Trump says he'll host Kennedy Center awards
'It's gonna be a big evening. I've been asked to host. I said, 'I'm the president of the United States. Are you fools, asking me to do this?'' said Trump, who named himself chairman of the cultural institution's board earlier this year.
''Sir, you'll get much higher ratings.' I said, 'I don't care. I'm president of the United States. I won't do it.' They said 'please.' And then Susie Wiles said to me, 'Sir, I'd like you to host.' I said, 'Okay, Susie, I'll do it,'' the president recounted, prompting laughter from the audience.
'So, I have agreed to host,' Trump said, though he stressed he 'did not insist' upon the job.
Trump was at the Kennedy Center on Wednesday to reveal the 2025 class of Honors recipients, including actor Sylvester Stallone, country music star George Strait, disco singer Gloria Gaynor, actor Michael Crawford and the rock band KISS.
He said he was '98 percent involved' in the process of selecting honorees, and appeared to suggest some contenders were turned down for being 'too woke.'
'I turned down plenty. They were too woke. I turned- I had a couple of woke-sters. No, we have great people,' the president said.
Trump has also teased that his name could possibly replace that of the 35th president on the historic institution.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
New York Post
5 minutes ago
- New York Post
Little Sisters of the Poor are still fighting ObamaCare— as states force nuns to violate their faith
It's enraging. More than a decade after the Obama administration first tried to force the Little Sisters of the Poor to buy contraception including abortifacient drugs for employees, states are still hounding the nuns in court. At its heart, ObamaCare was a massive welfare program meant to redistribute health-care costs to the middle class. But it was also a social engineering project aimed at coercing religious organizations and businesses to adopt progressive values. The Affordable Care Act mandated employers, including nonprofits such as the Little Sisters of the Poor, to pay for contraceptives in their worker-provided health insurance as an 'essential health benefit' under the euphemistic category of 'preventative and wellness services.' There was no 'religious exemption.' It's worth taking a step back and thinking about that term: The very idea that an American citizen should be impelled to ask the state for an 'exemption' to practice their faith is an assault on the fundamental idea of liberty. Imagine having to ask the state for an exemption to exercise your free speech? What makes the case even more unsettling, of course, is that the state is demanding citizens engage in activity that is explicitly against their faith. Now, there may well be numerous theological disputes within the Catholic Church. The use of contraception and abortion aren't among them. There is absolutely no question that nuns hold genuine, long-standing religious convictions. And there is no question that liberals want to smash them. Nevertheless, the Little Sisters spent years in court, working their way up to the Supreme Court and winning protections against the federal government (twice). In 2017, the Trump administration exempted religious groups like the Little Sisters from the ObamaCare mandate entirely. The government, however, bolstered with unlimited taxpayer funds, can hunt its prey in perpetuity. So states such as New Jersey and Pennsylvania began their own lawsuits against the Little Sisters. This week, in a nationwide ruling, Judge Wendy Beetlestone, chief judge for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, found that the Trump administration's expansion of religious exemptions from the contraception mandate was 'arbitrary and capricious.' Religious nonprofit groups and businesses will again have to ask for special accommodations from the Department of Health and Human Services to avoid buying abortifacients. Even if the Trump administration grants every one of them, one day there will be authoritarians in charge who won't — and nonprofit employees will still be guaranteed contraception through health plans paid for by employers. Beetlestone, incidentally, was the same judge who issued a nationwide injunction against the contraception exemption back in 2017, arguing it was 'difficult' to think of any rule that 'intrudes more into the lives of women.' The Supreme Court overturned it in 2020 by a 7-2 majority. Because no one has a right to free condoms. Indeed, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act holds that the state must have a 'compelling interest' and use the least restrictive means when burdening religious practice. Free birth control isn't a compelling interest. And fining religious organizations millions of dollars to pressure them into abandoning their beliefs is perhaps the most restrictive means of action, short of throwing nuns in prison. You'd think attacking a group of nuns who offer end-of-life care for the elderly would be a public relations nightmare for Democrats. Yet they've never really shied away from it. Because the point is to intimidate others. In many ways, the Little Sisters' struggle is reminiscent of the travails of Jack Phillips, the Colorado baker who refuses to create unique message cakes for gay weddings. Phillips is now embroiled in his umpteenth court case over his crimes. The message: Dissent from those who practice their faith will be punished. Take the Catholic Charities adoption agencies, which shuttered in numerous states due to laws and policies compelling them to place children with same-sex couples. The attacks will continue until the Supreme Court upholds the clear language and intent of the First Amendment and religious liberty. It's already punted once: In Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, a 7-2 Supreme Court decision in favor of Jack Phillips, the court barred the state's attacks only if state officials openly demeaned their target's faith — a ruling so narrow as to be largely useless. But it shouldn't matter why the state is steamrolling the religious liberty of nuns, or anyone else for that matter. The problem is that the ObamaCare mandate is authoritarian and unconstitutional. And the only way to fix that problem is to overturn it. David Harsanyi is a senior writer at the Washington Examiner. Twitter @davidharsanyi
