Special Presidential Envoy for Special Missions of the United States, former Kennedy Center President, former DNI, and former Ambassador to Germany Ric Grenell is a regular CPAC stage speaker, and this year was no different. Because he has worn many hats in both Trump administrations, both on foreign soil and in the U.S., Special Fellow Mercedes Schlapp had him expound on a number of issues surrounding diplomacy and foreign policy, but first focused on what Grenell had to do at the Kennedy Center and where that stands now that he has exited the role as president of the center.
Grenell eloquently expounded on the work that had to be done to save the Kennedy Center from decrepitude and ruination.
Grenell first addressed the Kennedy Center disrepair.
"Well, you know, one of the things about Washington is that they love to kick the can down the road. They don't ever solve problems. And we're so frustrated. You look at the border, you look at any issue. Washington D.C. doesn't know how to fix problems. President Trump came in, and the then-Kennedy Center, which was financially a mess and structurally a mess.
"I actually think people should go to prison for the deferred maintenance on the Kennedy Center. When you look at what they said that they were gonna do, which was fix the Kennedy Center, they were getting federal dollars to maintain the building: they were not maintaining the building. After 10 years of all that, the place was literally falling apart. Lawsuits from the ceiling falling on cars. Every time there was rain, it poured in through the roof, the sewer system was backed up. Pipes would burst. I arrived, and we didn't even have the fountains out front that were able to work because they were going down into the parking garage and flooding the parking garage. The marble was literally falling apart.
"President Trump, when I first came, he came over. And we took him to the bowels of the basement. And he saw it immediately. He said, 'Wow, this place needs to be fixed.' Some of our engineers were saying we should tear it down and start over. But President Trump said, we're going to fix it. And we've tried to fix it as we've gone along. But the best thing to do is to shut it down, turn it into a construction site for two years, bring it back better than ever. We have to do that because of years of neglect, of people literally saying that they were gonna spend money on maintenance, and they didn't. So, they were lying."
Grenell then dived into the artistic issues: programming that wasn't attracting corporations, donors, or an audience.
"You also think about the programming which was so far left, that corporations had abandoned the place. So, the model of how we paid for the Arts was not working. And let me just say this: the New York Times, which I don't quote very often, they've done two front-page stories about the Arts in America. One was that Broadway was dying. People weren't buying tickets because the shows were just not the traditional Broadway shows that people wanted to go see. That was one. And two, The Met was 300 million in debt. So, this phenomenon of arts institutions not being able to pay their bills, and ticket sales plummeting. Shame on the media for suddenly holding the then-Kennedy Center to this standard that they didn't hold the rest of the arts institutions across America to. And we actually stepped out and fixed the problem, and now we're fixing the building. So, we will be able to say we fixed, financially and physically, the new Trump-Kennedy Center."
Grenell spoke to the successes of this strategy and how it has already rendered positive results.
"I think one of the most beautiful buildings ever, which will not have any structural problems, you're going to arrive at the new Trump-Kennedy Center and think, wow, this is an amazing building. We're going to have state-of-the-art technology, which we don't have right now. And I also think you'll see the programming go back to the traditional big stuff that sells. For instance, we've had 'Chicago the Musical,' which comes to the Trump-Kennedy Center next week — sold out. We've had all sorts of big programming that appeals to the masses. What doesn't appeal to the masses are these niche little programs that programmers have been spending millions of dollars on, and corporations don't want to support. So, when you don't have the combination of corporate dollars or enough ticket sales — and remember, the Trump Kennedy Center has 19 unions — so, it's incredibly expensive to put on a show and the theaters are very small. So, the challenges there have been enormous."
And as Grenell explained, you had the Biden administration, which ran up the cost overruns for the Kennedy Center.
"And then, lastly, I'll just say the previous administration allowed there to be the building of this brand new section of the Trump-Kennedy Center called 'The Reach,' a modern section of that. They told people it would be 100 million dollars to build The Reach. We didn't need to build it, but they went out and raised, and they said it would be 100 million. When all was said and done, they spent 280 million dollars, not a 100: 280 million dollars and took out a 30 million dollar loan.
