Return to Transcripts main page

The Situation Room

J.D. Vance Addresses U.S. Troops; Trump Announces Kennedy Center Honorees. Aired 11:30a-12p ET

Aired August 13, 2025 - 11:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[11:30:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: There's more breaking news we're following.

The vice president, Vance, is meeting with U.S. troop stationed in England right now. And he just spoke moments ago about Russia's war in Ukraine.

I want to bring in our senior national security reporter, Zachary Cohen.

Zachary, what was his message?

ZACHARY COHEN, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY REPORTER: Yes, Wolf, J.D. Vance, the vice president, really communicating to U.S. troops that are stationed abroad that the administration's goal is to bring peace to Europe.

And, look, this is something that we have heard from J.D. Vance. He's spoken to troops several times in just the several months since Donald Trump took office. But he's saying that, in order to bring peace to Europe, the -- quote -- "enemy" needs to know that the U.S. has a strong military force that can essentially back up any diplomatic effort that it's currently pursuing.,and that is true for Russia as well.

Take a listen to what the vice president told these U.S. troops just earlier today.

[11:35:00]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

J.D. VANCE, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The president of the United States came in six months ago. And I just talked to him right before I came on the stage. And he said very simply that we are going to make it our mission as an administration to bring peace to once again.

But, as you all know, it is impossible to bring peace anywhere unless the bad guys are also worried that we have got a hell of a fine Air Force and a hell of a fine military to back up the peace to begin with. So what you guys do, even though you may not see it every single day, is you make it possible. You make it possible for us to accomplish the president's goals through negotiation.

You make it possible for us to go into a room and say, yes, we want peace.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: All right, hold on a moment. We're going to interrupt for a second. I want to go to the president. He's at the Kennedy Center about to make public his nominees, his honorees for the Kennedy Center Honors.

(JOINED IN PROGRESS)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: ... Kennedy Center Honors. It's going to be a big evening. I have been asked to host. I said, I'm the president of the United States. Are you fools asking me to do that? Sir, you will 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 would like you to host. I said, OK, Susie, I will do it.

(LAUGHTER)

TRUMP: That's the power she's got.

But I just -- so I have agreed to host. Do you believe what I have to do? And I didn't want to do it, OK? They're going to say he insisted. I did not insist. But I think it will be quite successful, actually. It's been a long time. I used to host "The Apprentice" finales, and we did rather well with that. So I think we're going to do very well because we have some great honorees, some really great ones.

Since 1978, the Kennedy Center Honors have been among the most prestigious awards in the performing arts. I wanted one. I was never able to get one. This year -- it's true, actually.

(LAUGHTER)

TRUMP: I would have taken it if they would have called me. I waited and waited and waited. I said, the hell with it. I will become chairman. And I will give myself an honor. Maybe I'm going to honor -- next year, we will honor Trump, OK?

This year, the board has selected a truly exceptional class of honorees, I mean, really exceptional.

First is country music star, actor, and producer George Strait.

(APPLAUSE)

TRUMP: Great.

Over an extraordinary four-decade career, George has sold more than 120 million records worldwide, amassed 60 number one hits, wow, and produced 33 platinum-certified albums, more than any other living American. That is amazing.

He's believed by millions of people to just be as good as you can get. And he's beloved by hundreds of millions of people all over the world. He's really something. And they call him the king of country. And we know him very well, George Strait.

(APPLAUSE)

TRUMP: Thank you. Oh, and it looks nice. He's a good-looking guy. I hope he still looks like that.

(LAUGHTER)

TRUMP: Second is actor, singer, philanthropist, and star of the Broadway stage, one of my favorite talents. I think he's one of the greatest talents I have ever actually seen. I have always said -- and just so we don't get in trouble, I will say among, but among the greatest artists in the world are the Broadway London actors back and forth.

