Speaker 1 (00:14):
Wow, what a group. What a group. Today's the great Steve Win, hi, Steve. Hello, everybody. What a group of good friends. We're going to bring this place back. It's not so good. I thought it was going to be this beautiful. I hadn't been there in a while. I said, "This is going to be beautiful." It's not looking too good, but we're going to bring it back. Why don't we sit down and tell you about our day? Should I tell you about the day first? My little conversation with a nice gentleman named Vladimir Putin? But actually we had a good talk and I think that progress is being made. 5,000 young soldiers are being killed every single week on average. Can you believe, 5,000? And it's actually a number probably worse than that in addition to other people that are being killed in towns and we're trying to stop it. It's a bloodbath. It's an absolute bloodbath.
(01:06)
I've seen satellite pictures that are so bad, so horrible. And that's to think that in this day and age we're living with this horrible thing that's going on and we're doing the best we can. This was not our war. This was not me. We're doing something from the last administration, how they allowed that to happen. It wouldn't have happened. It would've never happened and the Ukraine-Russia wouldn't have happened. But I'll tell you what else wouldn't have had, October 7th would not have happened. This was a terrible thing. Also, a lot of bad things happened in the last four years.
(01:40)
But good things are happening now. We had a tremendous visit in the Middle East. We went to Qatar, we saw the Saudi Arabia, all the top people in UAE, and we brought back about $5.1 trillion. That's not bad. And it's being credited as one of maybe the most successful visits that anybody's ever made to any place. There's never been anything like this. Hundreds of planes, big white body planes, getting them from Boeing. But I think an order of, I think 148 planes, it's a lot of 777's. Those are the big ones. Or the 787 Dreamliners and orders of everything. The AI is going wild. I hope it's as good as people say because otherwise some people are going to be pretty disappointed. But it seems like it is. A lot of smart people are doing it.
(02:40)
But massive orders into our country. We did 1.4 trillion in one case. We did 2 trillion in another case. Numbers that nobody's ever really heard of before. And our relationship is fantastic with those three beautiful places. I mean, they're incredible. Money is like no place else, probably anywhere. Well, we have more money, but we didn't use it right. But that's all right. Now we're we were losing in trade 5 billion a day and now because of tariffs and other things, we're making 1 billion a day and that tariffs haven't even really kicked in. It's a big difference. The last four years have been a disaster for us with trade and frankly with everything else.
(03:29)
So we're here for a different reason tonight. We're going to have to fix this one too. We're everything. We're going around Mr. fix it. Mrs. fix it. Anybody want to join me? But the Kennedy Center, when I said I'll do this, I hadn't been there. It's the last time I'll take a job without looking at it, but it's got a tremendous amount. Lindsey Graham and some people put in the budget at either 200 or $250 million. Money was spent there. Tremendous amounts of money was spent there over the last 10 years. I don't know where they spent it. They certainly didn't spend it on wallpaper, carpet or painting, and over $200 million was spent. So I don't know what's going on, Pam, are you here? You hear that?
(04:23)
When I hear that, I say, "What? Pam? Where did all this money go?" It's crazy. It's crazy. What's happened with our country in that regard is to build things. We go back to the Wollman Rink. They went four years, 12 years without getting in a rink. And I got it built in three months for a fraction, like a tiny fraction. They had spent over $20 million. They never got it opened. I said, "I want my kids to go ice skating before they're too old. They don't want to go ice skating." I used to watch it from my window. I used to watch people, nobody working and spending money like crazy. And as you know, I got it built very quickly.
(05:03)
This is, well, maybe a more difficult. That was pretty easy actually. That was pretty. We had cement mixers from the rink all the way back into Harlem. We poured one contiguous pour over a period of a day and a half. They would pour a little section, then another little section, and when they put water, it all leaked, surprisingly. So it was fun. But I love construction. I guess why I like this a little bit because we're going to have to redo it. So I'm honored to welcome exceptionally talented and committed group of patriots. You're amazing people. This is an amazing board. I'll tell you. And I got so many calls from people. "Could I get on the board?" You have a lot of people that are not so much in love with me right now. I couldn't get them on the board, but because the board has taken, but we're going to turn it around in the Kennedy Center Board of Trustees you're here and in many cases you have your spouses.
