KISS Guitarist TOMMY THAYER: U.S. President DONALD TRUMP Is 'Doing A Fantastic Job'

Just hours after KISS received an award from U.S. president Donald Trump at the 2025 Kennedy Center Honors, the band's longtime guitarist Tommy Thayer spoke to LindellTV's Cara Castronuova about the experience, saying: "Well, [President Trump's] got very good taste in music, obviously. We had a great event last night, the Kennedy Center Honors with KISS, George Strait and many others. And it was really a highlight of all of our year, and it was just an honor and a pleasure to be here. Great show."

Asked if he ever thought that he would get an award from a president of the United States, Tommy replied: "No. It's a big honor. KISS has had a great storied career for 50 years, and we're just honored to be here and be part of it. And President Trump has done a fantastic job. They're doing great things at the Kennedy Center now. And it's just an honor to be here. And he's got good taste in music. No doubt."

Pressed for his opinion on the job Trump is doing in his second term, Tommy said: "I think he's doing a fantastic job. I think that it's a tough job in a lot of ways, [and] everybody's got a lot of different points of view on things, but I think he does an excellent job."

After Castronuova noted that "music brings everybody together" and that "there's KISS fans that are Democrats and Republicans," Thayer concurred. "Well, that's true," he said. "Music is the language of all people. And that's the thing that was great about last night. It didn't matter where you're coming from. It was just a great party, a good time. Everybody had smiles on their faces and just enjoyed the night."

On the Kennedy Center Honors red carpet on Sunday, KISS frontman Paul Stanley was asked by Breitbart News for his thoughts on being honored by Trump a day earlier.

"It's an incredible honor. It's surreal, and as a kid who grew up with nothing, the idea of being in the White House, the Oval Office, receiving accolades from the president, that's beyond anything that I could have ever fathomed," Stanley said. "And that's what makes America great, is the fact that we can all achieve whatever we set out to do with hard work. Hard work makes anything possible. Achieving something is determined by how hard you're willing to work for it, and that's what gives it its value. So I'm humbled and grateful and blessed to share it with my wife."

KISS bassist/vocalist Gene Simmons told Breitbart News that Trump's Oval Office, which is decorated from top to bottom in gold, looks "terrific." Gene also compared Trump's Oval Office to the iterations of former presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, saying: "It used to be a drab. I've been here through Mr. Clinton and Mr. Bush, and it used to be a pretty drab place. It's coming alive. I think it's great."

Original KISS drummer Peter Criss told Breitbart News about being honored by Trump: "It was history. You could feel the vibes in the room. I was, like, looking at the desk, going, 'Well, that's where Roosevelt sat during the war. That's where Lincoln sat. That's where JFK [sat].' I was a big JFK kid. And it was a high.

"When you see it in motion pictures, they always make it — you think it's gonna be this ginormous room. It's tiny. It's a really little room, but the history that went on there, the paintings of Lincoln and Washington on the wall… And it was dynamite. It was really cool. A kid from Brooklyn, I never thought I'd be in the Oval Office sitting with the president of the United States. So it's been wonderful."

Simmons, who appeared with Trump on the first season of "Celebrity Apprentice" in 2008, previously called Trump "good for the political system" in a 2016 interview with Rolling Stone.

"He is the truest political animal I've ever seen onstage," Simmons said at the time. "He has no speechwriters, no editing, no nothing. He's actually on tape going 'motherfucker.' You cannot turn away.… He has said some very vile, unkind things. But don't kid yourself. He speaks off the cuff, and what you see is what you get. And he'll double down."

Added Simmons: "He's not there to be your friend…. He's good for the political system."

Gene later offered a different assessment of Trump, telling Spin magazine in May 2022 about the president's first term: "I knew him before he entered politics. Look what that gentleman did to this country and the polarization — got all the cockroaches to rise to the top. Once upon a time, you were embarrassed to be publicly racist and out there with conspiracy theories. Now it's all out in the open because he allowed it."

Referencing his appearance on "The Apprentice", Simmons told the magazine being president is a very different job than hosting a game show. "You have a different responsibility when you're just a citizen or an entrepreneur. You don't make policy," he said. "It doesn't affect life and death. When you get into a position of power, it does affect lives. I don't think he's a Republican or a Democrat. He's out for himself, any way you can get there. And in the last election, over 70 million people bought it hook, line and sinker."

For his part, Stanley tweeted in January 2021 that Trump's refusal to accept the results of the previous year's election loss was "ABHORRENT. A true danger to our democracy. The issue isn't that it WON'T work. It's Mob Boss behavior and politicians putting party over audits, investigations, court rulings & COUNTRY in an effort to overrule the will of American voters."

Stanley also referred to the Trump supporters who stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021 as "TERRORISTS," adding in a tweet just hours after the riot took place: "This is armed insurrection. The flames were fanned today & over time by the president & specific senators who CANNOT be allowed now to distance from or denounce what they have directly caused. Know their names. THIS is the result of their deception. Shame."