"Now, the Washington Post, the New York Times who cover the Trump-Kennedy Center have never printed any of that, because they don't understand finances. You've got these woke arts-culture reporters who all they want to talk about is the latest soprano that's coming to the Center and how much money we might be paying for this, and how we're cutting-edge programming. And what I was saying is you need somebody to run this organization more like a commonsense business person. So that when you're all said and done, you're paying for these performances without going into debt every single time. You can do it. You've just got to have common sense programming that corporations support."
Schlapp pivoted to the War in Iran, and Grenell sarcastically joked, "The Arts Were a War." Schlapp wanted to know how he viewed Operation Epic Fury from a diplomatic perspective and whether there is a rift in MAGA concerning the Iran conflict.
Grenell praised the ability of the MAGA movement to work through issues, even if they may seem rancorous. Grenell said:
"First of all, the one thing that I love about the MAGA movement is that we actually have opinions. We share our opinions. We're proud to be transparent about those opinions, and we try to work through these issues. The Democrats really demand that people just fall in line. Well, we don't do that. We have a messy debate that sometimes you see it play out. What we're unified on, though, is trusting President Trump."
The CPAC audience broke into loud applause. Grenell continued:
"I think what everybody understands is that President Trump is looking at intelligence that we aren't. President Trump is talking to our allies more closely than anyone else. The media doesn't know, and most of us don't know, exactly what President Trump knows. And so, I I think the first rule is that we trust him."
Grenell then put on his diplomat hat, underlining the importance that strong offense and defense must include an equally strong Department of State.
Grenell said:
"What I would say is what we just saw from the last panel. They were talking about the need to confront our threats, right? And we all agree that we should confront our threats. But what I want to see, what I've advocated for for my career, is that when we confront a threat that we don't just immediately assume that this goes to the Department of War, or the Pentagon, right? We have to be sophisticated enough to know that if you're gonna to confront these conflicts and you're gonna to problem solve them, then you better have a State Department filled with diplomats who are really tough.
"Because nothing is better when you do negotiations — and I've done tens of thousands of negotiations. And nothing is better than when you sit in a room, and you're negotiating as diplomats across the table with a foreign diplomat, and you're talking about solving a problem, nothing is better than to have the diplomat on the other side know that I've got a president of the United States, I've got a boss who doesn't just have a threat: he has credible threat. And when President Trump says, I'm going to do something, and I don't just mean military action, when President Trump says, if you don't do X, we are going to increase tariffs. People know, countries know, he's increasing tariffs. That is going to happen.
"And what I love about this president is that he doesn't do the typical Washington thing of, you know, we're going to talk to the Treasury Department or the Commerce Department and the Deputy Assistant of this and that is going to give us a white paper and we're going to look and study issues. President Trump says Tuesday, if you haven't moved, we are going to increase tariffs.
"They move, because they don't want the tariffs increase. This is a difference between a threat, which is what Kamala said, 'No, don't.' And a credible threat, which is President Trump saying, 'You have until Tuesday.'"
The CPAC 2026 Theme is "Actions over Words," and Mercedes Schlapp made the apt point that "President Trump is the ultimate Actions over Words president." Grenell agreed.
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Schlapp asked about what Grenell thought the Iran endgame would be. Grenell said:
"Well, first of all, I've been working on this issue for a very long time. I was at the U.N. for eight years. I was inside the U.N. Security Council. We were confronting the Iranian issue. And this is what I mean by having this constant Washington, you know, the Iranian proxies immediately attack. They kill people. When they go and try to do sanctions, and there's this constant cycle of not solving the problem, but reacting. And I think President Trump was just sick of it. He was sick of this constant cycle and said, 'How do we fix this?' Let's talk about what we do know: We do know that President Obama and Biden decided to believe the Iranian regime enough to say, 'Okay, let's cut a deal, we believe you, and we're going to give you billions of dollars in sanctions relief, cash, and credit.' One of the threats that we have right now, is an Iranian regime, barely alive, but what we had, was an Iranian regime that has the cash, thanks to Presidents Obama and Biden. They have enough money for 25 years. They have the motives to still come at us. The intelligence is frightening when you look at all of their proxies. And I think that the threat is very real, so, the President decided to confront that."
