RT “STUNNED SILENCE AT THE KENNEDY CENTER: Trump Drops Bizarre Challenge to Jimmy Kimmel — Audience Left Wondering If This Was a Gala or a Meltdown 😳🔥”
- Donald Trump went after one of his prime targets while handing out medals at Saturday’s presentation of the 2025 Kennedy Center Honors.
- “If I can’t beat out Jimmy Kimmel in terms of talent, then I don’t think I should be president,” he said, referring to his role in Sunday’s accompanying Kennedy Center Honors gala.
- Trump is the first president to host the event.
The fate of Donald Trump‘s presidency is officially in Jimmy Kimmel‘s hands.
The 47th president infused the presentation of this year’s Kennedy Center Honors on Saturday with a distinct, though not unfamiliar, note of bitterness.
“I’m sure they’ll give me great reviews, right? You know, they’ll say he was horrible. He was terrible. It was a horrible situation,” Trump joked during the ceremony, during which he gave out medals to Sylvester Stallone, George Strait, Gloria Gaynor, English actor Michael Crawford, and the rock band Kiss.
“No,” he continued, “we’ll do fine.”
Trump added that he had “watched some of the people that host” the gala that follows the presentation of the medals at the Kennedy Center compound in Washington D.C., and singled out his recent adversary Kimmel as “horrible,” despite the late-night mainstay never having hosted a Kennedy Center Honors ceremony.
He then addressed his own hosting gig at the event, which takes place Sunday. “If I can’t beat out Jimmy Kimmel in terms of talent,” he said, “then I don’t think I should be president.”
Donald Trump awards Sylvester Stallone at the 2025 Kennedy Center Honors.
Brendan SMIALOWSKI / AFP via Getty
The president’s remarks are his latest attack in his war against both Kimmel and the Kennedy Center.
Following CBS’ shocking cancellation of its Late Show franchise, which some claimed was motivated by its parent company Paramount’s legal history with the Trump administration, the president ominously predicted that Kimmel would be “next to go.”
Indeed, Jimmy Kimmel Live did go away when ABC indefinitely suspended it in September after Kimmel made controversial remarks about the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk that led to a boycott from major broadcast station owners. Kimmel ended up returning to the air days later, but the president and late-night host have been locked in a nasty public feud ever since.
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Regarding the Kennedy Center, Trump has made the venerable cultural institution a prime target during his second term in office.
Just a few weeks after assuming the presidency in January, Trump dismissed every Biden-era appointee, fired longtime Kennedy Center president Deborah F. Rutter and replaced her with a loyalist, installed himself as chairman, and introduced a resolution that gave him unprecedented power over its program selection.
Trump’s moves sparked backlash, with some productions canceling their planned runs at the Center, and some patrons booing Trump when he showed up for a performance there.Jimmy Kimmel hosting the Academy Awards in 2024.
Frank Micelotta/Disney via Getty
Still, Trump predicted at Saturday’s ceremony that when he becomes the first president to host the following day’s gala presentation at the Kennedy Center, it will result in “the highest-rated show [CBS has] ever done.”
“They’ve gotten some pretty good ratings, but there’s nothing like what’s going to happen tomorrow night,” he said, adding that he was “98 percent” involved in this year’s selection of honorees. Out of a pool of many, he “turned down plenty” who “were too woke.”
“I had a couple wokesters,” he said.
The 2025 Kennedy Center Honors will air later this month on CBS.
