Wow, what a group. What a group this is. There's the great Steve Wynn. Hi, Steve. Hello everybody. What a group of good friends. We're going to bring this place back, it's not so good, I will tell you. 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, tell you about our day? Should I tell you about the day first? My little conversation with a nice gentleman named Vladimir Putin, but we had -- 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 -- it's a bloodbath, it's an absolute bloodbath.
I've seen satellite pictures that are so bad, so horrible and it's -- to think that in this day and age we're living -- 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, would have never happened. And the Ukraine-Russia wouldn't have happened. But I'll tell you what else wouldn't have happened, October 7th would not have happened. This was a terrible thing also. A lot of bad things happened in the last four years, 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, that's not bad And it's being credited as one of the -- maybe the most successful visit that anybody's ever made to anyplace, has never been anything like this.
Hundreds of planes, big widebody planes, ordered -- Boeing, getting them from Boeing. But I think an order of I think 148 planes, that's a lot of 777s, 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. 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. We have more money, but we didn't use it right, but that's all right, now we're starting to. 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 the tariffs haven't even really kicked in [Inaudible] It's a big difference.
The last four years have been a disaster for us with trade and frankly with everything else. So, we're here for a different reason tonight. We're going to have to fix this one too. We're fixing everything. We're going around Mr. Fixit, Mrs. Fixit. Anybody want to join me? But the Kennedy Center, when I said I'll do this, I hadn't been there.
That's the last time I'll take a job without looking at it [Laughter] and -- but it's got a tremendous amount. Lindsey Graham and some people put in the budget 200 -- either $200 million 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 [Laughter] and they had -- over $200 million was spent.
So, I don't know what's going on. Pam, are you here? Did you hear that? Look, when I hear that I say what, where -- Pam, where did all this money go? It's crazy. It's crazy what's happened with our country in that regard. You know, I used to build things. Go back to the Wollman Rink. They went for years, 12 years, without getting 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 open. I said I want my kids to go ice skating before they're too old they don't want to go ice skating anymore. 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.
This is a -- 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, you know.
So, it was fun. But we -- I love construction. That's I guess why I like this a little bit because we're going to have to redo it. So, I'm honored to welcome an exceptionally talented and committed group of patriots. You're amazing people, this is an amazing board, I 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 because I couldn't get them on the board. But -- because the board is taken. But we're going to turn it around and the Kennedy Center Board of Trustees, you're here and, in many cases, you have your spouses. And I want to thank Ric Grenell.
Where's Ric? Where is Ric? Hello, Ric, he's terrific. He did a great job. He used to walk into the Justice Department with stuff on there showing 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, 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.
You know, we have the 250th year anniversary coming up and this building is going to be a primary focus in DC. And it's got the potential for greatness. If it didn't, I wouldn't have done it, but it's got -- it has a great plan, it's got great sound, it's got a lot of things. You know, if you don't have good sound, you can forget it, you're never going to -- they've been trying to do things over at the -- at Lincoln Center.
All my life I've been watching, they rip it down, build it up, rip it down. You know, some of the greatest sound off buildings built in the 1850s out of pure marble and you get up and you can just talk lightly, and they hear you back a hundred rows. But some -- 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're 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. 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 looked from a distance, you know, you see these like hubs, concrete hubs, and I thought it was modern, art, you know?
Well, 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's 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 it, we're doing a job. We are -- 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 a laughingstock, an absolute laughingstock, but we're not a laughingstock any longer. And you know, I was talking to, as I said, President Putin for 2.5 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. You know, 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 record setting enlistment in the military.
Think of that, record setting. The most in 38 years, but it's probably more than that. They started taking the numbers, Susie, 38 years ago, right? 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 any -- we wouldn't have anybody in our military. I mean nobody, Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, 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. 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, 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 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 the -- 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 you know, we have everybody here. They have to be here for something sometime. I've got total confidence in the just great team that Ric and the group have put together.
Sergio has done fantastically. We're especially pleased to be joined tonight by Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Great guy. Great guy. Where is Marco? He's great. 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 because 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'd actually -- we like each other. I think I can speak for him. I can speak for myself, but he's -- 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 she's married to the best-looking guy in the room, I must [Laughter] admit. But she's been amazing.
She's so respected and she's, you know, 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. There was a -- 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 have thought it would have been a much bigger level, right?
But she gets it. Secretary Howard Lutnick is here with his wife, Allison, and he's great. 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 his firm twice. You know, his firm was at the top of the World Trade Center when the planes hit, and he was an 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 would always be -- it was a -- built Cantor Fitzgerald and he built it and very top firm. They had the top three floors of the World Trade Center, the building -- the first building that was hit.
And he was always there at 6:00 in the morning, 5:30 in the morning, you know, 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. It's probably [Laughter] but whatever the hell reason, he was there always at 5:30 or 6:00. And first time ever, like 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 like two or three years of being harassed by Allison, who is very tough, a 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 have been in that building and every single person died in your firm, every single -- he lost everybody. And with the exception of a few people in Europe and maybe a couple of other places, small because 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 to the people, the families of the people that died. And the new firm became more successful than the old firm using the same name, Cantor Fitzgerald. And he rebuilt it step by step by step and I mean, that's 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 [Laughter] it's so big. He and Scott are in charge of -- 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. They were taking advantage of us. We never did anything. But now we're doing it to them and fairly, very -- I'll tell you what, modestly, but we'll be taking -- and we are taking in right now 25 percent in cars, 25 percent on steel and aluminum, 25 percent on other things.
