Thank you very much. Please, Susie.
Thank you, sir.
No place like the White House. Do we agree?
Agreed.
Right, Mr. Kraft? No place like the White House. Thank you very much for being here. Appreciate it. And we'll maybe discuss a couple of general topics. This is a board meeting for the Trump Kennedy Center, but we'll go into a couple of other things that we have the media present. It's always present, unfortunately, constantly.
And, uh, I'll say a few words about what's happening in the Middle East. And if you have a couple of questions, we'll do that and then we'll get on with our board meeting. So thank you very much for being here. We have a wonderful group of very, very smart, talented patriots at this table. Our powerful military campaign to end the threats posed by the Iranian regime continued in full force over the past few days.
They have been literally obliterated. The Air Force is gone, the Navy is gone. Many, many ships have been sunk, their war fighting ships, but I guess they didn't know how to use them. And, uh, anti-aircraft is decimated. Their radar is gone and their leaders are gone. Other than that, they're doing quite well.
They've been a terror for 47 years. And now, I guess, the world through the United States with the help of Israel is, uh, is doing what should have been done many years ago, should have been done many years ago. Since the beginning of the conflict, we've struck more than 7,000 targets across Iran, and these have been mostly commercial and military targets.
We've achieved a 90 percent reduction in their ballistic missile launches and a 95 percent reduction in drone attacks. The missiles are trickling in now at very low levels because they don't have too many missiles left. We've also attacked the manufacturing plants where the -- places where they manufacture the missiles and the drones, and that's going on today.
We just hit three of them today. It's getting very hard for them to manufacture. More than 100 Iranian naval vessels have been sunk or destroyed over the last week and a half. That has to be some kind of a record. Additional strikes continue to launch from all directions every single hour. And as you know, we attacked Kharg Island and knocked it -- knocked it -- literally destroyed everything in the island except for the area where the oil is. I call it the pipes.
We left the pipes. We didn't want to do that. But we will do that. We can do that on five minutes notice; it will be over. But for purposes of someday rebuilding that country, I guess we did the right thing. But it's -- uh, it may not stay that way. Just one simple word and the pipes will be gone too. But it'll take a long time to rebuild that.
We are aggressively dismantling Iran's defense industrial base and ability to rebuild its missiles and drone capability is getting down to close to zero. And we're hammering their capacity to threaten commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, with more than 30 mine laying ships destroyed. We hit, to the best of our knowledge, all of their mine-laying ships.
Now they can put them on other types of ships, I guess, and drop them in. But we don't know that any have even been dropped in. We're not sure that any have been. That's a big negative for them, if they do it. It's a form of suicide. But we don't know that they have dropped any in. But we've, uh, we've hit all 30 of their ships and destroyed them.
They're all at the bottom of the sea. We strongly encourage other nations whose economies depend on the strait far more than ours. You know, we get less than one percent of our oil from the strait. And, uh, some countries get much more. Japan gets 95 percent. China gets 90 percent. Many of the Europeans get quite a -- quite a bit.
South Korea gets 35 percent. So we want them to come and help us with the strait. Uh, we have it in very good shape. The countries, I said, we've already taken care of Iran, but now, uh, because of the fact that literally a single terrorist can put something in the water or shoot something or shoot a missile, a small missile.
And it's fairly close range because it is a tight area. And -- which is one of the reasons they've always used that as a weapon. Iran has always used that as an economic weapon and it's not going to be able to use -- be used very long. Numerous countries have told me they're on the way. Some are very enthusiastic about it and some aren't. Some are countries that we've helped for many, many years.
We've protected them from horrible outside sources and they weren't that enthusiastic. And the level of enthusiasm -- of enthusiasm matters to me. We have some countries where we have 45,000 soldiers, great soldiers, protecting them from harm's way, and we have done a great job. And when we want to know, do you have any minesweepers, well, we'd rather not get involved, sir.
I said, for -- you mean for 40 years, we're protecting you and you don't want to get involved in something that is very minor, very few shots going to be taken because they don't have many shots left, but they said we'd rather not get involved. I just want the fake news media and everybody else to remember that that was said because when -- I've been a big critic of all of the protecting of countries, because I know that we'll protect them.
And if ever needed, if we ever needed help, they won't be there for us. I've just known that for a long period of time, just like I knew about the Strait that it would be a weapon which I predicted a long time ago, predicted all of this stuff. You guys were very generous in that I predicted all of it. I predicted Osama bin Laden would knock out the World Trade Center.
I made that prediction a year before he did it. I said you better get him. He's a bad guy. I watched him be interviewed one time and I said that's a bad guy. You better get him, one year before exactly I wrote it in a book. You can even check about a year before the World Trade Center came down. President Clinton actually had a shot at him and he didn't take it. Unfortunately, I'm not blaming him for that, but he didn't take it. And, uh, he ended up knocking down the World Trade Center.
But I predicted that too, I predicted a lot of things. We strongly encourage other nations whose economies depend on the strait for a lot. I mean, you know these -- these people literally, uh need it. 90, 95 percent of their energy or their oil comes out of the strait and, uh, they should be in here very happily helping us and it's incredible.
We have such great -- we're number one in oil by double now we drill, baby drill, we're double any other nation and it's going to be soon triple any other nation. And that doesn't include Venezuela who's been great. By the way, the relationship with Venezuela has been fantastic. Millions, literally millions of barrels of oil are being taken out.