(05:54)
And I want to thank Rick Grinnell. Where's Rick? Where's Rick? Rick? Hello Rick. He did a great job. He used to walk into the Justice Department with self-funded show and all the horrible things that had gone on in our country. He had a lot of courage and he's going to be with me for a long time. Different things. He seems to be a troubleshooter. I say, how about Kennedy Center? Let's fix that one up. And tremendous strides have been made. You'll be hearing about that in a second.
(06:23)
But I want to thank the entire board for the incredible work and all the fundraising efforts. We're going to raise some funds, but we're getting a lot of funds also from Congress because they want to see this thing good. We have the 250th year anniversary coming up, and this building is going to be a primary focus in D.C., and it's got the potential for greatness. If it didn't, I wouldn't have done it. But it has a great plan. It's got great sound. It's got a lot of things that if you don't have good sound, you can forget it. They've been trying to do things over at Lincoln Center all my life I've been watching. They rip it down, build it up, rip it down.
(07:02)
Some of the greatest sound of buildings built in the 1850s at a pure marble. And you get up and you can just talk lightly and they hear you back 100 rows. And if you don't have sound, I think there's a certain amount of luck. You hire sound engineers, they get a lot of money, and then you open the building and you can't hear anything. So we are going to do some good things, but the basics are there. The location is phenomenal. The importance of the building is phenomenal. And we'll have some very interesting plans.
(07:32)
I always thought they should have built a beautiful performing center, open air facing out over the Potomac. They didn't do that. They built these crazy rooms underneath. They built three tiny little stages. Very expensive. Someday, maybe somebody will occupy one. They're underground. In fact, when I look from a distance, you see these concrete hubs, and I thought it was modern art. Here we go with the modern art blocking everybody's view. And when I actually went over there, I said, "No, it wasn't modern art. It was meant for a door to be in. So you go down to these rooms." So I don't know what the hell they were doing, but they spent a lot of money and it is just not possible that they could have spent it so poorly. But we're going to turn it around. That's what I love doing. I love turning things around. Turnaround artist. I'm doing that with the country. Believe me, we're doing a job.
(08:29)
We are hot. We are hot. The country is hot in a short period. Look, we've been there for 100 days plus a few days. And as they said, the king of Saudi Arabia said, "Your place, your country is a whole different image now." We were an absolute laughing stock. We're not a laughing stock any longer. And I was talking to, as I said, president Putin for two and a half hours that was being very seriously listened to. We don't like what's happening. We don't like that we should have ever been involved. Would have never happened, but we're respected again as a country.
(09:15)
One thing that I tell you that I think is amazing, if you remember about eight months ago, the big story was that nobody wants to join our military. We couldn't have any. People weren't joining and they weren't proud of our country. They weren't joining police forces all over the country, Houston, Dallas, all over the country, New York. And now we have a record-setting enlistment in the military. I think of that record-setting. The most in 38 years, but it's probably more than that. They started taking the numbers, Suzy, at 38 years ago, but the most in 30 years, probably the most ever. I don't know. But we have record-setting young people that want to join the military, and that's incredible to have that is just absolutely incredible. And to think that eight months ago we were all listening to the fact that this was before the election, eight months ago, we were listening to the fact that we wouldn't have anybody, I mean nobody, army, Navy, Air Force, Marine, space Force. I'm so proud of Space Force because we got that going. We started Space Force and they wanted to terminate it, and the military backed up and they said, "You're not going to do that." We were third in space and now we're number one in space by a lot. They've done a great job. They had some great commanders in Space Force. But ultimately, it's going to be truly one of the most important things we've ever done because it's all heading to space.
(10:39)
And I'm not talking about just experimental things that we do because a lot of people don't understand that. We can understand that. But in terms of defense and offense of our country, it's going to be very important. We're number one in space by a long shot. The Kennedy Center mission is to be the crown jewel of the arts and
Speaker 1 (11:00):
Culture in our nation's capital and under our new leadership, we're going to take this revered institution to heights that it's never seen before. I think we can take this to really some -- because we have the right place, we have all the politicians, and then we have the people that want to get to know the politicians for lots of bad reasons. And we have everybody here. They have to be here for something sometime. I've got total confidence in the Quaker -- They're just great team that Rick and the group have put together. Sergio has done fantastically.
