There is, of course, the matter of the ceremony’s host—self-appointed Kennedy Center chairman Donald Trump. Cruise has remained largely tight-lipped on the country’s current political hellscape. He even dodged a question about his favorite topic—movies—at a Mission: Impossible—The Final Reckoning press conference earlier this year,

KISS, Sylvester Stallone, George Strait, Gloria Gaynor, and Michael Crawford are the first Kennedy Center Honors recipients overseen by Trump.

Years later, however, in May 2022, Simmons seemingly likened Trump's camp to "cockroaches" and said he was "out for himself" when speaking to SPIN. "Look what that gentleman [Trump] did to this country and the polarization — got all the cockroaches to rise to the top," the singer said at the time.