Donald Trump is thinking of inducting the late opera singer Luciano Pavarotti for a Kennedy Center Honor.
He’s unaware the Pavarotti was inducted and appeared in 2001.
Trump also suggested Elvis Presley and Babe Ruth. They are each dead, and Babe Ruth was a sports hero. The Kennedy Center charter is for performers who changed the culture. It also has never inducted honorees posthumously.
At an appearance at the Kennedy Center on Monday, Trump admitted he hadn’t been there in a long time. He likely has never been there. He doesn’t care about the arts, and didn’t attend any of the Kennedy Center Honors during his first term.
A few days ago, his vice president, JD Vance, and wife Usha, were booed by the audience.
Trump also suggested singers Paul Anka and Johnny Mathis, each of whom is a Republican but without much of a following anymore. Anka could dedicate “My Way” to Trump. There would not be much of a TV audience for that by December, when Trump will have laid off tens of thousands of people and done nothing to check inflation.
Mathis would check boxes for gay and Black in Trump’s all white new board of directors.
Trump said he could host the event himself — since has nothing to do, with Elon Musk running the government. He also said he might shop the show t various networks. It’s run on CBS since it started in the 1970s. But Fox would snatch it up in a second.
It’s unlikely that NBC would be considered since Trump is in a fight with them. Amazon is an option since Jeff Bezos became Trump’s chew toy. CBS might get involved if the Paramount deal with David Ellison goes through, and Trump is close to Ellison’s father, Larry, the money behind that operation.
Trump also denigrated the Kennedy Center union, saying he’d put on non union shows in the theater. He also suggested that the finances were bad, which isn’t true.
Altogether not a pretty picture.
As for Elvis, he will not be in the building according to manager Col. Tom PArker. He’s booked elsewhere that night.