That's all they want to do is they want to do Broadway and they want to do London. They want to do eight shows a week, including matinee on Wednesday. And if you said make a movie, they can't even think about it. If you say, go on television, they don't want it. All they want to do is be on the stage, the live stage, and it's amazing.

But I have always said they're the most talented people. And this man may be the most of all. Michael Crawford is being honored.

(APPLAUSE)

TRUMP: Michael was born in England in 1942. He made his Broadway debut in 1967. I was there. I shouldn't say that, but I was there. It seems like a long time ago. And he became an international sensation in the 1980s for his original portrayal of "The Phantom of the Opera," one of the greatest ever, ever, ever, ever.

You don't see them like that very often. Winning him the esteemed Tony Award for best actor in a musical. He's won so many awards. Michael is truly a generational talent, had a voice that was unbelievable. It was unbelievable. There's never -- I don't know. Luciano Pavarotti had a very different voice. The power was incredible, magnificent.

[11:40:05]

Michael had a different kind of a voice. These are just unbelievable talents. But Michael is very special and one of the greatest roles in the history of Broadway. And nobody did it like him. Michael Crawford, thank you very much.

(APPLAUSE)

TRUMP: Great guy.

Next, we look forward to honoring three-time Oscar nominee, Golden Globe Award winner, and action movie icon and a friend of mine. He's a very unique man. He's somebody that doesn't do these things. I said, I wonder if he will accept, because some people don't really want to be honored. They don't care.

But he was very honored to be honored, I will tell you. He was -- he's a very special guy, a real talent. Never been given the credit for the talent. There was nobody else could have done the roles that he did like he did them, not even close. And they have tried and they didn't work out too well. His name is Sylvester Stallone.

(APPLAUSE)

TRUMP: So it's very few, almost, if any, people that could have taken a name and made it so incredible like Rocky, Rambo, Creed and others.

But think of it, Rocky, Rambo. If you did one, you're good. You do two. And I will never forget I was a young guy and I went to see a thing called "Rambo," and it had just come out. I didn't know anything about it. But I got -- I was in a movie theater. Like, we used to go to movie theaters a lot.

And I said, this movie is phenomenal. What the heck? And that turned out to be a monster. "Rocky" is "Rocky." I mean, the way that happened, Sly had no money, nothing, and he went around. And everybody wants to do a boxing movie. It's the most probably -- more than any other type of character, boxing, boxing, always boxing. It's so great.

And there's rarely been anything like this one. Jon Voight did a great one, as you know, "Champ," great. I think that was right there too. Jon Voight's a phenomenal person, phenomenal actor. But Sly came in and he had no money. He wrote a script along with thousands of other people writing scripts on a boxer.

And for some reason, a studio picked up the script and liked it. And Sly had -- he's in an old car that he came in from Brooklyn or someplace in New York, but I think Brooklyn, had barely made it to California. He was sleeping in the car. I mean, he had nothing. And he wanted control over who the actor was going to be, because he said, it can't be successful if you're going to pick a movie actor with a bad build, OK, a nice face, but a bad body.

And he said, I can't have these guys, because he's a tough cookie and he knew exactly what it took. He knew what a boxer's body was. So they brought him one. And I won't tell you who it was, but it was a big name. But the chest wasn't exactly what you need. One shot and your heart would pop out. That wasn't too good.

Then he did another one. He was fat, sloppy, but had a good face. Then he did another one and another one and another one. And he turned it down. He wouldn't take $1 million. He wouldn't do it. And it turned out that, when they saw him, they said you would be actually pretty good for this role. And he had never done this before, anything like it.

But think of it. He turned down a million dollars. He had nothing. He refused to let somebody else play. He didn't want to play it. He wasn't originally -- he did it as a writer. But he ended up playing it because he couldn't find anybody else that fit the role.

And who knew what would have happened? He's become a legend of the silver screen, a true legend, and he's a great guy. He's a little bit tough, a little bit different, I will tell you. He's a little tough guy. But he's a phenomenal person with a phenomenal wife and family, incredible wife, incredible family.