And it's been a great help and it's been to their great benefit. The president has done a really good job. We get along with them really well. But we've taken out millions of barrels of oil and brought to Houston and other places for -- to the refineries. We have refineries set up specifically for that and it's been a great -- it's been a great relationship.
And, uh, more and more is happening. It's a tremendous oil source and, uh, we're getting, uh, we're -- we're stepping it up very rapidly. The big companies are going in and they will actually numbers in a pretty short period of time numbers that they've never been able to do. We'll be doing. Uh, there's a lot of oil under that land.
We strongly encourage the other nations to get involved with us and get involved quickly and with great enthusiasm. Uh, I have that from a number of them and I'd like to say their names, but frankly, I don't know if they would want me to or not, because maybe they don't want to be targeted. But I say wouldn't matter if you're targeted or not, because this is a paper tiger that we're dealing with now.
It wasn't a paper tiger two weeks ago. It's a paper tiger now. So now we're going to get down to the reason we'll take a couple of questions in a moment, but we're going to get down to the reason we're here today. Actually this was set up a long time ago. It's the Trump Kennedy Center. Over the past year, we've made incredible strides to restore the true purpose and prestige of this revered institution.
Together, we're going to ensure it remains the finest performing arts facility of its kind anywhere in the world and I don't know that it ever really reached that stage, but it will over a period of time. We're rebuilding it. It's in very, very bad condition. It's been left, it's -- it's been -- it's been somewhat of a disaster to be honest with you.
It's been, uh, it's been -- let go to hell, that's what they've done. They did a poor job. They spent money in the wrong places. They built some theaters underneath that. Nobody uses little ones, tiny theaters that cost $300 million and the money was spent incorrectly, wrong. We're dealing with some networks on the possibility of renting those little theaters.
Nobody's going to use them. They want the big halls. The halls -- the halls are going to be incredible. They're in bad shape. But when they're completed, the bones are potentially something that could be unbelievable. So I want to, uh, before we begin, I want to thank Ric Grenell. He's been a friend of mine for a long time.
He's been unbelievable. He went to the -- he was the ambassador, as you know, to Germany. There was no happier woman in the world than Angela Merkel. Angela, she called me, thank you, sir. Thank you. Although she liked Ric a lot, there was nobody happier that he was no longer going to be the ambassador to Germany.
He was difficult for them. He was not your typical ambassador. He was the opposite. He was -- he would do what was best for the United States, not for Germany. And I want to tell you, he did a great job, so good that I put him in charge of a thing called intelligence and something he didn't really want to do, but he did it and he did it incredibly well.
There were a lot of leakers. He found out the leakers and when he didn't find out who the leaker was in a certain area, he fired everybody and he went into one room where there was leaks coming out. These are long-term problems that these various places have had and he said who's the one that leaked this.
And they wouldn't admit it, so he fired the whole room and he did a good job. I'll tell you, he was very good. And during this transition period, I asked Ric if he would -- if he would run it because we wanted to see. And if you remember, when we first took it over, I didn't do it with enthusiasm. I did it because somebody had to do it. I had to turn it around because it was failing.
It would have closed and physically it would have almost fallen down. It was in very bad shape. The steel columns outside as an example were meant to be covered. You know it's exposed steel is unusual to have in building. What I do best in life is build. I build buildings really well and really -- and under budget and ahead of schedule.
That's what I do unlike the Fed, the fed building which is going to cost billions of dollars, it may never open. I mean right now they just -- you know, we have a wonderful Kevin, a wonderful new head of the Fed coming in. I don't know if he'll ever be able to occupy this complex. It was destroyed by Jerome "Too Late" Powell.
I call him too late because he's always too late with interest, should cut interest rates. He should cut them right now. They should have a special meeting. What's a better time to cut interest rates than now. A third-grade student would know that. But uh, that's a -- that's a terrible thing. But what I do is build, I build great stuff and what we're going to do is, uh, you know, right outside.
In fact, if you look behind me, you see the nice gold curtains. If you want to look into a nice foundation and you want to see a lot of work, very deep -- very, very deep for specific reasons. We have uh, a magnificent ballroom being built because this is the biggest room and it holds like 98 people for dinner.
But behind me, you're going to have a ballroom that's going to -- that this building and the people occupying it, in particular, every president for 150 years has clamored for a ballroom, a large beautiful room. This is a cocktail room and this will actually be -- this whole floor will end up being a cocktail room for the cocktail area or pre-area for the ballroom for dinners.
So we'll have heads of state. We can't even do a heads of state dinner. Usually what they do is they would do them on the lawn with the tent. But when it rains, the lawn, uh, is very low and you know the land in Washington, it was built on swampy wetland and when it rains and you have the king of Saudi Arabia, we have as an example, the king of the UK, I would say King of England, it was a great guy.
He's coming in very soon and when it rains, you know what happened. The rain would go over their feet, it would be about four or five inches over their shoes. This was not good. So -- and it rained a lot. So we're building, finally, because I do that and by the way, no taxpayer money. I want to put that zero.
It's going to be -- it's on time, on budget, it'll be under budget. Be literally, we're having it under budget other than we've upgraded it in terms of the marbles we're using. We're using onyx and stones that are incredible, but it'll be, uh, it'll be something really spectacular. I'm looking at Mr. Steve Wynn, who's over there.
He built a spectacular building and he knows Trump builds a spectacular building. I build better buildings than him. I don't care what he says. [Laughter] But Steve is over here and he really with his incredible wife, Andrea. And thank you both for being here. Andrea is on the board and Steve is so in love with his wife, he asked whether or not he could come.
