RNC finance chairman Steve Wynn optimistic about country's growth

Wynn Resorts CEO Steve Wynn is best known for revitalizing the Las Vegas strip in the ‘80s and ‘90s. His resorts overall brought in nearly $4.5 billion in net revenue last year. Now Wynn has taken on a new role as finance chairman of the Republican National Committee, focusing on the 2018 midterm elections.

“Raising money isn’t so much the core of what I’m doing, as reminding everybody, young people and old people, that this is a chance to preserve and protect the things in America that made America great in the first place,” Wynn said Thursday on “CBS This Morning” about his new position. “We’ve been in a little bit of a rut, an emotional rut, and we need to break out and know that everything is in reach again. And I think it’s going to happen.”

Wynn is optimistic about growth of the U.S. economy, and he thinks President Trump’s team has a lot to do with it.

“This administration has turned the attitude of America into a can-do attitude. That is the most significant thing. I’m 75 years old now. I didn’t think this was possible,” Wynn said.

He described the past eight years as “a dark winter” in terms of job creation in the private sector.

“Well, once again, it’s springtime in America and things are going to grow. This country has always been an ocean of opportunity,” Wynn said. “Now I think we can get people to believe, ‘Come on in, the water’s fine.’”

Wynn blamed the “dark winter” on what he called “ridiculous foolishness” of Washington’s regulations. He said there needs to be less regulation “so that people have the confidence to go and try.” 

Wynn and Mr. Trump have had their fair share of tensions. “A long time ago,” Mr. Trump called Wynn a “scumbag,” and Wynn called Mr. Trump “all hat and no cattle.”

“Both of us are too old to have any enemies,” Wynn said of their relationship now.

Wynn even supported Florida Sen. Marco Rubio during the primaries. He said he was trying to protect his employees, given Mr. Trump’s rhetoric and threats against China during his campaign.

“When the debate concerned China and things like that, and was rather unfocused but general – I’m in business in China, I have great respect for the government there. And I have 20,000 employees or more there. And I wanted to stay out of the line of fire until a discussion about the People’s Republic of China was more focused. And basically, as a businessman, I didn’t want to get confused,” Wynn explained.

So how did the two formal rivals come together?

“I watched President Trump risk everything in his personal life to go on this journey, and the most incredible, incredible chain of events that led to us having unified government and a president with the courage, with the courage, the unshakeable courage to do the right thing by – I think most of us privately, Democratic or Republican, realized that we needed to fix some things in America very badly,” Wynn said. “Look, the only chance for anybody’s life to be improved is the demand for their labor.”