George Strait, Sylvester Stallone, KISS lead Kennedy Center honorees; Trump says he will host event

President Donald Trump visited the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington on Wednesday morning to announce this year’s class of Kennedy Center honorees, and to reveal that he had decided to host the ceremony personally.

The five honorees this year are as follows: country music legend George Strait, English actor Michael Crawford, action-film star Sylvester Stallone, disco-era singer Gloria Gaynor and rock band KISS.

Trump has taken a strong interest in the Kennedy Center’s affairs ever since naming himself chair in February when he purged its traditionally bipartisan board of Biden-era appointees and restocked it with loyalists.

In March, Trump toured the center and met with his new board for the first time and floated the idea of hosting the Kennedy Center Honors ceremony himself, according to an audio recording of the meeting obtained by the New York Times. Trump referred to himself then as “the king of ratings.”

He boycotted the ceremony during his first term after several of the artists who were being honored criticized him. This time, he suggested he had vetted the final list himself, saying he had rejected several prospective honorees he called “wokesters.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.