(11:34)
We're especially pleased to be joined tonight by Secretary of State, Marco Rubio. Great guy. I'm telling you, he was born for this. He loves it. You see him, he's in one country, another country. I think he loves it, but he's so respected everywhere he goes. And I know how tough he is. I used to have to be up there with him. He was not nice. He was a tough one. He was as good as you get. I didn't know that we would end up being this close. We like each other. I think I can speak for him, I can speak for myself, but I like him and he's done a fantastic job and he's really, really working and we're getting relationships that we lost that were very important for us in many ways. And so I want to thank Marco. And Marco's on the board, attorney general, Pam Bondi, who I've known so long, and she's married to the best-looking guy in the room, I must say.
(12:42)
She has been amazing. She, she's so respected and she's really delving into some tough territory. She sees what's happened and what's going to happen, and she knows before anybody else, she's just a fantastic person. She's got a great staff that's surrounding her and I think she's just a star. But I've known that for a long time. I'm not surprised at all. So thank you very much, Pam, for the job you do. And by the way, she was the attorney general of Florida, so she had plenty for a long time and never had a problem. I can't remember a problem. And she kept everybody safe and they felt very secure. Now she's doing it on an even bigger, who would've thought it would've been a much bigger level? But she gets it.
(13:32)
Secretary Howard Lutnick is here with his wife Allison, and he went with us to that incredible four-day little journey that we had and we saw some things that were incredible, but everybody respects him. Did a great job in business. He built this a firm twice. His firm was at the top of the World Trade Center when the planes hit, and he was amazing story. He was always -- Allison, good job. You got him to take your boy, right? Years ago on that horrible date when you think of it. So Howard built Cantor Fitzgerald, and he built it in very top firm. They had the top three floors of the World Trade Center of the building, the first building that was hit. And he was always there at six in the morning, 5:30 in the morning. A lot of the stock guys, they have to do that someday. You'll explain to me why. Probably insider trading, Pam, I don't know. But whatever the hell reason. He was there always at 5:30 or 6 o'clock.
(14:41)
And first time ever, almost ever, his wife was after him for years to take their son to school. He was a young boy, very young, like early grades. And he would say, no, I can't. This was years. After two or three years of being harassed by Alison, it was very tough. Great wife, beautiful wife, but she's very, very tough. And finally he did it. He took his boy and it was on that day and he dropped the boy off at 8:30 and started driving down the West Side Highway. And he would've been in that building and every single person died in your firm. He had lost everybody. And with the exception of a few people in Europe and maybe a couple of other places, small, they were all very New York centric. And every single one of them died, including your brother. And what he did was incredible, actually. He rebuilt the firm and he gave a percentage of it for years the families of the people that died and the new firm became more successful than the old firm using the same name Cantor Fitzgerald. He rebuilt it step by step by step.
(15:54)
I mean to me, that's why I said I have to get this guy if I have a chance, if I ever do. And he was very happy. They were doing great. They were doing record business. But when I said, "How about coming over to Commerce, a little thing called Commerce," and now I don't think you could ever go back into that world because it's so big. He and Scott are in charge along with others that are great, but they're in charge of the biggest deal ever made in history. It's the whole tariffs. We've taken in trillions of dollars, trillions, and we've been hurt very badly by other countries that did this to us for 20, 25 years.
(16:32)
They were taking advantage of us. We never did anything. But now we're doing it to them and fairly. I'll tell you what modestly, but we'll be taking and we are taking in right now, 25% of cars, 25% on steel and aluminum, 25% on other things. And that'll be going up to 50, 75, maybe 100 in some cases. We have to get our pharmaceutical industry back. Once we establish that in another couple of weeks, it'll start roaring back. It's already roaring back because they know we're doing it and you've done a great job.
(17:08)
But he said to me other day, "this is so big. These numbers are big. The Cantor Fitzgerald doesn't look so big anymore." We see numbers. We talk in the trillions now.. Think of it $5.1 trillion. Nobody talks, but we're talking big numbers and he's doing a great job. He did a great job before chief of staff Susie Walsh. She's considered the most powerful woman anywhere in the world. She is, she's the most powerful woman in the world. A lot of people are saying that. But she had a couple of articles and I said, "It's actually true. She can wipe out a country with just a mere phone call. That's the end of the country." But she's great. I knew because we won Florida three times and won it. Florida didn't used to be a red state. It was a blue state when I first ran, that was a blue state and now it's a seriously red state and it got more and more and we're going to keep it that way.