And I can say the same thing for the great Bob Kraft, he's got a wife that's so wonderful. He said, do you think I could come? She didn't have to accept that, you know. She could have said no. But Bob said, I would like to come. So Bob, we will -- we will not let you vote. Although, his vote would be a good vote.
He will vote for the proper thing. But it's good to have you both here. These are two -- uh, two great couples that know a lot about the things I'm talking about, like fixing -- whether it's building a stadium or building a building, we know they know how to do it. So thank you.
Thank you, Steve, very much. But we've made incredible strides over the past year. If you remember, I said, I want to run it for a year just to see because the place is falling down. It's horrible. Air conditioning, heater is going to be -- heating is going to be ripped out in its entirety. And, you know, it needs new.
It's old. It's -- how many years is it, Rick? What's the total -- 50 almost -- yeah, over 50. And we have 50 year old air conditioning, more than that, actually, and it's in bad shape. Everything's -- everything's in bad shape. It's got to be redone, so I said, let's run it for a year just to see how it works.
It's better than -- you can't just go into something and try and figure it out. And we figured it out over the year and you have to close it. Putting new marbles in, beautiful, beautiful marbles. When you do marbles, you can't have people walking over the marble every night as it's drying and setting, and going to a play.
So we thought the best way -- I mean, I -- what I know best in the world is construction. The best way to do it is close it, do it properly and reopen it, have a grand reopening. And when it's finished, it's going to be far better than it was when it was originally built. When it was originally built, it was good.
It has one thing that's very good, it has great sound. The -- I think there's a lot of luck in sound. You have some of the big opera houses. I don't want to get involved with saying which one, but in New York as an example, where the acoustics were never good. And they've ripped it apart four times and rebuilt it and it was never good.
The good thing about the Kennedy Center, the acoustics are good. And they'll only be enhanced based on what we're doing. A lot of it has to do with the stones and the -- stones you use, the marbles you use, etc. Over the past year, we've made incredible strides to restore the true purpose and prestige that this building will soon gain, I think at a higher level than it had before.
Together, we're going to ensure it remains the finest and will become the finest performing arts facility anywhere in the world. It's got the location and it will have the building. It's got good bones. It's got good structure. Uh, again, they wanted to originally cover the exposed steel. I mean, it was painted a cheap gold and we turned it into a very expensively painted white, uh, very heavy coat of very, uh, very powerful white paint meant for steel, exposed steel, a very different kind of paint, but it's almost like putting a stone over the top of it. And the color is white, shiny white and it looks -- a lot of people have commented it looks so much better.
Before, they had the -- the steel painted gold and the gold was very cheap. There's actually never been a paint that's made that will look like gold. Steve will tell you that. You can't -- you either gold leaf it or use real gold bullion or you use a different color, Steve. Nobody's ever been able to make a gold paint that looks real.
A little minor thing for the -- for the media. I'm sure you're thrilled with hearing that. But there's never been a paint. I said, someday I'm going to discover a paint where you don't have to actually use gold leaf. Gold leaf is a very, very big and expensive process, but it's a beautiful thing, but not when you use paint.
So we got rid of the gold columns, which looked always terrible. They looked cheap and they looked fake, very much like the media, actually. And, uh, we took the columns and we painted them white. Before we painted them, Matt, very importantly, we structured them. We -- we replaced bad steel that was very badly rusting.
I mean, these are -- these are columns that are holding up a building and we had to replace areas of columns that were actually rusted out because it was in very bad shape. It's not even describable how bad this building was both inside and out. I want to thank Ric Grenell, but you really did a great job, Ric, on this and we appreciate it. I'm looking for the next -- your next venture, because he really was -- uh, he was -- you know, there was a story he got fired.
He didn't get fired. He was here for a short period of time, for a year, figuring it out with Matt and everybody else. And Matt, now is going to take over and he's going to -- he's a pro at construction, great at construction. And I think Matt would like to run the facility too. He's fallen in love with it and I think he'd do a good job.
But if I don't think he will do a good job, I'll say, Matt, you're fired, I'm getting somebody else. So you're under no pressure, Matt. OK? It's like Bob Kraft. If a football player doesn't perform well, typically you will fire him immediately, Bob. Do you ever let them stay around for four or five years if they're bad?
Not too many times, right? Huh? So anyway, I learned from him. So I want to thank also Attorney General Pam Bondi, who's been fantastic. I don't know, is Pam here someplace? Oh, Hello, Pam. Good. She's been great. And the speaker of the house. He's got the easiest job of anybody in government. He's got a majority of two.
I don't like to say one because it varies, but between one, two and three. And I think you're the only man that's ever lived that's able to be very happy about it. In fact, when we get up to three -- you know, every once in a while, we get up to three. Actually, for a period of time, we actually had -- we had it up to four and then we had a death.
And death is very bad when you're the speaker and you have a majority of two or three, But we had a death and then we had another death and we had some things and it's, uh -- but we're looking very strong. We had one man who was very ill. It looked like he wasn't going to make it. I don't know. I don't -- I won't mention his name.
Should I? Do other people know his name? Huh? Do you want to mention it? He'll be proud. Go ahead, tell them. Tell them the story.
OK. Well, thank you, Mr. President. Uh, Congressman Neal Dunn of Florida had had some real health challenges and it was very serious and, uh, had had a pretty grim diagnosis. And I mentioned it to the president and I said, uh, Congressman Dunn is a real champion and a patriot because he's still coming to work.