His films grossing more than $7.5 billion, which is either a record or very close to it. I can't imagine anybody doing more. If you add up "Rambo" and "Rocky" and these others, I can't imagine anybody doing much more, $7.5 billion worldwide over the course of six decades.

And Sly is a pillar of the -- really American pop culture and a Hollywood superstar like few others and one of the biggest names on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In fact, the only one that's a bigger name of the Hollywood Walk of Fame they say is a guy named Donald Trump.

[11:45:15]

(LAUGHTER)

TRUMP: I'm on the Hollywood Walk of Fame too, if you can believe that one. But he's amazing. He's really amazing. And he's actually a great actor.

Fourth will be together celebrating one of the most revered singers of the American disco era, Gloria Gaynor.

(APPLAUSE)

TRUMP: Best known for her chart-topping 1978 hit "I Will Survive."

Gloria won the 1980 Grammy for best disco recording, and her song was inducted into the National Recording Registry in 2016, four decades later. Gloria won a second Grammy in 2020 for her gospel album "Testimony," which is incredible, truly a historic achievement, not only in times of the -- not only in terms of the years that have gone by, to be great that long, but to have the two top.

Two top of anything in that span of time and with that kind of period between is pretty amazing. But I will say that "I Will Survive" is an unbelievable song. I have heard it, like everyone else here, thousands of times, and it's one of those few that get better every time you hear it, and nobody can sing it like her. And that's an honor.

So, Gloria Gaynor, thank you. Thank you very much.

(APPLAUSE)

TRUMP: And, finally, we will be honoring one of the greatest rock bands of all time, Kiss.

(APPLAUSE)

TRUMP: So, Kiss was formed in 1973 in New York City by founding band members and incredible people, by the way, Paul Stanley, Gene Simmons, Ace Frehley and Peter Criss.

Kiss became a global phenomenon, sold more than 100 million records worldwide, and produced 30 gold albums and lots of other things they produced. They made a fortune. And they're great people, and they deserve it, and they work hard, and they're still working hard. And it's an honor to present Chris -- Kiss.

Thank you very much. Got it? Yes. Thank you.

(APPLAUSE)

TRUMP: And they're going to do something very special. Kiss is going to be here on -- a little bit before the show. I think they're going to do something very special. We're going to have a good time.

The 48th Kennedy Center honorees are outstanding people, an outstanding group, incredible. We can't wait to celebrate the Kennedy Center Honors. It'll be in December. It'll be on CBS.

In a few short months, since I became chairman of the board of the Kennedy Center, we have completely reversed the decline of this cherished national institution. It was being run down. Money wasn't being spent properly. They were building things they shouldn't have built that nobody wanted, instead of taking care of the great gem that it is.

You look at the marble. Look at the quality of the marble, and the things that, with a little fix-up and a little work, we can make it unbelievable. These columns, when you see them the next time, they will be magnificent. I mean, we have some great plans for this.

The bones are so good,the bones of a building. If you don't have the bones, you might as well forget it. I'm working in another building, I think, called the White House. We're fixing it up so beautifully. It needed it. It's been many, many years since it's been properly taken care of. It's incredible,one of the great places of the world maybe -- I mean, truly, to me.

Is there anything else even close? But we're doing that and doing some other things, and we're going to also fix up a place called Washington, D.C. We're going to make it so beautiful again. We're going to be redoing the parks, redoing the grass. Grass is a lifetime, like people have a lifetime, and the lifetime of this grass is long, been gone, when you look at the parks where the grass is all tired, exhausted.

We're going to redo the grass with the finest grasses. I know a lot about grass because I own a lot of golf courses, and if you don't have good grass, you're not in business very long, Lindsey Graham. By the way, you have very good poll numbers, Lindsey. I just saw. Congratulations.