(18:11)
But Susie ran it and we won by a landslide. And Republican hadn't won. You had a Democrat senator, you had two Democrat senators, but you had a Democrat governor. You had a lot of Democrats. And so we won in the landslide. I said, "Good." Then the next time I won again in a much bigger landslide, and anybody I endorsed also won. I said, "That's good." And then when it came time to do this after the election was rigged, the second one was rigged. Whether they like it or not, it was rigged like nobody's ever seen. And now people are seeing it. Now people don't even fight me. They used to say, "Sir, it's not really, that nice to say." I'm being honest, it was rigged. And unfortunately that's what happened. You'd look at some of the things that happened, all of these things would've never happened.
(18:54)
But when it came time to thinking about doing it again, I didn't think I'd have to do that. I said, "I think I can take that woman," my friend now. But the time I didn't know her father was Pat Somerall, who was a great football player, was probably a greater announcer for 28 years for the NFL. But that tells me, because I'm a big believer in the genes person's genes. I said, "Let's use Susie. She did a great job in Florida for me twice. We beat every Democrat by numbers that they never saw before." And she took over and she did great. Chris was fantastic, but she had a group of people that she brought with her and there was no looking back. We started off leading by a lot, and it only got bigger and bigger and bigger. We had a couple of challenges that didn't work out too well, worked out well for us. But Susie was fantastic.
(19:54)
And now she's the chief of staff of the president, and she really makes it work. And she's the first woman. This is shocking to me. I thought we were beyond that -- first woman, chief of staff in the history of the country, right? And she's doing a great job. And those men are scared shitless. She sits in the back of the room, she watches them like this. She doesn't want publicity, she doesn't want to be on camera. She doesn't want stories, but they're up there yapping, yapping, yapping. And if they start yapping the wrong way, it's not pleasant for them. She's great.
(20:41)
And we have a friend of mine, a man that I endorsed, and he proudly went through the roof. Jeff Landry, governor of Louisiana. Did my endorsement mean much? When I endorsed you, he became a rocket ship, right? We avoided.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
We won.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
What? Say it?
Speaker 2 (21:00):
We won in the first round.
Speaker 1 (21:07):
Yeah. Yeah. It was good. We didn't want to go a second round. He went up and won everything. And he's a great governor, great attorney General, great governor. So it's great to have you. And we have so many people here that we're not going to do that. But we may play around in a little while because we're going to have some fun tonight and we'll talk about this, but we'll talk about other things, but we might talk about some of the questions you may have looking to get the one great big, beautiful Bill would be the greatest tax cuts in history. If we don't get it, that means the Democrats will have accept us, and that means people will get a 68% tax increase, the largest in history. And if we do get it, we're going to have the largest tax decrease in history.
(21:48)
And all my life, I've watched politicians screaming, "We will cut your taxes." This is the only group where they say, we're going to raise your taxes, and they think they're going to win. There's something wrong with them. I don't know what. "We're going to raise
Speaker 1 (22:00):
Your taxes And people said, "That's strange. I've never heard it before." When we took over in recent months, the Kennedy Center was in dire shape as I saw on my tour a few weeks ago. The building is falling apart. I don't want to scare people. It's in fine shape, but it's falling apart. We have Les Mis, we're opening up with Les Mis and some other things. We have Ms. Fischer, Mrs. Fischer here, and she said, "You know what works anything Broadway." So we're signing Phantom of the Opera, we're signing a lot of great Broadway and we'll have them run for while.
(22:35)
People do very, very well, but it's been neglected very badly and it needs an infusion of different things, including probably funds. But I think we're going to do very well when we get some money from Congress to fix it. It's so important. The previous leadership wasted millions and millions of dollars and handed us a budget deficit of $26 million. Can you believe that? In addition, the programming was out of control with rampant political propaganda, DEI and inappropriate shows. We had some very inappropriate shows, I think to put it very nicely, they had dance parties for "queer and trans youth." And I guess that's all right for certain people. I'm just quoting, I'm not saying it. "Queer and trans youth," that wasn't working out too well. They had a Marxist anti-police performance and they had lesbian-only Shakespeare, which is different. Who thinks of these ideas? We're bringing our country back so far.