And if others got this diagnosis, they would be apt to go home and retire and spend time with family.
What was the diagnosis?
It was -- I mean, I think it was a terminal diagnosis.
He would be dead by June.
OK. That wasn't public, but yeah, OK. That's --
That was it.
It was -- it was grim. That's what I was going to say. Uh, I don't think he --
With a heart problem, by the way. This was a heart problem.
Right. So long story short, the president called him uh to encourage him and thank him and they had a conversation and the president mentioned in the course of the conversation, you know how to get my doctors involved and they did. And within a -- within a number of hours, they took him to Walter Reed, emergency surgery.
The man has a new lease on life. He acts like he's 30 years younger and he walked into the conference meeting and we thought we'd seen a ghost. And I spoke with him over the weekend and he's encouraged and thankful. And he thanks the president for his leadership and intervention and thank you. Thank you.
Amazing.
He actually called -- Mike -- Mike called me and he said, sir, we're up by three, but we're going to lose one by June. I said, who, Neal Dunn, he's a great -- great Congressman, incredible. He called to say that he was terminal, a really bad heart. There's nothing they can do. I said, that's bad. Number one, it was bad because I liked him.
Number two, it was bad because I needed his vote. But he really said -- he said, Mike, I'm going to last this out for the president and you and however long I live, I mean, it looks like June is the time. But, uh, however, long I live, I'm going to, uh, I'm going to be voting for you. I mean, how many people are going to say that?
Most of them are going to say, Mike, I'm retiring immediately. That's the end.
He's an extraordinary man.
But he didn't do that. It was really impressive. And then I realized I have doctors in the White House -- the White House doctors are incredible. And -- and they've helped me with other people. They're helping me with people right now. People that are very sick are -- like, they're miracle workers. And I said, I have to call them.
And I called the two doctors. They're both great. And they immediately went over to see the Congressman and he was on the operating table like two hours later.
Yeah.
That's right.
And it was a long operation. They gave him more stents and more everything that you could have. I think he's got everything that you could possibly have. And they called up, they said, sir, I think he'll be fine. I said, you got to be kidding. They said, I think he'll be fine. And Mike was telling me this story that the other day he came into a meeting for the first time in a long while.
Go ahead.
Well, it was incredible. I mean, just, he has a new lease on life. He has more energy than a man half his age and very encouraged and encouraged all of us. So again, a testament to great leadership. And he's -- my hat's off to Neal Dunn and his beautiful wife and family. He's an extraordinary individual.
And just -- you know, because I don't want to have a terrible story about this, I did it for him first and for the vote second, but it was a close second, actually. But I did it for the vote second. All right? I want to also, uh, introduce Susie Wiles, who's fantastic. She's our chief of staff and she's an amazing person and amazing fighter and she announced a little -- a minor difficulty, which will be in good shape -- good shape for who'll be around for a long time.
She has a -- she had a diagnosis, you probably saw it and she's going to take care of it immediately as opposed to waiting.
She said, let's do it now. I said do it immediately because with that particular ailment, uh, the faster, the better. That's the only thing I know about it. The faster, the better. She's going to do it immediately. So she just started actually and soon she's going to be in great shape. The prognosis there is excellent, beyond excellent so.
Thank you, sir.
But who needs it right?
That's right.
Who needs it? Uh, so before we took over just a year ago, the legendary this wonderful place was, uh, on the verge of literally on the verge of collapse, both from a financial standpoint, maybe more from a financial standpoint, but also from a physical standpoint. Necessary maintenance has been ignored, the programing was very woke and out of touch with reality and we had an orchestra that lost like $18 million a year and they subsidized it every year.
I said what kind of an orchestra loses 18? And I'm being nice when I say 18, it was much more and I started looking at the programing and they had tremendous union difficulties like 19 different unions and driving everybody crazy. And I think the unions are going to be great. I've always gotten along with unions.
As you know, I got great union support, but you had 19 unions every time somebody wanted to put on a play, they had to deal with 19 different groups of people. And it's -- they say it was like Broadway but worse and you don't get worse than Broadway when it comes to the unions. I've watched that for many years.
The programing was terrible and they had a budget deficit of about $26 million minimum owed a lot of money without borrowing money, which is a lot of people don't understand. So under the leadership of this exceptionally talented and rich board, it's a very rich board. Not everybody, but most of you loaded.
Ike Perlmutter has got so much money. [Laughter] Look at Ike Perlmutter, he ended up being the largest owner of Disney. Started with, was it $100 or less? It was a little less, Ike, right? He didn't speak English and he became the largest owner of Disney, right? But then they went woke and he sold the stock he didn't like -- he didn't like Mickey Mouse being woke.
Right, Ike? But he's one of the most brilliant business people. Thank you, Ike, it's great. And Lori, thank you very much for being here. So I think it's Lori that's on the board though. Right, Lori? What's with these husbands? All the husbands are traveling. [Laughter] I think it's the White House.
I got all the husbands with the wives. That's never happened. Boy, oh, boy, what great relationships. My wife is going to have to speak to me. [Laughter] This is -- this is pretty good. The biggest guys in the country travel with their wives to come to a meeting. But it has something to do with the White House, right, Ike?
You don't want to see me, you want to see the White House because it's a special building.
But thank you and congratulations on an amazing career. Most people don't know Ike Perlmutter, Isidor Perlmutter and started with nothing and built a vast fortune just by deal after deal. Did you ever have a bad deal, Ike? Which was that? Don't tell. [Laughter] See how honest he is? Most people would say no. He says one and it couldn't have been very bad.
