INTERVIEW: Inside Hollywood's embrace of Donald Trump at the Kennedy Center Honors
"Thank you President Trump" were words that America's celebrities rarely uttered during Trump's first term. At the Kennedy Center Honors, Ambassador Richard Grenell and his team changed that.
For years, Hollywood shunned President Donald Trump and the broader Republican Party. But at this year’s Kennedy Center Honors — the first to be hosted by the sitting president — Hollywood’s brightest stars came to Washington, D.C.
KISS, Gloria Gaynor, George Strait, and Michael Crawford — the event’s honorees — were joined by stars across the eras of Hollywood. Vince Gill, Kurt Russell, Brooks & Dunn, Montana Tucker, Neal McDonough, and more walked the red carpet and roamed around the Kennedy Center, before honoring their friends for their lifetime achievements.
The Washington Reporter was on site for the evening’s red carpet, and interviewed the celebrities and cabinet members as they joined the evening’s festivities.
Red carpet VIPs discussed their favorite performers but also had warnings for Democratic lawmakers like Gov. Tim Walz (D., Minn.). Dr. Oz, who predicted the awards show would see its highest-ever ratings, told the Reporter that Minnesotans need to be on high alert in the wake of the Medicaid welfare scandal roiling the state.
“The governor needs to clean up the act in Minnesota,” Oz, the administrator for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, said. “It has been a crash course in corruption, to really get into the nitty gritty of what’s gone wrong.”
“Unless the governor treats it seriously,” he warned Walz, “then he’s going to have to look under his couch for loose change, because he’s going to have to pay for some of these Medicaid programs with Minnesota dollars, and I don’t think that taxpayers there are going to be very happy when they realize that billions of dollars have been taken out of the coffers and that nobody was watching… we have done our best to help.”
“I sent him a letter on Friday earnestly offering him a couple of steps that he has to follow through on,” Oz continued. “We’ll help too, we’ll put a hand out trying to pull him towards the light, but he’s got to help as well. He’s got to reciprocate by putting his team out there to work with us, but also to be transparent, because what’s happened over the last several years is embarrassing.”
Oz, a longtime TV staple, lauded Ambassador Richard Grenell specifically for his work stabilizing the center. “Let me just give a shout out to Ric Grenell,” Oz said. “That man is working wonders here. He’s made it fiscally solvent, the entertainment is wonderful. I actually like some of the children’s programming, which means the whole family can come and participate. What art is really about is giving you insight into what the world can be like.”
“As a scientist,” Oz added, “one of the coolest things is when art leads the way, science can follow, and this has been true throughout history. Frankly, I don’t think that Einstein would have been able to discover relativity if it wasn’t for Impressionism…plus, Sly Stallone is my neighbor.” Dr. Oz was the first to float his wife, Lisa Oz, for next year’s awards.
Joining Oz among the Trump officials was Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and his wife Allison — a member of the Kennedy Center’s Board of Directors. He told the Reporter that he was there as Allison’s “plus one.”
“It’s all about the arts,” Allison said, of why supporting the center is a priority to her. Prior to the event, Grenell stressed that the evening had surprises in store for those in attendance, and Allison confirmed that she had no idea what some of them would be ahead of time.
“Garth Brooks covering KISS was not on my bingo card when I arrived, but he crushed it,” Rep. Bryan Steil (R., Wis.) told the Reporter. He added that “President Trump was a terrific host for the awards.”
Lutnick noted that the Kennedy Center building still needs cosmetic work.
“This building has great, great acoustics,” Lutnick said. “But it was run down, they hadn’t cared for it, they hadn’t taken care of it. So now with the $250 million that President Trump got in the One Big, Beautiful Bill, this building is going to sparkle like there’s no tomorrow, and it’s got great acoustics. If the acoustics are not right in the beginning, they’re not going to be right in the end. This place sparkles with acoustics.”
In recent months, Trump and Lutnick have spearheaded the Kennedy Center’s usage as an arts center to combat anti-Semitism; their foundation helped the center host one of the only public commemorations of the October 7 terrorist attacks in the nation’s capital earlier this year.
“The Kennedy Center is a place to convene, to bring people together,” Howard said. “So that’s what we did on October 7th; we had all the hostage families here, keeping their voices loud and in the forefront. And of course the next day, President Trump makes the [ceasefire] deal. So that was unbelievable.”