(APPLAUSE)

[11:50:00] But a few short months ago, I became chairman of the Kennedy Center, and we completely reversed it. We reversed what was happening. We ended the woke political programming, and we're restoring the Kennedy Center as the premier venue for performing arts anywhere in the country, anywhere in the world. This has the potential to be anywhere in the world. We're going to make it something that people can't even believe.

We have some unbelievable plans. And, ultimately, it's about the talent you get, though. You can have a beautiful building. You can have nice marble walls. You can have nicely done columns, as I was saying. But if you don't have the talent on the stage -- and we're going to get the best talent in the world.

To that end, the world-renowned musical "Les Mis" had a phenomenal five-week sold-out run this summer, beat projected revenues by 35 percent. And we have raised over $10 million in private funds from a lot of generous donors. And we closed the $26 million budget shortfall that they had for -- before we got here.

And with the help of Congress, we secured the critical funding necessary to rebuild the building and to -- we're going to get all brand-new, highest-level seats, magnificent seats. And it's going to be all new. We could have taken the existing ones and do a little paint job, a little fabric, but it's not the same thing.

So we will be taking out next season. All of the seats will be taken out. The room is being completely rebuilt. And I just want to thank the Republicans in the Senate, headed by Lindsey in that case. Lindsey was very much -- he's a big fan of this building. And they got a record $257 million that's going to go toward renovations.

The building really needs. And all of the exterior is going to be incredible. It's going to be exciting. So I thank you very much. And thank all of your Republican senators. I don't think we had too many Democrat votes, probably. You never have. We don't have Democrats voting even for crime.

But I shouldn't make this political because they made the Academy Awards political and they went down the tubes. So they will say, Trump made it political. But I think if we make it our kind of political, we will go up, OK? Let's see if I'm right about that.

But I want to thank the executive director for an incredible job. He's done great. He's been with me for just about the beginning. And everything he's touched has been good. He was on high intelligence. He worked in low intelligence and high intelligence. He did better with the high intelligent people.

But he's been fantastic. He's the executive director, Ric Grenell, for his work. Thank you very much, Ric. Unbelievable job.

(APPLAUSE)

TRUMP: And as well as Lindsey and all the people that helped us in Congress, I want to thank. And the Senate has been incredible. By the way, Leader Thune has been unbelievable. And Speaker Mike

Johnson, they are -- these are great people. And what we're doing with the great Big Beautiful Bill is, you're going to see a whole different country. You're seeing it already. We're coming in where trillions of dollars is coming in from tariffs from all over the world from countries that took advantage of our country.

They thought we were children. They took advantage of us for decades. And now the money is flowing to us. And we have. We have become the hottest country anywhere in the world. But the Kennedy Center board members, many of whom I knew and many of whom I put on the board, and they're -- it's an outstanding -- it's as good a board as I have ever seen.

And on the board also and some people that are doing an incredible job, one in particular is Attorney General Pam Bondi. The job she's doing is incredible. Thank you very much.

(APPLAUSE)

TRUMP: Long beyond the Kennedy Center. The Kennedy Center is the easy part. She's incredible. And she's -- you're going to see a big change in Washington crime stats very soon, not the stats that they gave, because they turned out to be a total fraud, the real stats.

The stats went through the roof. They had a man that was forced to put up stats, like they were doing better. They're not doing better. Crime is the worst it's ever been. But it started as of about yesterday. It started to -- you see a big change and people are feeling safe already. I have so many calls. Thank you, sir. Thank you. They were afraid to walk out. They're not afraid anymore.

And this will get -- this will be like the border. We started off with millions and millions of people coming in from all over the world, gang members and people from jails. They were unloading their jails into our country. All over the world, they were coming, drug dealers. They came from Africa. They came from Asia. They came from South America, Venezuela in particular.

They were coming in, Tren de Aragua, and the toughest people you have ever seen, and by the millions. And for the last three months, we had zero, zero, and zero. We had zero people come in for three months. They respect our country again. That's the other thing.

