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WASHINGTON – They may not have been here for the inauguration, but celebrities did show up in Washington Friday — and urged President Trump not to slash the budget for arts.

Actors strutting the red carpet at the Creative Coalition Inaugural Ball warned Trump’s reported attempts to slash the National Endowment for the Arts would hurt kids and the economy.

“It would be a huge mistake,” said “Madame Secretary” actor Tim Daly, president of the pro-arts non-profit, “to take away an organization that mostly funds art programs and seed money for art programs in small towns all around the country.”

Any cuts, he said, hurt “the very people who actually put him in office.”

The NEA gets $148 million in federal funds – a very small slice of the nearly $3.9 trillion federal budget.

The Hill newspaper reported Trump is planning dramatic cuts: The Corporation for Public Broadcasting would be privatized and the NEA and the National Endowment for the Humanities would be eliminated entirely.

Actor Dean Norris from “Breaking Bad” stayed away from Trump’s inauguration [“didn’t want to get up that early,” he said] but attended the Creative Coalition gala at Washington’s Harman Center for the Arts to speak up for protecting any effort to cut arts funding.

“If you got a voice, it’s not only your obligation; it’s your duty to speak up,” Norris told The Post.

Celebrities in attendance included Christina Hendricks (“Mad Men”), Cheryl Hines (“Curb Your Enthusiasm), Tim Allen (“Last Man Standing”), Alia Shawkat (“Arrested Development”), Mae Whitman (“Parenthood”) and Geoffrey Arend (“Madame Secretary”).

The event was non-partisan but several actors dished up their concerns about the new president on the red carpet.

“I want to be unified more than anyone, but right now we’re not,” said actress Jackie Cruz from “Orange is the New Black”. “That’s the truth. He [Trump] is going against everything I believe it, the environment, immigration, women’s rights… What is the whole thing about make America great again? When was it so great?”

The Queens native intends to be on the front lines of the women’s march Saturday along with many of her cast members. “My best friends, all drove here, 10 girls!,” Cruz told The Post. “We’re staying at my aunt’s house in DC. We’re all staying in four blowup beds.”

Cruz said she’s spending the rest of her Friday night drinking wine and making posters with her friends for the march.

Another “Orange is the New Black” Actress Alysia Reiner will join her at women’s march, where she’ll think of her eight-year-old daughter, Livia.

When Trump won the election, it was Livia who comforted her tears with: “Mom, it’s OK. It’s only four years”

Livia marched Friday with classmates at her Bank Street school in Manhattan for peace and love, Reiner said, with a poster reading: “I vote for kindness.”

Reiner started inauguration day at a Soul Cycle class in Washington’s Georgetown neighborhood where the instructor’s playlist was a President Obama hope speech. By the afternoon, Reiner said she was in full tears when she watched Trump become president on TV and the Obamas wave farewell.

“I cried,” Reiner admitted. “The Obamas were a very important part of my life. The intelligence, and wit and love and hope with which he led was integral to my life. ….I always felt like he led with love. That’s the goal with my own family. My goal the next four years is to continue to lead with love no matter what.”