still called \u201cThe Kennedy Center Honors<\/a>\u201d was hosted by Trump and saluted artists who have a friendly relationship with the president. Trump said that he wanted to weed out \u201cwokesters\u201d from receiving the honors, and noted that the five recipients \u2014 Kiss, Sylvester Stallone, Gloria Gaynor, George Strait and Michael Crawford \u2014 \u201call went through me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe president predicted that the first \u201cKennedy Center Honors\u201d to feature him as host and curator., broadcast on Dec. 23 on CBS and Paramount+, would be \u201cthe highest-rated show that they\u2019ve ever done.\u201d That did not come to pass, as the 48th annual show delivered the lowest ratings in the history of the program. It was down by 26 percent from the year before, with Nielsen reporting an average 4.1 million viewers.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe ratings were not a concern to the center, according to Roma Daravi, VP of public relations for the center, who said in a statement: \u201cComparing this year\u2019s broadcast ratings to prior years is a classic apples-to-oranges comparison and evidence of far-left bias\u2026 The program performed extremely well across key demographics and platforms, despite industry and timing disadvantages, including a Tuesday air date two days before Christmas\u2026 With overall television usage down roughly 20% year over year, the broadcast still tied for the No. 1 spot among adults aged 25\u201354, alongside a live NBA doubleheader.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tTrump spoke to the news about the Kennedy Center\u2019s impending closure at a February news conference, saying he plans to keep the exterior of the building as it is, but making no such promises for the interior. \u201cI\u2019m not ripping it down,\u201d he told reporters in the Oval Office. \u201cI\u2019ll be using the steel. So we\u2019re using the structure.\u201d Touting the $200 million renovation, he added, \u201cIt\u2019s in very bad shape\u2026 sort of dangerous.\u201d He promised the renovated center will feature \u201cthe highest-grade marbles, the highest-grade everything\u2026 \u00a0I think there won\u2019t be anything like it in the country.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tNaturally, many eyes will be on not just where the \u201cTrump Kennedy Centers\u201d lands as it exits its longtime home, but who the president will secure for a second set of hand-picked or -chosen recipients in the arts. Most of the honorees selected for the 2025 honors do not have fan bases that would likely rise up against them being associated with Trump, although the band Cheap Trick, which performed in honor of their old friends in Kiss, suffered a significant backlash on social media just for playing at the event.<\/p>\n

\n\tGrenell has argued that is only the left that is politicizing the center, although he is not shy about sharing his political beliefs as director, sometimes using his X account to post dozens of pro-MAGA or anti-Democrat tweets per day. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cThe Kennedy Center Honors\u201d have been presented under that longstanding, historic name for the final time. (Or at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":497057,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[1072,88,51879,18229,227188],"class_list":{"0":"post-497056","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-donald-j-trump","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-kennedy-center","11":"tag-richard-grenell","12":"tag-the-kennedy-center-honors"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/497056","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=497056"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/497056\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/497057"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=497056"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=497056"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=497056"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}