The artists that will be celebrated at this year’s Kennedy Center Honors were just announced. But one of them—legendary television producer Norman Lear—has said he’ll be boycotting the pre-gala White House reception in protest of President Donald Trump.
The New York Times described his boycotting of the reception as “a rare move in the Honors’ 39-year history.” Yet it is perhaps not at all surprising, given that the 95-year-old has said of Trump: “He IS Archie Bunker. I think of Donald Trump as the middle finger of the American right hand.”
The Dec. 3 ceremony takes place at the Kennedy Center Opera House, but the ceremony is always preceded by a White House reception where the president hosts the honorees.
Lear cited Trump’s proposal to slash arts funding as being behind his snubbing of the reception.
“I can’t see myself visiting a White House, what [Trump] called a dump, that dumps on the National Endowment for the Arts,” the progressive activist and “All In the Family” creator said to the Washington Post.
“This is a presidency that has chosen to neglect totally the arts and humanities—deliberately defund them—and that doesn’t rest pleasantly with me,” he said to the Times.
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