The duo was joined for the October 7 commemoration by roughly half of Trump’s cabinet, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, and more.
Alina Habba, who recently stepped down as acting United States attorney for the District of New Jersey, told the Reporter prior to the shows that she was excited for everyone’s performance. “I love everybody that’s singing,” she said. “I’m just excited to enjoy a nice night of music and entertainment.”
She added that Trump’s successful push for Congress to authorize $250 million for the center was “not surprising to me because President Trump and the First Lady love music, they love entertainment, it’s in his soul. Music is a big part of this administration; you hear it in the halls of the White House.” Habba also offered a Trumpian suggestion for an honoree for next year: Andrea Bocelli.
For Trump himself, the event marked a heel turn in how Hollywood has viewed the 45th and 47th president. Shortly after his second inauguration, Trump named legendary Hollywood actors like Stallone, Mel Gibson and Jon Voight as special ambassadors to Hollywood. The move gained increased significance as California recovered from the devastating wildfires that many attribute in part to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s (D., Calif.) environmental policies.
But the event’s adulation extended beyond just the honorees. As magician Peter Criss lauded KISS from the main stage, he also thanked Trump for making the event possible.
Much of Trump’s cabinet, including Attorney General Pam Bondi, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, Lutnick, and more joined for the event. Speaker Mike Johnson (R., La.) was seated in a position of honor immediately next to the president, who thanked Johnson and congressional Republicans for steering approximately a quarter of a billion dollars to the Kennedy Center as part of the One Big, Beautiful Bill.
Johnson’s fellow congressional Republicans told the Reporter following the event that “if anybody knows how to throw a party, it’s Donald Trump.”
“The Kennedy Center Honors are a tremendous tribute to America’s talent,” Rep. Michael Baumgartner (R., Wash.) said. “Sly Stallone, KISS, George Strait, Gloria Gaynor, Michael Crawford — what a night. Every American should be proud to celebrate these talented heroes who’ve inspired so many and every American should appreciate the marvelous job that President Trump and Ambassador Grenell have done with the Kennedy Center.”
Mary Helen Bowers, one of the center’s board members, told the Reporter that Trump and Grenell are “really putting a focus on bringing arts back into the center of American culture, and using the arts as diplomacy and breaking down barriers, but also inviting Americans and other people into the center to enjoy.”
She echoed fellow board member Allison Lutnick’s note about how much of the evening had been kept under lock and key; while Trump predictably emceed the evening, he had told the board “I shouldn’t do it, [but] they’re going to make me do it.” Bowers, a successful ballet dancer, told the Reporter that next year she’d like to see “a ballerina or a male ballet dancer” receive the center’s highest honor.
Attendees told the Reporter that the event was everything they wanted and then more. Trevor Milton, who spent part of the night with Trump, told the Reporter that, while it was his first time at the Kennedy Center Honors, he was “surrounded by many couples that have been going for decades. The message was the same: Trump has saved the Kennedy Center and the show was spectacular.”
Milton, who donated millions of dollars to the Kennedy Center, hosted the honorees in the SyberJet Lounge, named after the company he is CEO of. There, they “socialized with fans and friends from around the world. They graciously took photos with anyone who asked and then topped it off in the boxes next to President Trump.”
“To say the Kennedy Center Honors was a success is an understatement,” Milton said. “Ambassador Granell is working with Trump to save the Kennedy Center and the SyberJet VIP lounge is the first step to showing off what will be done over the coming months at the Kennedy center.”
Jackie Sackstein, another first time attendee, told the Reporter that “it was amazing from start to finish. President Trump still hasn’t lost his hosting skills from his Apprentice days and the performances kept me singing and dancing in my seat.”
“It was truly an unforgettable and inspiring night,” Doug Quezada told the Reporter. “Legends were celebrated, President Trump did a superb job hosting, and Ambassador Grenell and the team at the Kennedy Center orchestrated a successful and powerful Honors event.”
Another attendee, who called the event the “best night of her life,” remarked that “the song selections and performances reminded everyone why George Strait is the undeniable King of Country Music.” The festivities, which included photo booths with themes of every award winner, were “nostalgic, captivating, and unapologetically American.”