(NEXSTAR) – President Donald Trump, embracing his new role as chairman of the Kennedy Center, announced the recipients of its annual awards on Wednesday. Speaking at the Kennedy Center, Trump also discussed his plans to renovate the building. Trump opened his remarks by joking that he, himself, had always wanted to be honored by the Kennedy Center. He then announcing the upcoming honorees: country artist George Strait; English actor and veteran stage performer Michael Crawford; disco icon Gloria Gaynor; the members of the rock band KISS; and Hollywood actor Sylvester Stallone. "The only one that's a bigger name on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, they say … [is] Donald Trump," the president remarked of Stallone. Trump had avoided the Kennedy Center Honors awards program during his first term after artists said they would not attend out of protest. This year, the Republican president has taken over as the Kennedy Center's new chairman and fired the board of trustees, which he replaced with loyalists. He also claimed he "completely reversed the decline" of the storied institution, and said he planned to completely renovate the "infrastructure" of the performing arts center itself. "With a little fix up and a little work, we can make it unbelievable." In a Truth Social post on Tuesday, Trump teased a name change for the center, formally the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, and said it would be restored to its past glory. “GREAT Nominees for the TRUMP/KENNEDY CENTER, whoops, I mean, KENNEDY CENTER, AWARDS,” Trump wrote. He said work was being done on the site that would be “bringing it back to the absolute TOP LEVEL of luxury, glamour, and entertainment.” “It had fallen on hard times, physically, BUT WILL SOON BE MAKING A MAJOR COMEBACK!!!” he wrote. In a statement on its social media feed, the Kennedy Center said it was “honored” to host Trump, who visited on Wednesday for the third time since January. “Thanks to his advocacy, our beautiful building will undergo renovations to restore its prestige and grandeur,” the venue said. “We are also excited to be announcing this year’s INCREDIBLE slate of Kennedy Center Honorees.” Trump complained during a March visit that the building is in a state of “tremendous disrepair.” Taking a question from a reporter on Wednesday, Trump claimed he was "98%" involved in choosing the latest honorees. He also said he "turned down many" suggestions, claiming they were "too woke." He then took a jab at the Academy Awards, claiming the telecast's ratings dropped, in part, because its presenters and recipients have been critical of his administration. "I shouldn't make this political. Because they made the Academy Awards political and it went down the tubes," he claimed Historically, a bipartisan advisory committee selected the recipients, who over the years have ranged from George Balanchine and Tom Hanks to Aretha Franklin and Stephen Sondheim. A message sent to the Kennedy Center press office asking how this year's honorees were selected wasn’t returned Tuesday. In the past, Trump has floated the idea of granting Kennedy Center Honors status to singer-songwriter Paul Anka and Sylvester Stallone, one of three actors Trump named as Hollywood ambassadors earlier this year. Anka was supposed to perform “My Way” at Trump’s first inaugural and backed out at the last moment. The Kennedy Center Honors were established in 1978 and have been given to a broad range of artists. Until Trump’s first term, presidents of both major political parties traditionally attended the annual ceremony, even when they disagreed politically with a given recipient. Prominent liberals such as Barbra Streisand and Warren Beatty were honored during the administration of Republican George W. Bush, and a leading conservative, Charlton Heston, was feted during the administration of Democrat Bill Clinton. In 2017, after honoree Norman Lear declared that he would not attend a White House celebration in protest of Trump’s proposed cuts to federal arts funding, Trump and first lady Melania Trump decided to skip the Kennedy Center event and remained away throughout his first term. Honorees during that time included such Trump critics as Cher, Lin-Manuel Miranda and Sally Field. Since taking office for a second time, Trump has taken a much more forceful stance on the Kennedy Center and inserted himself into its governance. Besides naming himself chairman and remaking the board, he also has indicated he would take over decisions regarding programming at the center and vowed to end events featuring performers in drag. The steps have drawn further criticism from some artists. In March, the producers of “Hamilton” pulled out of staging the Broadway hit musical in 2026, citing Trump's aggressive takeover of the institution's leadership. Other artists who canceled events include actor Issa Rae, singer Rhiannon Giddens and author Louise Penny. House Republicans added an amendment to a spending bill that Trump signed into law in July to rename the Kennedy Center’s Opera House after Melania Trump, but that venue has yet to be renamed. Maria Shriver, a niece of the late President Kennedy, a Democrat, has criticized as “insane” a separate House proposal to rename the entire center after Trump. Recipients of the Kennedy Center Honors are given a medallion on a rainbow ribbon, a nod to the range of skills that fall under the performing arts. In April, the center changed the lights on the exterior from the long-standing rainbow to a permanent red, white and blue display. The Associated Press contributed to this report.