(23:39)
The military is so much better. Everything, it's just gone. They have, people are paying four, 500,000 a year to teach DEI. Just 12 weeks our new board has balanced the budget. Think of that in 2026 budget. That's a pretty good job. That's amazing. So the 2026, I told you it was 25 million under balanced now for the fiscal year, eliminated DEI initiatives in all cases. Brought back family-friendly programming that will attract large audiences once again and launch a plan to renovate the building and reclaim the grandeur as a landmark, really a Washington landmark, which it always was.
(24:28)
The Kennedy Center will also play an important role in our national celebration to commemorate the 250th anniversary of America's founding. So we have three really big, we have that. We have the 250th anniversary of America's founding. That's a big deal. And we have the Olympics and we have the World Cup. And maybe I got lucky because I got the Olympics and I got the World Cup. I did nothing to help the 250th anniversary. I might take credit for that one then you'll say, "I think he's exaggerating."
(25:06)
But two of the three I absolutely. I got the Olympics, I got the World Cup. And I said to myself when I got them, it was my first term, I got them. President Obama would not take the calls from the Olympic Committee, refused to take the calls, I think because he traveled to Oslo or wherever he went and very far away in order to get the Olympics, a previous Olympics. And I said, "Well that's great. That means we got it because what president would travel to come in fourth place," which is what we came in fourth place. And so he was so angry he wouldn't take the call.
(25:40)
So I got a call from at the time the mayor of Los Angeles. Los Angeles is not looking too good with what the water. We just sent so much water down their way. They didn't want to take it because it was bad for the environment. They said, "The water's good for the environment." They would've had it when I told them to get it. They wouldn't have had the fires or would've been very small. But we took so much and we were looking at the Olympics, we were looking at other things and Obama went there and all that travel, all that, everything. And think who would go there unless you know the answer, you have to know the answer. You can't be embarrassed as president. No president's ever done that. And I give him credit, he went, but he should have known the answer that's called deal making. And he didn't. And they put him at forth and he was so angry that it hurt his whole thing. He didn't want to talk to anybody.
(26:34)
So I got a call from the mayor and he said, "Sir, you're the president-elect." I was president-elect at the time. "The president will not speak to the Olympic committee," and I understand that, but a little bit his fault. He was very embarrassed by that. And I said, "I'll speak to him." And I spoke to this gentleman who was obviously Scandinavian, seriously, Scandinavian in very nice. I couldn't get him off the phone because he was so starved for love.
(27:04)
He just kept, I must had him for two hours. I couldn't. I said, "Sir, I have to call President-Elect." "Yes," all I said to him, "Yes, yes, yes, we will take good care." They wanted to know that if they choose us for the Olympics, will we treat them nicely? And I said, "We're going to treat you like so well you've never been treated." And then he went to talk about anything because nobody would talk to him. Now we talked about, and we got the Olympics and then we got through Johnny, who's the boss, he's a friend of mine. And we got the World Cup. I got them both. And I said, "Man, I won't be president. I won't be. I got the Olympics and the World Cup and I won't be president and they're going to forget that I got them. Nobody's going to mention it because a little bit, that's the way life is."
(27:48)
And then they rigged the election. And then I said, "You know what I'll do? I'll run again and I'll shove it up their ass." And that's what I did. And all of a sudden I then realized, I said, "You know what? I got the Olympics. I got the World Cup and I got the 250th. Look at the way this works out." So if they would've left us alone and wouldn't have cheated on the election and wouldn't have rigged it, I would've been retired right now. I would've been happily doing something else. And instead they had me for four more years.
(28:24)
So instead of putting forward programming that tears our country down and tears our country apart, the Kennedy Center should be the nation's premier venue for lifting up the best of our country and lifting up the American arts, theater, music and culture. And together, it's really an honor to be like, I mean, I have so many friends on the board. This is a hot board. Just like we have a hot country. We have a hot country. Our country was stone-cold eight months ago. It all began on November 5th. Does everybody know that, that was the election day?