[11:55:14]

All over the world, our country is respected again. So I also want to thank the chief of staff, Susie Wiles, who's fantastic. She's done an incredible job.

(APPLAUSE)

TRUMP: And Sergio Gor for the job he's done with personnel, thank you very much, Sergio. Fantastic.

In the coming months, we will fully renovate the dated and really the entire -- the infrastructure of the building and make the Kennedy Center a crown jewel of American arts and culture once again. I think we will bring it to a higher level than it ever hit. Actually, it hit a certain level, but we're going to bring it to a higher level than it ever hit.

We have the right location. And soon we will be a crime-free area. This is going to be a crime-free area, by the way. You will be able to go out. People tell me they can't run anymore. They're just afraid. And they will be running again. We're going to have it crime-free. It's a big statement because you will -- if one thing happens all year, Pam, you better be good,because they will say Trump did not fulfill his promise.

One person gets a little injured by somebody, they will say Trump did not fulfill his promise. No, we're going to be essentially crime-free. This is going to be a beacon. And it's going to also serve as an example of what can be done. We have to get rid of this cashless bail nonsense.

If you look at New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, which is so badly run, Los Angeles, they can't get the houses. They can't get the people there permits to build their houses. They're trying to rebuild the houses from the ridiculous fire that should have never allowed to have taken place. They should have had the water coming down from the Pacific Northwest, but they didn't do that.

But they can't get the permits for the people they want to build their houses. But I want to thank Lee Zeldin because the federal government has gotten all of their permits, which are much more difficult permits, actually, and had them literally within 30 days after the fire. Everybody had their permit. But you don't have the city and state permits.

They have got to get going. The governor and the mayor have to get going. And it will just be a matter of time that we -- we're going to do something that's going to be incredible. We're going to use the Kennedy Center as a big focus of it, and that's the 250th anniversary celebration that we're having.

So it's 250 years. So we have the Olympics, we have the World Cup, and we have the 250th anniversary celebration all in this administration. And it's an honor that we were able to not be allowed to do what we were illegally and what we were supposed to do. And that was, we had a great election in 2020. We won the election by a lot, but it was a rigged election.

And we had to wait four years and we waited four years. And it was interesting, because I got the Olympics and I got the World Cup. I can't claim that I got the 250th. That one's a big one, but I happen to be here. But I got the Olympics, I got the World Cup, and I said, the shame of it is that I'm not going to be president when it happens.

And, lo and behold, look what happens. We have -- some bad things took place, and now I'm going to be president for the Olympics. I will be president for the World Cup, and the 250th is going to be maybe more exciting than both. It's a great celebration of our country. We're going to be using this building for a lot of the celebration,

having to do with 250 years. But, as I said earlier, I'm determined to make Washington, D.C., safe, clean, and beautiful again. It's going to take place very rapidly. Be prepared. And a big part of that's going to include the Kennedy Center.

So thank you very much, and I want to thank everybody for helping us. This is mostly the group right here that's -- they're young, they're smart, they're ambitious. They want my job. Some day, one of them will probably have it.

But we have a great group of people that are putting this together, and they're also helping us with Washington, D.C. We're going to make Washington beautiful. We're going to redo roads. We're going to redo the medians, the pavers, and the medians all throughout the city. We're going to take all the graffiti off.

We're going to have to remove the tents, and the people that are living in our parks. We're going to be redoing the parks, the grasses and all. We're going to be going to Congress for a relatively small amount of money, and Lindsey and the Republicans are going to be approving it. I don't know about the Democrats. They don't approve anything. It's amazing.

It's like they just don't want to vote for anything. They have got the yips. In golf, they say the yips. The Democrats are afraid to do anything, because they don't want to be criticized. But fighting crime is a good thing. We have to explain. We're going to fight crime. That's a good thing.

Already, they're saying, he's a dictator.