And that will 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 it's really been -- you've done a great job. But he said to me the other day, this is so big, these numbers are bigger.
I said Cantor Fitzgerald doesn't look so big anymore. We see numbers, we talk in the trillions now, we talk -- 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 Wiles. 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, you know, it's actually true. She can wipe out a country with just a mere phone call [Laughter] think of it, it's the end of the country. But she's great. She's been -- I mean, 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. But Susie ran it and we won by a landslide and a 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 a landslide.
I said good. Then the next time I won again in a much bigger landslide and anybody I endorsed also won and 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 you 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. You know, they used to say, sir, it's not really that nice to say.
I mean, honestly, it was rigged and unfortunately that's what happened. You look at some of the things that happened, all of these things would have never happened. But when it came time to thinking about doing it again, I didn't think I'd have to do that. I said, you know, I think I'm going to take that woman, my friend now, but at the time I didn't know.
Her father was Pat Summerall, he 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, a person's genes. And Susie was -- I said, you know, 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.
I said let's use -- 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 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 because, you know, I thought we were beyond it. First woman chief of staff in the history of the country, right and she's doing a great job. And you know, those men are scared. 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 [Laughter] she's great. And we have a friend of mine, a man that I endorsed and he proudly went through the roof. Jeff Landry, governor of Louisiana where's Jeff?
Did my endorsement mean much? When I endorsed you, he became a rocket ship, right? We avoided -- say it.
We won in the first one.
Yeah, yeah, it was good. We didn't want to go a second round. He just -- he went up and won everything and he's a great, 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 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. We're looking to get the One Great Big, Beautiful Bill, it will be the greatest tax cuts in history. If we don't get it, that means the Democrats will have stopped us, and that means people will get a 68 percent tax increase, the largest in history.
And if we do get it, we're going to have the largest tax decrease in history. 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 the hell [Laughter] is going on. We are going to raise your taxes and people say 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 in my tour a few weeks ago the building is falling apart. I don't want to make -- I don't want to scare people, it's in fine shape, but it's falling apart. That means, we have to see. You know, we have Les Mis, we're opening up with Les Mis and some other things.
We have Miss Fisher -- Mrs. Fisher 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. We'll have them run for a while and I think you're going to do 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 because it's so important. The previous leadership ship wasted millions and millions of dollars and handed us a budget deficit of $26 million. Can you believe that? In addition, the programing was out of control with rampant political propaganda, DEI and inappropriate shows.
We had some very inappropriate shows to put it -- I think to put it very nicely. They had dance parties for, quote, queer and trans youth. And I guess that's all right for certain people. Quote -- 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 really [Laughter] it's different. It's different. Oh, we're bringing our country back so fast. The military is so much better. Everything is just gone. They had -- people were paying them $400,000 or $500,000 a year to teach DEI. In just 12 weeks our new board has balanced the budget.
Think of that, in 2026 budget. That's a pretty good job you're doing so, that's amazing. So, the 2026, I told you it was $25 million under, it's balanced now for the fiscal year, eliminated DEI initiatives in all cases, brought back family friendly programing that will attract large audiences once again, and launched a plan to renovate the building and reclaim the grandeur as a landmark, really a Washington landmark which it always was.
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 you know, maybe I got lucky because I got the Olympics and I got the World Cup. I did nothing to help the 250th anniversary [Laughter] because if I take credit for that one, then you'll say I think he's exaggerating a little. 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 when 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, the 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. So, I got a call from, at the time, the mayor of Los Angeles that Los Angeles is not looking too good with what the water -- we just sent so much water down their way, they way they didn't want to take it because it was bad for the environment.
I said, no, water is good for the environment. If they would have had it when I told them to get it, they wouldn't have had the fires or would have 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 has 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 fourth and he was so angry that it hurt his whole thing. He didn't want to talk to anybody.
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, I guess. 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 and very nice.
I couldn't get him off the phone because he was so starved for love [Laughter] he just kept -- I must have had him for two hours. I couldn't, I said, sir, I have to go -- I'm 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 so well, like you've never been treated. And then he wanted to talk about anything because nobody would talk to him. Now he talks to me [Laughter] and we got the Olympics. And then we got through Gianni, who's the boss, we got -- he's a friend of mine, 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 in 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, you know, a little bit that's the way life is 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 [Laughter] 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 have left us alone and wouldn't have cheated on the election and wouldn't have rigged it, I would have been retired right now. I would have been happily doing something else.
And instead, they have me for four more years, can you believe it? So, it has happened. So, instead of putting forward programing 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 with -- I mean I have so many friends on the board. This is a hot board just like we have a hot country. You know, we have a hot country. We had -- our country was stone cold eight months ago. It all began on November 5th. Does anybody know that that was Election Day.
And from that moment on and then January 20th came and what we've done. You know, 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 were saying, sir, eggs have gone through the roof.
They were doubling and tripling eggs. I said, I don't know, and I 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. They didn't want us to -- 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, everything is way -- we are just doing great. I mean, think of it, no inflation. And we're taking in billions, hundreds of billions of dollars in tariffs we never did before.
We've 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, his 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 this won't be the fun I thought, but it is fun. 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 has a great new quarterback. So, we're going to see -- you know, 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? He got him almost the last draft choice in the last round, sixth round, whatever it was.
How did he work out, Tom Brady? OK? 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 [Laughter] nice? Isn't it nice when you have a husband that will travel with you to the board and he's a big shot too?
And he's a great guy. He's been my friend for a long time. 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, thank you. Thank you.