Donald Trump praised his former chief strategist Steve Bannon on Saturday, as it emerged that he and his wife are to skip a prestigious arts awards ceremony and White House reception with the fallout from the president’s comments on Charlottesville showing no sign of abating.



“I want to thank Steve Bannon for his service,” Trump tweeted. “He came to the campaign during my run against Crooked Hillary Clinton – it was great! Thanks.”



Bannon was removed from his post on Friday in what the White House press office said was a move “mutually agreed” with chief of staff John Kelly, who has been trying to restore discipline to the chaotic White House.

But the news that the president and first lady would break with tradition by not attending Washington’s Kennedy Center Honors “to allow the honorees to celebrate without any political distraction” emphasised the difficulty of Kelly’s task, after one of the most controversial weeks of Trump’s presidency to date.

Past presidents and first ladies have hosted a reception for those given awards at the White House before the gala at the nearby Kennedy Center and sat with them at the televised event.

Two of the five stars due to receive the awards in art, music, dance, film, television and culture on 2 December, TV producer Norman Lear and dancer and choreographer Carmen de Lavallade, had already indicated they would boycott the reception the next day at the White House.

De Lavallade said: “In light of the socially divisive and morally caustic narrative that our current leadership is choosing to engage in, and in keeping with the principles that I and so many others have fought for, I will be declining the invitation to attend the reception at the White House.”

Of the three other recipients, singer Lionel Richie had said he was torn over whether to turn up, while vocalist Gloria Estefan said she would attend in order to try to exert some influence over Trump’s immigration policies.

Rapper LL Cool J had not said whether he he would take part. But when his award was announced he said: “Yo, this is amazing. To be able to go from the corner in Queens beatin’ on a garbage can to getting a Kennedy Center honor with this type of company and to be first is just an amazing feeling. You know, it just adds another level of legitimacy to hip-hop culture.”

The Kennedy Center Honors have been given annually since 1977 for lifetime contributions to the performing arts. The ceremony has been hosted by composer Leonard Bernstein and journalist Walter Cronkite, among others, and comedian Stephen Colbert since 2014. This year’s host has not yet been announced.

Past recipients have included Fred Astaire, Ella Fitzgerald, Tennessee Williams, Frank Sinatra, Arthur Miller, Aretha Franklin, Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney and many others. Last year’s winners included Al Pacino, the Eagles and James Taylor.

Jimmy Carter, George HW Bush and Bill Clinton have all failed to attend due to presidential duties, but never due to a boycott by those being given awards.

Barack Obama received a standing ovation at last year’s event, held just after Trump’s election but before his inauguration. But there was unease among the arts community about whether they would turn up in 2017 if the new president was in attendance.

The Kennedy Center confirmed that this year’s White House reception would now not take place, although the awards themselves and gala celebration would still happen. The Center respected the president’s decision, which had ensured the gala “remains a deservingly special moment for the honorees”, chairman David M Rubenstein and president Deborah F Rutter said in a statement. “We are grateful for this gesture.”

Trump ignited the most serious controversy over racism since his election campaign this week, with Republicans, business leaders, charities, sports stars and artists all denouncing him after he suggested that neo-Nazis whose protests in Charlottesville, Virginia, led to the death of a 32-year-old woman were morally equivalent to the anti-fascist activists opposing them.

The entire membership of the president’s Commission on the Arts and Humanities, appointed by Barack Obama, resigned on Friday in a letter that featured an acrostic spelling out the word “RESIST”.



The statement by the White House press secretary announcing the Trumps would not take part did not mention Charlottesville. But it said: “The president and first lady have decided not to participate in this year’s activities to allow the honorees to celebrate without any political distraction.”

Bannon – one of several key figures from the early days of Trump’s White House now out on his ear – pledged on Friday that he would now be “going to war for Trump against his opponents”.

“I’ve got my hands back on my weapons,” he said. “It’s Bannon the Barbarian.”

But in an interview with the Weekly Standard he gave a hint of the thorn in the president’s side he might now become: “The Trump presidency that we fought for, and won, is over,” Bannon said. “We still have a huge movement, and we will make something of this Trump presidency. But that presidency is over. It’ll be something else.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report