
Trump and Melania to headline power-player packed Kennedy Center opening night
EXCLUSIVE: President Donald Trump, first lady Melania Trump, Vice President JD Vance and second lady Usha Vance will attend the opening night of the musical "Les Misérables" at the Kennedy Center next week, Fox News Digital has learned.
"Les Misérables," one of the longest-running shows in Broadway and West End history, will have its opening night at the Kennedy Center on June 11.
"I love the songs, I love the play," Trump told Fox News Digital Tuesday. "I think it's great — we may extend it."
The president has famously played songs from "Les Misérables" at his rallies and events.
"The Kennedy Center is coming back," the president told Fox News Digital. "It was not properly taken care of and we are taking it back and we are going to turn it back into something great."
Kennedy Center President Richard Grennell told Fox News Digital that "'Les Misérables' is proving to be a huge hit."
"Opening night is going to be electric," Grennell told Fox News Digital.
Kennedy Center officials told Fox News Digital that there will be a red carpet for opening night and that select members of the media will be invited to attend. Officials also said that attendees of the opening-night performance will be encouraged to walk the red carpet.
Meanwhile, Kennedy Center officials told Fox News Digital that the first two weeks of the performance are nearly sold out, exceeding $3 million in ticket sales at the box office and exceeding the typical sales timeline.
"We expect sales to exceed all expectations, surpassing the previously defined goals," a Kennedy Center spokesperson told Fox News Digital.
Meanwhile, sources told Fox News Digital that the president is committed to revitalizing the Kennedy Center, with some suggesting it should eventually be renamed "the Trump–Kennedy Center."
The Kennedy Center has two affiliates — the National Symphony Orchestra and the Washington National Opera. The new leadership team is currently working on business plans with its affiliates to ensure the Kennedy Center has larger endowments and "greater sustainability."
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
16 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Trump announces $1,000 government-funded accounts for American babies
Donald Trump unveiled a federal program Monday providing $1,000 government-funded investment accounts for American babies, getting backing from top business leaders who said they plan to contribute billions more to an initiative tied to 'the big beautiful bill'. At a White House roundtable with over a dozen CEOs, including from Uber, Goldman Sachs and Dell Technologies, Trump relayed the details of 'Trump accounts' – tax-deferred investment accounts tracking stock market performance for children born between 2025 and 2029. 'For every US citizen born after December 31, 2024, before January 1, 2029, the federal government will make a one-time contribution of $1,000 into a tax-deferred account that will track the overall stock market,' Trump said. The accounts will be controlled by guardians and allow additional private contributions up to $5,000 annually. Trump called it 'a pro-family initiative that will help millions of Americans harness the strength of our economy to lift up the next generation'. Related: Trump's 'big, beautiful' bill is built on falsehoods about low-income families | Brigid Schulte and Haley Swenson CEOs from major companies including Michael Dell, Dara Khosrowshahi of Uber, David Solomon of Goldman Sachs, and Vladimir Tenev of Robinhood committed billions for employees' children's accounts. Trump praised the executives as 'really the greatest business minds we have today' who are 'committed to contributing millions of dollars to the Trump account'. Mike Johnson, the House speaker, also at the roundtable, championed the program, saying: 'It's a bold, transformative policy that gives every eligible American child a financial head start from day one. Republicans are proud to be the party we always have been. It supports life and families, prosperity and opportunity.' The program passed the House as part of a massive budget bill but faces stiffer Senate Republican resistance over the broader package. The accounts cannot be implemented as a standalone program and depend entirely on passage of what Trump calls the 'one big, beautiful bill' that is 'among the most important pieces of legislation in our country's history', claiming it's 'fully funded through targeted reforms' including welfare changes and a proposed remittance tax. However, the congressional budget office last week found the bill would also add $2.4tn to the national debt over the next decade while cutting Medicaid and food assistance programs. The CBO analysis showed the bill, which passed the House by a single vote and no Democratic support, would leave 10.9 million more Americans without healthcare by 2034. The treasury-funded accounts, previously called 'Maga accounts' resemble existing 529 college plans but with lower contribution limits – leading some financial advisers to say the Trump accounts may not offer the best investment incentives. The move is also not without precedent: the United Kingdom operated a similar Child Trust Fund with government seed funding from 2002-2011 before discontinuing the program, while Singapore runs the Baby Bonus Scheme that includes government-matched savings accounts for children. Trump was optimistic about returns, saying beneficiaries would 'really be getting a big jump on life, especially if we get a little bit lucky with some of the numbers and the economies into the future'. Johnson warned that failure to pass the legislation would result in 'the largest tax increase in American history' and pushed for swift congressional action on what he called 'pro-growth legislation' that would 'help every single American'. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data