(29:01)
And from that moment on and then January 20th came and what we've done, we have almost no inflation. Our energy prices are way down our gasoline costs are way down. Groceries are way down eggs. Remember they hit me with eggs my first week, sir, the fake news. Those people right there. They're saying, "Sir, eggs have gone through the roof. They were doubling and tripling eggs." I said, "I don't know what I've just got here. Excuse me." And through our great, she's done a great job. Brooke Rollins, secretary of agriculture. Anyway, the prices came down. We had the egg roll here a couple of weeks ago for Easter. They didn't want us to order eggs. They wanted the eggs to be made out of plastic. They wanted plastic. I said, "I'm not going to do that." But by the time it came around, the egg prices are way down. The groceries are way down. We are just doing great.
(29:54)
Think of it, no inflation. And we're taking in billions, hundreds of billions of dollars in tariffs, which we never did before. We got a hot country right now we have a country that people are proud to be a part of. So we're going to honor the legacy of President Kennedy, great legacy and we'll create the best and most beautiful home for the performing arts anywhere in the country and many other things. Also, I want to thank you again. We're going to have some fun working together. It's going to make this a fun project. That's what I thought until I walked into the building. I said, "Won't be the fun I thought." But it is fun.
(30:26)
I like to create you like to create most of the people in the room like to create, just like Bob Kraft created the New England Patriots. He happens to be here. And he tells me he's a great new quarterback. So we're going to see a lot of people make that statement. We're going to find out. But I have a feeling you're going to be right. You've been right about a lot of things. But he was right about Tom Brady, right? You got him almost the last draft choice in the last round, six round, whatever it was. How did he work out Tom Brady? Okay? Not bad? Good, right? But Bob's here and his wife, as you know Dana, she's on the board and she's much younger than him so he wanted to come tonight with her. Isn't it nice when you have a husband who will travel with you to the board and he's a big shot too? And he is a great guy. He's been my friend for a long time.
(31:19)
So I'd like to ask if I might, secretary Rubio and followed by, we're going to ask Sergio to say a couple of words and then Rick Grinnell and we'll have a little fun tonight. And you know what they can do? If they can relatively quietly, they can start serving the meal. So by the time we're all finished, we get the hell out of here. We go home and we have our board all four. And we can start doing that quietly. And so Marco, please come up and say a few words. Thank you everybody.
Speaker 3 (32:03):
Well thank you all for being here tonight. It's an unusual day. It's not often you wake up in the morning and your first meeting is with the Pope and your last meeting is a dinner with the President of the United States. That's a heck of the dinner. But it actually is an honor to be a part of this administration, Mr. President. It's actually a very unique situation. I don't know how many of you got to see the President's speech in Saudi Arabia. I think it will go down as one of the most profound foreign policy speeches in American history. And where it outlined a vision for the future and a vision of prosperity. And I tell people we have a president of peace.
(32:39)
In fact, I'll tell you kind of an aside, one of the cardinals I was meeting with Mr. President the day before the papal mass said to me, "It's very unusual for us. We have an American president that wants peace and it's some of the Europeans that are constantly talking about doing war stuff." So it's kind of the world's upside down in their mind right now is usually the other way around. And
Speaker 3 (33:00):
It's a great honor to work for a president who literally spends half his day, maybe more, trying to stop wars and prevent wars, and it's an extraordinary thing to be a part of. And thank you for your leadership on that front. He's a key part of the speech he gave, and I just summarize it this way. Our president is a builder, not a bomber. He wants to make things. He wants to build things. He wants people to have prosperity and to be happy. And frankly, he knows we have to have national defense because of course that's the world we live in. But I think one of the things that troubles him deeply is how much money has to be spent on some of his military and war because it's just the way the nature of the world is. He'd much rather be spending growing the economy and doing the deals that we've seen, and he's trying to convince other countries of that as well.
(33:48)
It's an honor to be a part of this tonight for a few moments because you have an opportunity here. The Kennedy Center is a showcase of American excellence and arts and culture, and that's what it needs to be again. And the work that Rick and his team are doing, both to bring the building and the actual function of the organization to reflect that. But the programming is the other thing we're really excited to see the programming, the shows that are coming that will be a highlight of American excellence and of American culture and American entertainment.
(34:18)
And just so you know, the influence that American culture has around the world in a positive way. A few months ago, the president hosted the Prime Minister of Italy down in Florida and her English is excellent, very good English, and I asked her, "Why is your English so good?" It was really good. You know what she said? You know where she learned English? Michael Jackson, not from him, not like personally. He wasn't doing the lessons from his music, but what it tells you is the impact that American culture has on the world in such a positive way and it can have such an influence and the Kennedy Center's a showcase for it. So we're excited to see what you're leading here and all of you contributing towards that. And we're excited to see also the restoration of that building that really should be a showcase and something that we're proud of. That when people come to Washington, when people come to America, they want to see the shows that reflect the greatness of our culture and society and in the building run by an organization that is reflective of excellence as well.