Boston Globe
5 minutes ago
- Boston Globe
Russia and Ukraine agree: A Trump summit is a big win for Putin
Related : For Russia, 'this is a breakthrough even if they don't agree on much,' said Sergei Mikheyev, a pro-war Russian political scientist who is a mainstay of state television. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine, iced out of the Alaska talks about his own country's future, has come to the same conclusion, telling reporters Tuesday: 'Putin will win in this. Because he is seeking, excuse me, photos. He needs a photo from the meeting with President Trump.' Advertisement But it is more than a photo op. In addition to thawing Russia's pariah status in the West, the summit has sowed discord within NATO — a perennial Russian goal — and postponed Trump's threat of tough new sanctions. Little more than two weeks ago, he vowed that if Putin did not commit to a ceasefire by last Friday, he would to punish Moscow and countries like China and India that help Russia's war effort by buying its oil and gas. Advertisement The deadline passed with no pause in the war — the fighting has in fact intensified as Russia pushes forward with a summer offensive — and no new economic penalties on Russia. Ukrainian firefighters and rescue personnel at the site of a Russian bombing in the area in Kharkiv, Ukraine, on July 24. Friday's summit in Alaska pull the Russian leader out of diplomatic isolation from the West, and Ukrainian and European leaders fear it gives him an opening to sway the American president. DAVID GUTTENFELDER/NYT 'Instead of getting hit with sanctions, Putin got a summit,' said Ryhor Nizhnikau, a Russia expert and senior researcher at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs. 'This is a tremendous victory for Putin no matter what the result of the summit.' Before Alaska, only two Western leaders — the prime ministers of tiny Slovakia and Hungary — had met with Putin since he ordered the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and was placed under an international arrest warrant for war crimes in March 2023. Many in Europe have been flabbergasted by Trump's decision to hold a summit on Ukraine that excluded Zelenskyy, and the continent's leaders have pressed the president not to strike a deal behind Ukraine's back. Trump tried to allay those fears in a video call with European leaders, including Zelenskyy, on Wednesday. The Europeans said they had hammered out a strategy with Trump for his meeting with Putin, including an insistence that any peace plan must start with a ceasefire and not be negotiated without Ukraine at the table. A peace deal on Ukraine is not Putin's real goal for the summit, said Tatiana Stanovaya, senior fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center. 'His objective is to secure Trump's support in pushing through the Russian proposals.' For Putin, she said, the meeting is a 'tactical maneuver to turn the situation in his favor' and calm what had been increasing White House anger over the Kremlin's stalling on a ceasefire. Advertisement On the eve of the summit Thursday, the Kremlin signaled that it planned to inject other issues beyond Ukraine into the talks, including a potential restoration of economic ties with the United States and discussions on a new nuclear weapons deal. The arms idea plays into Russia's long-standing efforts to frame the war in Ukraine as just part of a bigger East-West conflict. Trump has called his rendezvous with Putin just a 'feel-out meeting' from which he will quickly walk away if a peace deal looks unlikely. President Trump and President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine during a heated exchange in the Oval Office on Feb. 28. On Trump and Putin's meeting, Zelensky said, "Putin will win in this. Because he is seeking, excuse me, photos." DOUG MILLS/NYT Neither the White House nor the Kremlin has publicly stated what kind of peace deal they are looking for. But Trump has said it could involve 'some land-swapping,' something he feels he is well equipped to negotiate as a onetime New York property developer. Zelenskyy has rejected any land swap, insisting he has no authority under the Ukrainian Constitution to bargain away parts of the country. Agreeing to do so would be likely to trigger a serious political crisis in Kyiv and advance one of Putin's long-standing objectives: toppling Zelenskyy. Ukraine's surrender of its eastern regions would also torpedo Trump's hopes that the United States will one day benefit from Ukraine's reserves of rare earth minerals, most of which are in territory that Russia claims as its own. 