GREENVALE, N.Y. (AP) — President-elect Donald Trump, largely ensconced at Mar-a-Lago in recent weeks, made a rare appearance outside his Florida resort, accepting the “Patriot of the Year” award at Fox Nation’s Patriot Awards on Thursday night.
Trump, who has been announcing job picks as he builds out his administration, traveled to New York’s Long Island for the annual awards ceremony from the Fox News streaming platform.
“You have incredible people at Fox,” Trump told the crowd at the Tilles Center for the Performing Arts, as he talked up his election victory. “It was a tremendous day, a tremendous night,” he said.
The event was hosted by Fox host Sean Hannity, a friend of Trump who stepped in after the president-elect nominated Pete Hegseth, the original host, as defense secretary.
Trump wrote on his Truth Social site earlier this week that he looked “greatly forward” to receiving the Patriot of the Year award, an honor he called “so nice!”
The annual awards “honor and recognize America’s finest patriots, including military veterans, first responders and other inspirational everyday heroes,” according to Fox.
Among those recognized Thursday night were conservative actor and evangelist Kirk Cameron, Gen. Dick Cody, who used his own helicopter to deliver supplies to help people in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, and Jonathan Diller, the NYPD officer who was killed during a traffic stop in Queens. His wife, Stephanie, received a standing ovation and thanked Trump for supporting their family after the shooting. Others invoked Trump as well.
The ceremony also honored Paws of War, an organization that provides service dogs to veterans and helps those serving overseas bring animals they meet in war zones to the U.S. One such reunion took place onstage, as a service member was reunited with a dog he’d cared for while deployed.
The heartfelt moments were juxtaposed against a crass comedy routine and the red meat that loyal watchers of hosts like Hannity expect.
The anchor used his introduction to take an election victory lap, boasting that Democrats “got their ass kicked.” He played “YMCA” — the song Trump has long used to close out his rallies — and invited audience members to dance like the president-elect. And he offered a series of impressions, mimicking former vice presidential candidate Tim Walz’s enthusiasm and President Joe Biden appearing lost, complete with a backdrop of the rainforest where he spoke during a recent trip to the Amazon.
Later, he donned an orange safety vest — a nod to the one Trump wore when he delivered a press conference from a garbage truck during the campaign after Biden suggested Trump’s supporters were garbage.
The show was originally set to be hosted by Hegseth, who left his position at Fox when Trump tapped him to run the Pentagon — a nomination that is currently in jeopardy over allegations of sexual assault and excessive drinking, which Hegseth denies.
Members of the audience cheered when Hegseth appeared in a video that was played to showcase the stories of Department of Veterans Affairs whistleblowers. Fox personalities Rachel Campos-Duffy and Will Cain said after the appearance that Hegseth would “make one hell of” a secretary of defense.
Trump’s award also marks the culmination of Fox’s reembrace of the president-elect, who has had an up-and-down relationship with the network in recent years.
Fox paid $787 million in 2023 to settle a defamation lawsuit by Dominion Voting Systems over false claims by Fox personalities who echoed Trump’s lies that the 2020 election was stolen from him through mass voter fraud. For more than six months ending in spring 2023, Fox had what many considered a “soft ban” on Trump appearances, with its leaders looking to move on. But when it became clear that voters did not want to, Fox and its personalities were quick to embrace Trump again.
Individual personalities have undergone their own journeys: Former Fox host Megyn Kelly drew Trump’s ire in a 2015 debate for her sharp question about his treatment of women; now she’s a popular podcast host and Trump supporter. The Dominion lawsuit uncovered emails in which former Fox host Tucker Carlson spoke disparagingly of Trump, including saying he “truly can’t wait” for Trump to become an ex-president. They’ve since made amends.
Through it all, Trump has been quick to take to social media to criticize Fox for content he deems insufficiently loyal.
Trump has begun to emerge more in public since spending most of his transition so far behind closed doors at his club in Palm Beach, Florida. This week, he made an unannounced appearance at a memorial service for three Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office deputies who were killed in a car crash last month.
This weekend, he will travel to Paris to join other world leaders and dignitaries for a ceremony to celebrate the reopening of Notre Dame Cathedral, which was devastated by a fire five years ago.
AP Media Writer David Bauder contributed to this report.