Great to have you. So under the leadership of this board, which is as you see incredible, we're achieving a very dramatic and quick turnaround. We got rid of all of the DEI, some of the -- some of the news media loves DEI, but we got rid of it, maybe you're right. Brought back patriotic and family friendly programing.
And last year we raised over $130 million to keep this place going. Otherwise it would have been -- it would have been closed. The building -- the, let's call it the Kennedy Center from that time was losing so much money it could not have stayed alive if we didn't come in as a group of people and a lot of wealthy people that made a lot of contributions.
So with the Trump Kennedy Center Honors alone, we raised this year a record $23 million, which was double what they had ever done before, $23 million. There's still much to do. The previous management left us a facility in very bad condition. Abysmal is the word. And everything from busting pipes and leaks to serious electrical and structural problems and some of it we fixed, but most of it we're saving for during the construction period, because we'll do a much better job of it that way.
Major renovations are required to keep the facility functional and that will start right after July 4th. We're going to have a little bit of a celebration, not a big deal, but a little bit of a celebration on July 4th, we'll have a little party. And then after that we close and we start construction. We're fully financed.
As I announced in February after a one year review based on input from highly-respected experts and subject to board approval today, we determined -- it's a little late for the board because we've already announced it, but these are minor. These are minor details, but I think everybody agrees, but subject to board approval, we determined that the fastest way to bring the Trump Kennedy Center to the highest level of success beauty and grandeur is to cease the entertainment operations for a two-year period of time as we complete high-quality, really high-quality construction.
And we've already purchased seating as an example. We've already purchased a lot of the marbles and some of the things that are hard to get, getting quality marble is very hard. It takes a long time. It comes from areas where it takes a long time to mine and we're getting some of the best things you can.
The marble is going to be incredible. The -- the seats that we have, the seating is the highest level, everything is the highest level. So this temporary closure will enable us to complete the work much faster and much -- of a much higher quality. As an example, it's hard to show Shakespeare when you don't have any seats.
You know -- you know, as the seats are being changed, it's not exactly a great experience for people. So the right way to do it is just close it and fix it and open it. We'll begin right after, as I said July 4th celebration and thanks to the great big, beautiful bill, we are fully funded, ready to go and we have tremendous amounts of money coming in from some people around the table, but also from people that are not here.
But that have made very generous contributions toward the Trump Kennedy Center people that have never given to it before and would never have given it except I asked them to give. So, Ric, I thank you very much for the job that you've done and I'm delighted that you really are -- you did a great job. It was a little rough with a couple of the people, but that's okay.
They've -- they've survived. Some of the artistic art -- the artistes, a lot -- they took a -- T=they took a pounding from Ric. It's almost like this guy right over here, Anthony, you know, he knows what it is to pound people. Right, Ike? Anthony is -- Anthony knows. Anthony's another great -- you're not on the board either, Anthony.
You're here with your wife? What's going on here? The most successful people. They're all here with their wives. I'm looking around. Wow, that's impressive. Anthony's another one, he started off with one truck. He had one truck 45 years ago. He ended up with 4,000 trucks and he sold his company for billions of dollars.
And you're here, Anthony? He's a member of one of my clubs and all he has is cash. He said I have a big problem, sir. What? I don't know how to invest my cash. Most people have a problem, they don't have any cash, right? Anyway, thank you, Anthony. You're the greatest. So all of these people have done so much and they've done so much to help.
And, Matt, I just really, I'm here to a certain extent to wish you good luck with everything and to introduce you to the board. Many of the board know because Matt's been running a lot of the initial construction and planning and going to be assuming the role of chief operating officer and executive director where he'll lead a construction crew for the next -- a big crew by the way because it needs a lot of work for the next two years in preparation for the grand reopening.
And I think it's going to be something that's going to be very, very special. We're doing a lot of special things. We have a lot of things happening. We have in the front of the White House on June 14th, you probably read, UFC is going to be here. Dana White, the great Dana White, he's building a -- literally a stadium, a 5,000 seat arena right outside the front door of the white House.
And they're going to have about 100,000 people on the -- in the park right across the street where he's building, I believe, eight massive screens for people to watch. Free, all free for people to watch. It's June 14th happens to be my birthday, and that was only by happenstance. It was not planned that way.
But it's a Sunday night which they never did. Sunday night's super prime time. It's going to be broadcast on CBS, which is the Ellison family, two great people, great people. It's a great family. And it's going to be a tremendous event. And we have -- Roger Penske is going to have IndyCar here. We're going to have a race around the Capitol.
That's going to be in August. So we have that and we have a tremendous number of things.
We have the Olympics, we have the World Cup and we have the 250. And as you know, I was responsible for getting the Olympics. Actually, Bob Kraft helped me and he helped me with the World Cup too. You were very good. Who could be better, right? But he helped with the Olympics and the World Cup, but we have the Olympics coming.
I was responsible for that, right, Bob? We have the World Cup coming right now and I was responsible for that. Then we had a rigged election and because of that I got -- I was always very upset. When I got the Olympics, I said, I won't be president, because it was last term if I went by the normal progression.
And then I said, well, let's see what happens. And then they rigged the election and I said, let's do it again and we won in a landslide. And I came back and I ended up with the Olympics and the World Cup. Somebody said, did you do that on purpose? So I claimed the Olympics and I claimed the World Cup, because I did get both.
