81-Year-Old Inauguration Announcer Charles Brotman ‘Heartbroken’ To Be Dumped by Trump
Image by Getty Images
By Dave Goldiner January 9, 2017
Charles Brotman has been the announcer at every presidential inauguration since Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1957.
But Donald Trump has decided to go in a different direction, leaving the 81-year-old Brotman out in the cold, CNN reported.
Brotman, who was once the voice of the Washington Senators baseball team, told reporters he was “heartbroken” and “destroyed” by the decision to replace him.
“I’ve been doing this for 60 years,” he told WTLA, a Washington ABC station.
A Trump transition spokesman said Brotman, who is Jewish, will serve as “announcer chairman emeritus.”
So who’s replacing Brotman?
The Trump team has settled on Steve Ray, 58, a freelance announcer who has worked with Major League Baseball’s Washington Nationals.
“From my point of view, I am not filling his shoes, I’m not taking his place,” Ray told The Washington Post. “I just happen to be the guy who’s next.”
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse..
Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
