Nada Ulibi

On the official White House webpage, a slideshow of this year's Kennedy Center Honors shows a packed auditorium and President Trump triumphantly clapping.

He became the first president to host the awards show in 2025 and predicted his appearance would poll the highest ratings ever.

Instead, the show saw a 25% drop from last year, according to numbers from Nielsen.

About 3 million people tuned in.

That's 1 million less than in 2024, although it should be noted that Nielsen has changed its data gathering methodology over the past 12 months.

During the show, the president intimated his plans to change the name of the venue to the Trump Kennedy Center.

Since then, multiple artists scheduled to perform there have canceled shows.

Nada Ulibi, NPR News.

This is NPR News.