And then I tried to claim 250 year celebration. I said, I got that. They said, no, you didn't. That one, you didn't get. They're giving me no credit for that one, Mr. Speaker. I couldn't -- so I gave up on that one quickly. It wasn't -- that wasn't working.
It wasn't working.
It wasn't working. But I just want to thank everybody. This board has been incredible and, uh, it's really -- it's really nice. What we're going to do is we're going to -- we could take a few questions from the press and then after that, we'll have our meeting and we have a little lunch for the -- for the board.
So we'll have a little bit of a lunch. And it's an honor to have you all here. It's -- uh, so many of you, Jimmy, so many of you are friends. It's a great honor to have you here and we're going to do a great job with the Trump Kennedy Center. OK. Yes, please. CNN. Aye-yi-yi.
Thank you, Mr. President. I'm not seeing. I'm Daily Wire, but thank you for the question.
Go ahead.
Numerous countries have told me they are on their way. Can you give us a hint what they are, what that entails, how soon they might be there?
You mean who are the countries?
Yes, sir.
I'd rather not say yet, but we'll be announcing. Marco Rubio and the various people that are doing that will be announcing. And we do -- I have to tell you, we have some that are really enthusiastic. They're coming already. They've already started to get there. You know, it takes a little while to get there.
It's like, in some cases, you have to travel an ocean. So it doesn't go that fast, but it'll go fast and we have some that are fairly local that are doing it. But we'll be -- we'll give you a list. Some are very enthusiastic and some are less than enthusiastic. And I assume some will not do it. I think we have one or two that will not do it, that we've been protecting for about 40 years at, you know, tens of billions of dollars, Mr. Speaker.
So I'll -- I'll be reporting that to you in the House and the Senate. And I'll say, why are we protecting countries that don't protect us? And I've always felt that was a weakness of NATO; we were going to protect them but I always said, when in need, they won't protect us. Now this isn't need. Need would be one of the big boys.
But I will say that, uh, we built the greatest military in the world and we protect people. And if we need their mine boats or if we need, uh, anything, any piece of apparatus that they may have because of a situation that they have, uh, they should be jumping to help us, because we've helped them for years stay out of wars.
Yeah, please.
Thank you very much, Mr. President. Can you tell us if you have spoken with French President Macron about the coalition to reopen the Strait of Hormuz? Have you been speaking with the French president?
What does that -- what does that mean?
Have you been speaking with the French President Macron about the coalition to reopen the Strait of Hormuz?
Yeah, I have. I have spoken to him. Um, he's been -- on a scale of 0 to 10, I'd say he's been an eight. Not perfect, but it's France.
Are you --
We don't expect perfect.
Are you confident that France will help with the reopening of Strait of Hormuz?
Yeah. I mean, sure. He's going to -- I think he's going to help. I mean, I'll let you know. I spoke to him yesterday. Um, I don't do a hard sell on them because my attitude is we don't need anybody. We're the strongest nation in the world. We have the strongest military by far in the world. We don't need them.
But it's interesting. I'm almost doing it, in some cases, not because we need them, but because I want to find out how they react. Because I've been saying for years that if we ever did need them, they won't be there, not all of them, but they won't be there. I was very surprised with the United Kingdom because the United Kingdom, two weeks ago, I said, why don't you send some ships over?
And he really didn't want to do it. I said, you don't want to do it? We've been with you -- you're our oldest ally and we spend a lot of money on, you know, NATO and all of these things to protect you. I mean, we're protecting them. We're working with them on Ukraine. Ukraine's thousands of miles away separated by a vast ocean.
We don't have to do that, but we did it -- well, Biden did it. I mean, I have to be honest with you. Biden got taken to the cleaners. But we worked with them in Ukraine. We don't need to work with them in Ukraine and then they tell us that -- we have a mine ship around and they don't want to do it. I think it's -- I think it's terrible.
No, I would -- I was very surprised, I told him, you know, we requested two aircraft carriers, which they had. And he didn't really want to do it. And then right after the war essentially ended, you know, meaning they were obliterated, he said, uh, I would like to send the aircraft carriers. I said, I don't need them after the war has ended and won, I need it before the war.
So I was very upset with -- not upset. I was -- I was not happy with the UK. I think they'll be involved. Yeah, maybe. But they should be involved enthusiastically. We've been protecting these countries for years with NATO, because NATO is us. You can ask Putin. Putin fears us. He doesn't fear -- he has no fear of Europe whatsoever.
He fears the United States of America and the military that was built by me in the first term. Yeah.
Thank you, Mr. President. You mentioned the significant amount of oil that China derives in the Middle East. What is the status of your conversation with President Xi in terms of getting China to cooperate, in terms of making the Strait of Hormuz safe for those oil tankers?
Yeah. So China is a great example. They get 91 percent of their oil from the Hormuz Straits, which we protected for years. And it always bothered me that we have these countries -- Japan gets 95 percent of its -- from the Straits of -- Hormuz Straits. And it always bothered me that we're protecting and we don't need them.
We didn't need them before we started Dig We Must. Dig We Must, that's the Trump policy of lots of oil. And we didn't use them very much. It used to be a 10 percent. Now it's at almost zero. We don't need -- you know, we don't need oil. We have all the oil we need for ourselves. It's one of the great assets that we have.
We have double, more than double what anybody else -- in terms of oil production, we're at more than double any other country. So we don't need it, but -- but we did it. It's almost -- you could say we did out of a habit, which is not a good thing to do. But we did it because we have some good allies there.