(35:18)
So it's an honor to be here tonight. I want to thank all of you for contributing to this because it's important that this board and everyone that's involved in it, and Rick and his team are doing a great job of making sure that your dollars and everything you've made possible will be well spent, so we'll have a treasure in our hands for future generations. I think, Sergio, you want to come up here now and tell us about? Sergio Gualt.
Speaker 4 (35:37):
First of all, good evening. It's an honor to be here with all of you. We're here to honor the spirit that makes America exceptional. Under President Trump's leadership, we're witnessing the revitalization of American culture, the return to the values that fuel our greatness. I can't think of a better chairman for the Kennedy Center than President Trump. A lot of his incredible record when it comes to dealing with these individuals who become American icons. So from Michael Jackson to hosting Pavarotti many times to Andrea Bocelli, to incredible individuals that have changed the landscape of art and music.
(36:25)
A couple of years ago we were publishing a book and it was called "Letters to Trump," and we would open a box that's been closed for decades and the letters that would show up in these boxes were just absolutely incredible. And there was a letter from 1986 and it was written to "Dear Donald, I have a new show opening up and I'd love for you to attend. It's called Phantom of the Opera, signed Andrew Lloyd Webber." And so there's nobody more qualified to lead this institution than President Donald Trump.
(36:58)
America's had an incredible run for the last 250 years minus the last four under the previous administration, and so we hope under his leadership, under his vision, under this entire team, the next 250 will be just as great. I want to thank all the individuals who have contributed to the Kennedy Center, Howard Lipnick Center for your donation. Thank you. And we have a lot of other individuals who are looking to contribute. Anthony, you're nothing but cash. We know that. With that, I want to bring up our incredible director who's leading up the day-to-day activities of the Kennedy Center, Ambassador Richter Null.
Speaker 5 (37:45):
I'll be very quick. First of all, how great is it to have a president who actually cares about the art center? That's what I love best, is that he actually cares. He came, he saw the problem, and he immediately said, "I'm going to call Congress and we're going to try to fix it." This is traditionally a Democrat territory except President Trump says, "I want to do this." I have to tell you, President Trump is actually saving the Kennedy Center because there is discussion right now of whether or not to take it down. The deferred maintenance of the Kennedy Center is criminal. It has been terrible.
(38:29)
Mr. President, we said today in our board meeting, our great new CFO went through the '24 and '25 budgets of the Kennedy Center and found $26 million in phantom revenue, fake revenue. It's criminal. We're going to refer this to the US Attorney's office here. We're lucky enough to have the Attorney General on the board of the Kennedy Senate who heard all the details today. She heard the details, and this is unacceptable in America to have a fake revenue of $26 million fraud on previous donors. It's unacceptable.
(39:16)
But I'm here to tell you that what we have is total transparency now. We want people to go through the budget. We want them to question it. We announced our program today, which is literally shocking the media because they're saying, "Okay, this is pretty good." We're not getting criticized for the programming because guess what, Mr. President? When you pick programs that are popular with the public, they respond. People buy tickets. It is popular when you do programming for the masses.
(39:54)
As I said today, I am somebody who loves niche programming in the arts. I'm somebody who embraces it. It's not for everybody, but I like to be challenged by the arts. I like it when somebody can teach me and make me a little bit uncomfortable in a show. But one thing that we're not going to do at the Kennedy Center is inappropriate content for children. We're going to protect children, and we're going to make sure that we are absolutely not losing money on our program. We can't do arts education if we don't have enough money and we have fake revenue coming in.
(40:31)
So I promise you, and this board today responded incredibly well. I can't thank you all enough. Jennifer, thank you for being the chair. Thank you for every single board member. Your commitment is amazing, and as President Trump said, "We are going to do great things." Everyone needs to go out and buy tickets to Les Mis and Corgi Invest, which are currently being right now about to launch. We're building the stages and we're getting ready to have Premier Entertainment at America's premier arts institution. Thank you very much.