CNN
21 minutes ago
- CNN
Mark Zuckerberg is reportedly recruiting a team to build a ‘superintelligence'
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is personally assembling a team to achieve a 'superintelligence,' machines that are capable of surpassing human capabilities, according to a Bloomberg report. Zuckerberg is reportedly so frustrated with Meta's efforts in the artificial intelligence space that he has taken it upon himself to meet with experts in the field at his homes in Lake Tahoe and Palo Alto, California. Meta and Zuckerberg did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Meta has created AI tools that are woven into Facebook, WhatsApp and other Meta-owned apps, as well as its Ray-Ban glasses and chatbots. But the extremely competitive AI landscape continues to be led by ChatGPT-maker OpenAI, and Meta's Llama AI model has faced some recent setbacks. Zuckerberg plans to hire about 50 people and has shifted the layout of the company's Menlo Park headquarters to put the new AI team near his office, Bloomberg reported Tuesday, citing people that asked to remain anonymous. Zuckerberg has personally taken on this task because he's frustrated with the progress of Llama 4, Meta's latest large language model, according to Bloomberg. The New York Times, which separately confirmed many details of the report, also said that Alexandr Wang, the 28-year-old founder and CEO of startup Scale AI, is part of the project with Meta mulling a billions in investment in his company. Zuckerberg has reportedly told people that the initiative would be funded by Meta's massive advertising business. It's unclear how the new team would work with Meta's existing AI team, Bloomberg said. Over the past few years, Zuckerberg has pushed increasingly further into repositioning Meta into an AI powerhouse with mixed success. His intensity in the area has sharpened following the leaps in advancement from OpenAI, a rival that raised tens of billions of dollars in funding. Zuckerberg's superintelligence goal is extremely lofty. Before AI can achieve capabilities that outmatch humans' brains, the technology first needs to become capable of accomplishing anything a human can do – a so-called artificial general intelligence. AI researchers debate how close we are to that AGI goal, with some saying we're years away and other saying we're nowhere close and we have no path to achieving it. Nevertheless, the AI race is as competitive as any tech battle in recent memory. Meta is facing off with Microsoft-backed OpenAI and Alphabet, as well as a host of other major upstarts with serious funding, including Elon Musk's xAI and Anthropic. Apple has gotten a slow start but announced some of its own AI developments this week. Many tech leaders like Zuckerberg believe AI represents an existential threat to their businesses. Meta has been trying to differentiate itself with Llama by making it open source, a free-to-use AI model that seeks to become the basis for the majority of the world's AI (think Android for artificial intelligence). Google believes AI poses a significant threat to its search business: If people can just ask an AI model for the answer, why search for anything? Apple understands that AI may ultimately make apps moot, potentially undermining its smartphone dominance. And OpenAI may have gotten a massive head start with ChatGPT, but competitors are quickly catching up. CNN's David Goldman contributed to this report.


Fox News
22 minutes ago
- Fox News
LSU's Flau'jae Johnson admits friendship with Angel Reese has soured
Flau'jae Johnson and Angel Reese won a women's college basketball national championship together when the two players were with the LSU Tigers. However, it appears a lot has changed since then. Reese, who now plays in the WNBA for the Chicago Sky, opened up about her relationship with Johnson in September during an episode of her podcast, "Unapologetically Angel." She said at the time the two were not "as close as we used to be" and "there were no hard feelings" toward each other, but the closeness that was once there just is not anymore. Johnson added more to it when she appeared on "The Breakfast Club" on Monday. "We're not friends, but I mean that bond that we had, that thing that we did together, winning a national championship, you can never take that away from us," she said. "And so sometimes stuff happens. You wish it don't happen, but it do. And you just gotta grow. "But I support her in everything she do. Like, she's killing in the WNBA … I'm just proud of her." Johnson agreed that the reason for the split was partially to do with things happening in the background. "Yeah, it was a lot of media, it was a lot of locker room stuff, you know what I'm saying? Stuff that go on behind the scenes. But it happens. It happens," she said. During the 2023-24 season, as LSU looked to defend its national title, the mothers of both Reese and Johnson got into a social media spat. Reese's mother, Angel Reese Webb, criticized Johnson on social media, which prompted a response from Johnson's mom, Kia Brooks, who took aim at the former Tigers' forward GPA. Reese, the former LSU star, seemingly threw shade at Brooks when she graduated from school. Follow Fox News Digital's sports coverage on X, and subscribe to the Fox News Sports Huddle newsletter.