We have some great Middle Eastern countries there, Israel there. So we did it for a lot of reasons, but it always amazed me that we did it, we never asked for reimbursement and it was really there to serve other countries, not us. And by the way, we have the Sugar King. Same story. Look at that. Alfie Fanjul.
Alfie, thank you both very much. It's -- huh? That's Pepe. Yeah. Pepe. Hi, Pepe. How are you? How are you? Is Alfie in the backstage?
No, no.
Is he -- is he sitting back there waiting for you? No? You're doing all right.
Doing OK. Thank you.
Pepe is a great friend of all of ours, I think, in the room, tremendous. And we appreciate you being here. Great, great to have you.
Thank you, Mr. President, honored.
It's great, both of you. Thank you very much. So go ahead, please.
Thank you, Mr. President. Mr. President, you've said that Iran does want to make a deal. Now into the third week of this bombing campaign, what would that deal look like? What are the asks that you're making of --
They want to make a deal. They're talking to our people. I don't know if they say that to you. Maybe they do, maybe they don't. Don't forget, they are a country that for years -- I didn't know this until recently, they're country based on disinformation and now they're using disinformation plus AI, and that's a terrible situation.
That's a terrible situation. Uh, they showed all sorts of things happening in the last two weeks that never happened, between their kamikaze boats that don't exist, between blowing up the aircraft carrier, one of the great ships in the world, the Abraham Lincoln on fire. They showed it on fire, I called the -- the general.
I said, uh, General, what's with the Abraham Lincoln? It looks like it's burning down, no. It's not burning down, not a bullet was ever fired at it, sir. They know better. They said this is my first glimpse of AI and what they've done with it. They showed buildings in Tel Aviv burning to the ground, high-rises burning.
They showed buildings in Qatar, they showed buildings in Saudi Arabia burning and they weren't burning, they weren't hit, it was all AI, AI-based. Terrible, it's terrible and that's their only -- that's their only -- I think that's the only thing they do well. They're negotiating and we always talk. You know, somebody said well, would you talk?
Why would you even talk to them? I talk to everybody because sometimes good things come out of it. But, uh, uh, I don't know if they're ready yet. They're taking a pounding. I don't know if they're ready yet, and we don't even know their leaders. Look, all of their leaders are dead as far as we know, but they're all dead.
We don't know who we're dealing with. We knocked out the first group. Then the second group met, 88, met to pick the leader because the first group was all dead and the second group got knocked out. They're all dead. Then the third group met. I would think they're a little nervous about meeting. I don't know if they're nervous.
Maybe they're not, maybe they're crazy, if they're not nervous, then they're crazy. But we met with the -- the next group and -- but we don't know who their leader is. We have people wanting to negotiate. We have no idea who they are. Yeah, please, Peter.
Thanks, President Trump. What are your advisors telling you about the ayatollahs son, the new supreme leader? What are they telling you about?
Not only them, it's you people. I mean, a lot of people are saying that he's badly disfigured, uh, they're saying that he lost his leg, one leg, and he's, you know, been hurt very badly. Other people are saying he's dead, nobody's saying he's 100 percent healthy. And, uh, he hasn't -- you know, he hasn't spoken because the ayatollah would sit and he'd spew hate from a form of a throne.
Not as nice as a throne. I like the English throne much better, but it was a -- it was a fancy chair, but he'd spew hate from his chair, but you'd see him a lot, right? This one we haven't seen at all. So that could be for a lot of different reasons. We don't know, Peter, if he's dead or not.
And now that you've been --
-- I will say this, nobody's seen him which is unusual.
Something else. Now that you've announced that the US has destroyed all of Iran's mine-laying ships. Why can't the US just immediately reopen the Strait of Hormuz?
Well, we could, but it takes two to tango. We have to get people to take their billion-dollar ship and -- and, you know, drive it up. If when -- when Pepe has his big sugar ships coming around and they cost $1 billion and we say, I think it's okay now, Pepe, take your ship, drive it Through the Strait of Hormuz.
He may say, let me wait a little while because it takes -- it takes a ship owners and the -- you know, these ships are very expensive. They could cost up to $2 billion. So they don't want to take a chance that, gee, I think -- I think you'll be okay, they got to know it. So they don't have to say -- you know, we don't know if they even said any mines.
But the thought that they may have is enough to keep people from saying we don't need it. Now, we are pounding that area that coast, as you know, left side, we're pounding it like really pounding it hard. And, uh, again, they may have no mines set. We hit every one of them, mind drop, they call it the minelayers, right?
The ships, they're pretty sophisticated ships. Every one of them is gone, but it only takes one. So it's -- it's, uh, a little unfair. You know you win a war, but they -- they have no right to be doing what they're doing. But we're hitting them very hard. And today is a big day where we're pounding a certain area that, uh, has very much to do with the Strait.
And I think we'll get it going very soon. In addition, we do have other nations coming in, you need people to watch and people to see. We have other nations coming in. Yes, please.
If the United States is working to secure the Strait of Hormuz for the benefit of other countries like China and our allies aren't yet stepping up to your standard, is the United States getting back to being the world's policeman?
Look, the United States should not be very much involved. They can on a -- on a certain basis, they've been doing it for a long time. But I've always said, I said if you look back years ago, I said why aren't we being reimbursed? You know, these are the richest countries in the world. Why aren't we being reimbursed for maintaining the -- the Hormoez Strait?
And why aren't we being reimbursed for that? I've said that for years. You can go back, they reported on it yesterday. I've been saying -- I've been saying a lot of things about this race. Number one, I said it's the one advantage they have, but that's a suicidal advantage because they kill themselves more than they kill the rest of the world.
