[ad_1]
The White House confirmed Thursday that Donald Trump has awarded the National Medal of the Arts to artists such as Ricky Skaggs and Toby Keith as Congress prepares to impeach him for the second time.
Medal winners also included Earl “Rusty” Powell, the longest-serving director of the National Gallery of Art, and Mary Costa, the opera singer who voiced Aurora in the Disney film. The Sleeping Beauty. Another winner, photographer Nick Ut, best known for his photography of Vietnamese-era The Terror of War, defended his decision to accept Trump’s honor in light of last week’s siege on the Capitol.
The National Medal of the Arts was established in 1984, with recommendations submitted to the president by an advisory committee of the National Endowment for the Arts. Trump presented his first artistic medals in 2019 to a group that included Jon Voight, Alison Krauss, US Army musicians and Sharon Percy Rockefeller. Unlike this ceremony, the White House did not give press access to Wednesday’s event.
On Wednesday, Trump also presented the National Medal for the Humanities to Kay Coles James, President of the Heritage Foundation; James Lighthizer, president of the American Battlefield Trust; and the National WWII Museum.
[ad_2]
Source link