The audience applauded in agreement. Grenell concluded:
"What I love about President Trump confronting this is that he's decided to fix this problem. Is it messy in the short term? Of course. But is it ultimately going to be a good thing? I think we're gonna to look back in a couple of months and say, thank God that we fixed this problem. The Iranian regime is not a threat any longer. Gas prices will absolutely be fixed. When you think about the problems that President Trump has solved by getting us more access to oil in Venezuela, and more access for oil in Iran, which we know is coming because he's concentrated on Kharg Island. I think we're going to look back and say, thank God we're not having to spend so much money to recycle this problem of terrorism. That we went in quickly, we took out the threat, and we're able to benefit from the fact that we have a stable region that's going to be able to do stable trade."
The conversation logically segued to what could happen with Cuba. Schlapp referenced the successful removal of Nicolás Maduro and now the pressure on the Cuban regime.
Schlapp asked Grenell what he thought might be the next steps to see the regime fall.
"You're always going to hear from me diplomacy, because I'm a diplomat, and I believe that we should have really hard diplomats with skills that are able to solve problems. Not wimpy, going to dinner diplomats, but diplomats who actually solve problems. If you want to solve problems and avoid war, you better have a class of diplomats who are really good at solving problems. President Trump gives us the ability to have diplomats at the State Department that are tip of the spear and able to solve problems, and we see that happen. I think with Cuba, that's what we need.
"The Cuban leadership knows exactly that there is a very credible threat from President Trump. Our diplomats now need to go in, and solve these problems before we have to take military action. I don't want military action. Again, I'm the guy who's at the State Department. I'm the guy who is a diplomat, and we have to have really strong diplomats. We can't just look at every crisis or threat and immediately transfer over to the Pentagon. First of all, having the diplomats is much cheaper. And if they do the job, it can be much quicker."
Schlapp turned the conversation to Europe and wondered, "Can they be saved?" Grenell was positive that Europe was not yet done, but critical over what got them into the pickle that they're in.
Grenell began:
"Well, first of all, we have to say that it is salvageable because Europe is a great partner for us. And I think it started with Merkel, I have to be honest with you, Chancellor Merkel, I think, ruined the continent. She's the one who didn't have an immigration policy. I said this when I was ambassador in Germany and it wasn't very popular, But the European Union became smaller and weaker when Chancellor Merkel was there because of Brexit. Remember, Brexit happened because of immigration. They looked at what was happening across the continent and they said, 'We're out of here. If you can't have rules, we don't want that coming into our country.' You've gotta have rules. Every single country has immigration rules. We should never be apologizing for having strict immigration rules."
Grenell praised America's immigration system and the legal immigrants who are contributing to the fabric of our country by teaching us to love it and fight for it.
"Matter of fact, I've said this on this stage and I really mean it: The fact is the United States of America has the most generous immigration policy in the world. You all should never be put in a position of apologizing for having strict rules. Every country has strict rules. We are extremely generous. Roughly a million people a year get to become U.S. citizens. A lot more with visas. We are extremely generous, no other country does that! No other country comes close to our generous immigration policy. And we are stronger when we have legal immigration. President Trump has first and second generation Americans that are more excited about the American Dream than fifth, seventh generation Americans. First and second generation Americans are teaching us how much to love this country, fight for this country, and make sure that we have strict rules in order to come in."
Schlapp's final question to Grenell revolved around communism being on the rise across the globe, including America. Schlapp wondered how we could quell its spread, particularly in the U.S.
Grenell concluded the talk with these remarks:
"Well, I'm old enough to remember that we almost came to the point where it was defeated, but we didn't quite finish the job, so it started coming back, right? So we have to be able to demand that our European partners see the world like we do. All of the warnings that we gave Germany and the rest of Europe about Russia, and they didn't listen to us. To go back a little bit on that last question that you had, I think that the way that the Europeans have undermined NATO is going to have major consequences. The American people have been skeptical for a long time of our tax dollars going to defend Europeans and others in NATO, and they not paying their fair share, doing their obligations, and what just happened: with Spain saying, 'No, we're not helping America,' and the UK saying, you can't even use their bases. I don't think Europe understands just how angry the American people are going to be to say, this isn't the NATO that we thought we signed up for."
The CPAC audience applauded and some stood up in agreement, as Grenell exited the stage.
Editor's Note: For decades, former presidents have been all talk and no action. Now, Donald Trump is eliminating the threat from Iran once and for all.
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