And there are things you can do. With time, there are other things you can do. But I think that -- I think we're going to have the situation straightened out pretty quickly and I think we're going to have some good help. And I think we're going to be disappointed in some nations too, and I'll let you know who those nations are.
One of your advisors, David Sacks, said the other week that the US should, quote, "declare victory and get out of the Iran war."
Yeah.
He also warned that if the conflict escalates, Israel may contemplate the use of a nuclear weapon. Has he shared that assessment with you?
Oh, yes, Israel wouldn't do that. Israel would never do that. And, uh, yeah, there's no -- there's a theory, you've pounded them to hell and you could just leave now and it'll take ten years for them to build back, not nearly what they have right now. And I guess that's another theory. But we want to have it ended.
So that another president doesn't have -- look for 47 years no president was willing to do what I'm doing and they should have done it a long time ago. It would have been a lot easier. There's no president that wanted to do it. And yet every president knew. I've spoken to a certain president who I like actually a past president, former president.
He said, I wish I did it. I wish I did, but they didn't do it. I'm doing it. Yeah?
Mr. President, which president?
I can't tell you that. I don't want to embarrass him. It would be very bad for his career even though he's got no career left. Go ahead please.
You mentioned how about -- thank you, sir. Mr. President, you mentioned that you're not entirely sure who you're dealing with, who the leadership is in Iran. Do you see a viable opposition movement still in that country following all of the protests that we had seen before, the airstrikes and kind of an opposition movement that could become a viable leader in Iran?
The biggest problem and, you know, we have brave people in this room, but the biggest problem that I see is that, you know, they put out a warning and we have the warning. We get everything they get and it said any protester that goes on to the street will be immediately shot and killed. It's -- this is a little tougher than the American way.
This is not -- this is not quite as tough as -- uh, nobody can believe it. So I can't imagine they don't have guns and the other ones have guns, highly-sophisticated machine guns and AK 47 seconds and other kinds of guns and they did that with the women. So the women had 250,000, even 500 people protesting a year ago.
And they shot women right through the middle of the forehead with snipers and they didn't have to do many. About ten went down bleeding profusely and 250 to 500,000 women went running in the other direction because they can be brave. But they -- they're not stupid and they have no gun and you have snipers in buildings specifically for this reason.
So a woman goes down, falling bleeding from the head and it doesn't take long for that to spread. And when that spreads that crowd dispenses and nobody else has been able to do that to the extent that these people -- these people are violent. They killed a minimum, two weeks ago, 32,000 people. So -- and they put out actually a notice two days ago, if you protest -- if you protest, you will be shot and killed.
So I don't know. I would say Mike Johnson's the only person I know who has the courage to go out in that kind of an atmosphere, I don't think so. I don't think so. Yeah?
Have your advisors told you anything in terms of how long we can expect gas prices as high as they are right now?
I don't need advisors to tell me that. I know -- I know what it is. You know the, uh, prime minister of UK, United Kingdom, yesterday told me, uh, I'm meeting with my team to make a determination. I said you don't need to meet it with the team. You're the prime minister, you can make your own. Why do you have to meet with your team to find out whether or not you're going to send some minesweepers to us or to send some boats.
I said, you don't have to meet with your team. It's the same thing here. Uh, I can tell you that when this is over, oil prices are going to go down very, very rapidly, so is inflation, so is everything else.
But frankly, much more important than short term or even long term oil prices. You can't let the most violent, vicious country in the last 50 years have a nuclear weapon, because the Middle East will be gone. Israel will go first, without question, and they'll certainly take a shot at us before we get our act together and say we got to take them out.
You can't let Iran, who's truly the a nation of great terror and -- and -- and power. Look, look, what happened. In the last two weeks, they weren't supposed to go after all these other countries in the Middle East. Those missiles were set to go after them. So they hit Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Bahrain, Kuwait.
Nobody expected that. We were shocked. And the other one, you know, they fought back. They could have yielded. But think of it, if we weren't around, they have tremendous -- they had tremendous power. They had thousands of missiles, most of which we've terminated. They had thousands of drones. They were making drones and missiles all over the place.
We've knocked out most of those factories. I mean, now they're sending out two or three missiles. Now, you know, they've still got some. They might have eight percent left. But mostly, they've been, uh, eliminated. They've been terminated by what we did and what Israel did too. Yeah, please.
Thank you, Mr. President. Israel is expected to expand its ground offensive in southern Lebanon to go after Hezbollah. Have you discussed that with Israeli leaders?
Yeah.
And does the United States support a potential Israeli invasion of Lebanon?
Yeah. No, I did and I know the -- no, look, Hezbollah is a problem. It's been a problem for a long time, not just now. And, uh, it's a certain area -- because I was with the other night, a person whose parents live in Lebanon. This is a very substantial person, wealthy person whose parents live in Lebanon.
I said, really, how do you live in Lebanon? Your parents are living -- oh yeah, they live there. And over the years, they've gotten used to the fact that it's being bombed. But they explained to me that it's really a different section of Lebanon. It's a section where Hezbollah is and they get used to it, I guess.
I don't know. I mean, people live in Ukraine. You would think they wouldn't live in Ukraine, but they live in Ukraine. Uh, I don't know that I'd do that, but they live in Ukraine. They live in Lebanon. Uh, Hezbollah is a big problem and they're rapidly being eliminated. Uh, thank you very much, everybody.
Appreciate it.
Thank you, press.