A recording of President Trump’s private remarks at a Kennedy Center board meeting shows that he mused about bestowing honors on dead celebrities and people from outside the arts.

While the event is usually attended by sitting presidents and first ladies, Trump and his wife, Melania, declined to attend during his first four years in office.

U.S. President Donald Trump visited the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts on Monday for the first time since making himself its new chairman, threatening to shutter an expensive new addition and describing the marble Washington landmark as being in "tremendous disrepair.