Trump Takes Over The Kennedy Center

Names honorees in between his usual gripes, grievances, and whoppers

Lucky you to be reading this rather than sit through the nearly hour-long word salad known as the “Trump Kennedy Center Honorees” speech. I’m surprised he didn’t just nominate himself during this exchange:

I'm delighted to be here as we officially announce the incredibly talented artists who will be celebrated later this year at the 2025 Kennedy Center Honors. It's going to be a big evening. I've been asked to host. I said, "I'm the President of the United States. Are you fools asking me to do that, sir? You'll get much higher ratings." I said, "I don't care. I'm President of the United States. I won't do it." They said, "Please." And then Susie Wells said to me, "Sir, I'd like to get our host." I said, "Okay, Susie, I'll do it. That's the power she's got." But I just—so I have agreed to host. Do you believe what I have to do? And I didn't want to do it. Okay, they're going to say I insisted. I did not insist, but I think it will be quite successful, actually.

It's been a long time. I used to host The Apprentice finales, and we did rather well with that. So I think we're going to do very well because we have some great honorees—some really great ones. Since 1978, the Kennedy Center Honors have been among the most prestigious awards in the performing arts. I wanted one. I was never able to get one. This year—it's true—actually, I would have taken it if they had called me. I waited and waited and waited, and I said, "The hell with it. I'll become Chairman and I'll give myself an honor. Maybe I'm going to honor Trump next year. We'll honor Trump." Okay.

In between nominations that include Sylvester Stallone, George Strait, Gloria Gaynor, Michael Crawford, and the rock group KISS, Trump couldn’t help bragging about The Apprentice ratings and his own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. You know, the one that’s been destroyed with a sledgehammer, then a pickaxe, and then covered in Black Lives Matter slogans, along with various other sundry forms of vandalism. Yes, they really love him in La-La Land!

In fact, the only one that's a bigger name on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, they say, is a guy named Donald Trump. I'm on the Hollywood Walk of Fame too, if you can believe that one.

We can believe it!

In between all of that, he just couldn’t help but boast about his newest pet project, making Washington D.C. safe again from 15-year-old unarmed teenagers who beat up a guy named “Big Balls,” and claimed that the recent crime stats showing D.C.’s crime had actually dropped was a (wait for it) hoax.

He also trashed the Kennedy Center itself as “run down,” and offered this tidbit on his knowledge of bones:

You look at the marble, you look at the quality of the marble, and with a little fix-up and a little work, we can make it unbelievable. These columns—when you see them next time—will be magnificent. We have some great plans for this. The bones are so good. The bones of a building—if you don’t have the bones, you might as well forget it. I’m working on another building—a thing called the White House—we’re fixing it up so beautifully. It needed it. It’s been many, many years since it’s been properly taken care of.

Also taking this opportunity to trash Fed Chair Jerome Powell:

…we call him “Jerome Too Late Powell.” That name will stick with him forever.

Let’s see, he also perpetrated his usual lie about open borders and the “11,888 illegal alien murderers,” and the biggest whopper about “zero border crossings.” In fact, CBP reports 24,628 nationwide encounters in July 2025 (and 6,177 Border Patrol apprehensions), following similarly low—but not zero—levels in June.

Oh yeah, and he seems to know as much about grass as he does about “bones:”

We’re going to redo the parks, redo the grass. You know, grass has a lifetime, just like people have a lifetime. And the lifetime of this grass has long been gone. When you look at the parks where the grass is old, tired, exhausted—we’re going to redo the grass with the finest grasses.

I know a lot about grass because I own a lot of golf courses. And if you don’t have good grass, you’re not in business very long. Lindsey Graham—by the way, you have very good poll numbers, Lindsey, I just saw—congratulations.

Other gripes included repeats of Monday’s presser that included cashless bail, New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago (all “badly run”, despite the highest crime rates taking place in Red states. Funny (Not funny) that he’s not sending the National Guard to any of them.

During the Q&A with reporters, he bragged about how good the Russians were at hacking, and threatened “consequences—tariffs, very severe consequences. I don’t have to say exactly, but yes—very severe” when asked a question about Russian President Vladimir Putin if he doesn not end the war against Ukraine (Before, of course, blaming it yet again on “Biden’s war”).

One exchange had Trump seemingly concede to the possibility that New York mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani could win the race:

We have a communist running for mayor of New York, and I wish him well—I may have to deal with him. It’s not even conceivable that could happen… and maybe he won’t win, but he won the primaries by quite a bit. Shockingly, he won the primaries. You see some of the people supporting him who truly don’t believe what he’s espousing.

For the record, Mamdami is not a communist. Like Bernie Sanders, he is a Democratic Socialist. Of course, it’s a provocative title that most everyone completely misinterprets, as it supports the use of markets and democratic governance, often emphasizing expanded public services, progressive taxation, and regulation—but within a democratic framework.

Communism historically implies a one-party state with no political pluralism or market economy. Sounds more like what we’re living under now with Trump in charge. Who’s the communist now, Donald?!

When asked about extending the federalization of law enforcement in Washington, D.C., Trump offered this response:

Well, if it’s a national emergency, we can do it without Congress. But we expect to be in Congress before Congress very quickly. Again, we think the Democrats will not do anything to stop crime, but we think the Republicans will do it almost unanimously. So we’re going to need a crime bill that we’ll be putting in, and it’s going to pertain initially to D.C. We’re going to use it as a very positive example, and we’re going to be asking for extensions—long-term extensions—because you can’t have 30 days. Thirty days—by the time you do it…we’re going to have this in good shape.

There is no national emergency. As stated in previous posts and fact-checked literally by every legitimate news agency in existence, D.C.’s crime rate is down. But to Trump, those numbers are (wait for it) rigged.

Don’t let anyone tell you they’re not. The whole statistical charts they made—it’s a rigged deal. They got rid of the guy because he didn’t want to do the numbers the way they wanted them done, and they put their own numbers out. They said, “It’s the best in 20 years.” No—it’s the worst in 20 years.

Of course, none of this is true.

When asked about statehood for Washington, D.C., he ruled it out of hand before launching into yet another diatribe about how terrible the city looks, claiming unsubstantially that a world leader said, “My country looks better—the roads are better—than Washington, D.C.”

Toward the end, during yet another rant about how much the Federal Reserve spent on renovating their building, he claimed:

Now I hear they want to hire 3,000 economists. What are they going to do?

The Federal Reserve employs around 400 PhD economists. Where he pulled these numbers from is anyone’s guess.

Anyway, just more of the same. A near hour’s worth of Trump being Trump. In her Politics Chat video yesterday, noted historian Heather Cox Richardson suggested that his handlers were giving Trump decorating projects and other things to do (Such as chairing the Kennedy Center) to cover for his evident cognitive decline. I’m inclined to agree.