• by Adam Buckman , Featured Columnist, 5 hours ago

Oops! Somebody forgot to include the name of the host in a CBS description of the upcoming “48th Annual Kennedy Center Honors” scheduled to air later this month.

How could they forget that the host and star of the show is none other than the President of the United States, Donald Trump?

The fun-loving prez, who said earlier this year that he was 98% involved in choosing this year’s honorees, appointed himself host of the show in August after naming himself chairman of the Kennedy Center last February.

But Trump’s central role in this annual celebration of American arts and entertainment was omitted from a three-paragraph advisory on the CBS press and publicity website.

It provides other vital information, though, such as the day and time of the telecast (Tuesday, December 23, 8-10:30 p.m. Eastern) and the names of this year’s honorees. 

They are country great George Strait, beloved movie star Sylvester Stallone, disco queen Gloria Gaynor, Broadway star Michael Crawford (“The Phantom of the Opera”) and rock band KISS.

But how on earth could somebody omit the President of the United States from the only description of the show on the proprietary website CBS maintains for journalists on the TV beat?

New owner Paramount is now involved in building a friendly relationship with the Trump administration following the bitter legal battle between the two earlier this year.

So it comes as a huge surprise that President Trump is not front and center in CBS’s publicity materials for this awards show that is one of the President’s pet projects. Does Paramount boss David Ellison know about this?

To be fair, three of the 17 “Kennedy Center Honors” publicity photos posted on the CBS press site for use by the media do show the President.

There he is in the photo above alongside wife Melania as he pays tribute to Sylvester Stallone. 

But in that photo and the two others, Trump is not identified as the President in the captions provided by CBS. Instead, he is identified in all three only as “Donald J. Trump.” Does Trump know about this?

This year’s Kennedy Center Honors were held Sunday night (December 7) in the Kennedy Center Opera House. The event will be seen on tape, in edited form on CBS.

It is reasonable to assume that most of Trump’s introductory speech will be cut from the telecast due to its length and the way it rambled from subject to subject, much of which had nothing to do with the awards that were about to be presented.

Among other topics, Trump even found time to bad-mouth President Biden. He blamed Biden for “allowing” protesters to spray graffiti with red paint on some of Washington’s marble landmarks, and complained that this is very difficult to remove from such a porous stone.

“During the Biden administration, they sprayed a lot of red paint on a lot of white marble,” Trump said. “And you still see it, you know?”

For some reason that cannot possibly be explained except by Trump himself, the President suddenly began a riff in which he compared Biden, 83, to golf legend Gary Player, who is 90.

“The great Gary Player, he hits shots,” Trump rambled. “He’s 90 years old. He still plays good. Shot a 70 with me the other day. He’s 90. He’s incredible. You think Biden could to that? I don’t think so. Can’t lift the club!”

Oddly, at one point in the speech, Trump seemed to indicate that CBS actually asked him to host the show. 

“The President of the United States is hosting at the request of a certain television network,” Trump said.

The Kennedy Center Honors have been seen annually on CBS since 1978.

The network’s current rights deal ends with this year’s awards. There is no word yet on whether the network plans to continue.