'The worst-case scenario for Ukraine and more broadly is that Putin makes some sort of offer that is acceptable to the United States but that Zelenskyy cannot swallow domestically,' said Samuel Charap, a political scientist and the co-author of a book about Ukraine and post-Soviet Eurasia. Advertisement Putin, a veteran master of manipulation, will no doubt work hard in Alaska to cast Zelenskyy as an intransigent obstacle to peace. 'Trump thinks he can look into Putin's eyes and get a deal. He believes in his own talents as a negotiator,' said Nizhnikau, the Finnish expert on Russia. 'The problem is that Putin has been doing this his whole life and is going into this summit with the idea that he can manipulate Trump.' Trump's last summit meeting with his Russian counterpart, held in 2018 in Helsinki during his first term, showcased his propensity to accept Putin's version of reality. He said then that he saw no reason to doubt the Russian president's denials of meddling in the 2016 presidential election. President Trump and Russian President Putin arrived for a one-on-one-meeting at the Presidential Palace in Helsinki, Finland, in July 2018, the last time the two world powers held a summit. Pablo Martinez Monsivais/Associated Press Trump suggested this year that Ukraine was responsible for the invasion of its own territory and refused to join the United States' traditional Western allies in voting for a United Nations resolution condemning Russia's aggression. On Sunday evening, Zelenskyy worried aloud that Trump could be easily 'deceived.' Trump responded testily Monday to Zelenskyy's insistence that he could not surrender territory. 'He's got approval to go into war and kill everybody, but he needs approval to do a land swap?' Trump snapped. 'There'll be some land swapping going on.' Still, said Charap, the political scientist, 'Putin can't really count his chickens yet.' Despite his iron grip on Russia's political system and its major media outlets, he has his own domestic concerns, particularly on the issue of land, if the sort of swap floated by Trump advances. 'Territory is a third rail politically, especially for Ukraine but also for Russia.' This article originally appeared in . Advertisement
Newsweek
6 minutes ago
- Newsweek
Over Half of Americans Don't Trust Trump on Ukraine, Russia War: Poll
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. Over half of U.S. adults are not confident that President Donald Trump can make "wise decisions" when it comes to the Ukraine and Russia war, a new survey from the Pew Research Center shows on Thursday. Newsweek reached out to the White House via email for additional comment. Why It Matters The poll's findings frame public expectations ahead of a high-profile bilateral meeting on Friday between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, aimed at discussing a potential ceasefire in Ukraine and broader U.S.-Russia issues, including Arctic cooperation. What To Know The Pew Research Center survey found 59 percent of U.S. adults were either "not too confident" or "not at all confident" that President Trump could make wise decisions about the Russia-Ukraine war; 40 percent expressed at least some confidence. The poll interviewed 3,554 U.S. adults between August 4 and August 10 with a margin of error of 1.8 percent. The survey also shows key partisan differences: a substantial majority of Democrats say that the U.S. has a responsibility to help Ukraine, with 66 percent, compared to 35 percent of Republicans. This number is up from 23 percent in a March survey, however. The public also expressed views on U.S. assistance: Pew found 29 percent said the U.S. was not providing enough support to Ukraine, and 18 percent said it was providing too much, while 50 percent of Americans said the U.S. had a responsibility to help Ukraine defend itself, and 47 percent said it did not. President Donald Trump and Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy can be seen meeting in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, D.C., February 28, 2025. (Photo by SAUL LOEB / AFP) (Photo by SAUL... President Donald Trump and Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy can be seen meeting in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, D.C., February 28, 2025. (Photo by SAUL LOEB / AFP) (Photo by SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images) More What People Are Saying Democratic Representative Jason Crow of Colorado on X this week: "Everyone wants Russia to stop its aggression & for an end to the war in Ukraine. But Trump keeps handing Vladimir Putin victories. Meeting in the U.S., without Ukraine at the table, is exactly what a dictator like Putin wants." Trump on Truth Social on Wednesday: "Very unfair media is at work on my meeting with Putin. Constantly quoting fired losers and really dumb people like John Bolton, who just said that, even though the meeting is on American soil, 'Putin has already won.' What's that all about? We are winning on EVERYTHING. The Fake News is working overtime (No tax on overtime!)." The president continued: "If I got Moscow and Leningrad free, as part of the deal with Russia, the Fake News would say that I made a bad deal! But now they've been caught. Look at all of the real news that's coming out about their CORRUPTION. They are sick and dishonest people, who probably hate our Country. But it doesn't matter because we are winning on everything!!! MAGA" What Happens Next Trump and Putin are scheduled to meet on Friday at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage. Observers said the outcome could influence U.S. relationships with allies, Kyiv's negotiating position and congressional appetite for future assistance to Ukraine.
