21 August, 2017
Other 2017 honorees including Lionel Ritchie and Gloria Estefan have also suggested they were considering not attending.
Amid the departure of now-former chief strategist Steve Bannon, it seems the media has a good explanation for why there hasn't been any resignations tendered by White House officials over President Donald Trump's remarks about Charlottesville.
The announcement came after television producer Norman Lear, singer Lionel Richie and dancer Carmen de Lavallade said they would not attend the White House reception that was set to take place prior to the December 3 annual gala event. LL Cool J, another honore, e has not said whether or not he would attend. The center seemed relieved by the president's decision, saying in a statement, "We are grateful for the gesture".
The Kennedy Center said that in addition to the Trumps' not attending, the traditional pre-ceremony reception at the White House was cancelled this year.
But, she said that she would not go to the White House "in light of the socially divisive and morally caustic narrative that our existing leadership is choosing to engage in". And over the weekend, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin wrote a response to his Yale classmates who had called on him to resign, stating that the president doesn't believe neo-Nazis are the same as counter-protesters and that if Trump did, he'd surely leave the administration.
The Kennedy Center Honors is the second annual Washington event that Trump decided not to attend.
Those figures compare to the 35 percent of whites who would be less trusting in a corporate ally of the White House.
