Why Donald Trump is hosting UFC fights at the White House

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This is a CBC podcast. Hello, I'm Matt Galloway, and this is the current podcast. You know, the White House lawn has seen a lot of history, but perhaps nothing, quite like what happened last night. Welcome to UFC Freedom 250. Here is the President of the United States of America, Donald J. Trump.

U.S.S. President Donald Trump celebrated his 80th birthday yesterday by hosting an ultimate fighting championship event on the South Lawn of the White House. The event was also part of the celebrations for the 250th birthday of the United States of America. The way in for the fighters on Saturday was at the Lincoln Memorial. Then the big event last night, 7th.5th. fights, 4,000 guests. The event cost $60 million U.S. brought tens of thousands of spectators to Washington. On social media, Donald Trump said that it was one of the most exciting days in the history of our fabled White House. Also took a shot at the weather forecasters because it was supposed to rain and then it didn't. And he said so much for weather forecasting. Luke Thomas is a combat sports analyst and host of the podcast Morning Combat. It focuses on mixed martial arts and boxing. He is in Washington, D.C.

Luke, good morning. Good morning. Thank you for having me. A cage match on the front lawn of the White House. Describe the scene last night. If you're a UFC fan, or maybe even if you're not, this was a giant spectacle in ways, even unusual for the dominant brand in mixed martial arts, as you indicated on the south lawn,

and then just south of that at the ellipse, which, by the way, was the famous location of where Donald Trump gave his January 6th speech, but putting that to the side, they erected this giant, they called it a claw, but to think of it as this giant apparatus under which everyone could sit. And they invoked every kind of element of the state, particularly the military ends of the state,

to both promote the event itself, to both promote a certain degree of atmospherics. They had a flyover with planes. They had Medal of Honor winners. They had the president's own, which is the Marine Corps band, that plays their cage side in order to be able to provide, you know, an initial degree of atmospherics. It was unlike, I think, anything I've seen in two decades of covering mixed martial arts,

and I think for most observers and historical observers of what happens on the White House lawn, this is also, I mean, typically this is a place that hosts the Easter egg role, not anything related to this combination of the celebration of militarism, and I'm going to argue something approximating fascistic power, and then cage fighting in conjunction with that. Can you, you've hinted at this, but what was going through your mind, not just with this fight, as I mentioned, the way in, was at the Lincoln Memorial on Saturday.

Yeah, and as a long time Washington, D.C. resident, this is a particular point that deserves to be noted. I have lived here on and off, but for a long time since the 1980s. And I've just never seen an administration decide that the essentially the sacred architecture of the public belongs to them in this particular way. And I'm sure you're very aware of it. They painted the bottom of the reflecting pool in a very sketchy way. tried to put his name on the Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Center, took over the East Potomac Golf Course. I mean, I could go on and on,

but this would be another sort of example. I mean, for folks who to understand this memorial, I one time took my dogs for a walk over there, and they were barking at a squirrel, and I know this is a prosaic example, but please hear me out. There were people who work at the Lincoln Memorial who were asking me to observe a greater degree of silence

because that's the solemnity that goes with it. It just turns the sacred architecture of the people into set pieces for a for-profit private company's entertainment. You have said that UFC and Donald Trump have been dating for years and that this event was merely the wedding. How did this relationship between the U.S. President and UFC start? It is true that when Dana White and his partners purchased UFC from the previous owners at that time, circa 2001, that two of the first early shows that they,

had there under the new ownership happened at Trump's casinos in New Jersey. And what they have tried to tell the public is that since that day, they've been fast friends and everything has gone smoothly, which is simply just not the case. The two were rivals essentially in 2009. But in 2016, Dana White speaks of the Republican National Convention. But really, that's not even it. The real answer is January 6. After January 6th, Dana White helped Donald Trump launder his reputation after he verifiably, and this is not even debatable, tried to use a fake elector scheme to steal a presidential election. But then he kept showing up to UFC events in 2022 and 2023.

And as you saw last night for folks who watched, it was kind of like that. He gets a walkout. It's rapturous. Yes, this one was even more heightened than that, obviously, because they're at the White House. But it's the same kind of propagandistic element that made him look pretty good.

And folks might want to ask, what's the value of that? The value is, look what they got rewarded with last night. It's that combination of power that you're watching here. Dana White is the president of UFC, and he was on NPR last month. And the host, Steve Inskeep, asked him, if there was something about the ultimate fighting championship that represented Donald Trump's view of America and the world, have a listen to what Dana White said.

Trump is one of the toughest, most resilient human beings that I've ever met in my life. The most. I don't know anybody. And I've been in the fight business since I was 19 years old. He's the toughest, most resilient guy I've ever met. By far. and does this represent his idea of... I think fighting, I think sports does, I think

the will to win the will to overcome, the will, you know, he has every ounce of that plus some, even at 80 years old. Luke, how do you understand that? As nonsensical. Listen, you can paste

on top of MMA any kind of narrative you want. You want to paste on top of MMA that narrative, you can. You want to paste on top of it that it's a Rainbow Coalition of a diverse group of fighters from all walks of life and there's Horatio Alger stories up from the bootstrips, you can do any of those things. Look, the reality is what they're trying to do is say, look at the masculine musculature kind of posture that comes from the ultimate fighting championship. Let's make Donald Trump famously one of the most thin-skinned

and incompetent leaders in U.S. history. Let's use some of this to both make him look good as well us present an image that we can to keep young men interested to help preserve this political coalition, especially as it begins to fray. It's all just designed to make you imagine what one thing is and then paste that on top of a guy, whether or not there's an organic connection or otherwise. Do you see an overlap, though, between what UFC represents and that base of Donald Trump and the base that put him into the White House two times? Well, I'd say the modern UFC. Yes, there is clearly a connection between the two, obviously. The MMA that I came up with and the UFC that I came up with would not be quite as connected in that way,

but something has clearly shifted. I mean, last night, anyone who's going to watch that is going to be able to say that was some kind of weird combination of like a July 4th event on Capitol Hill plus C PAC, the conservative political action committee, plus a UFC event. I mean, it's all kind of designed to promote an ideological set of regime-aligned interests. I mean, that's what it's really kind of about. And so to answer your question, in the modern context, that would apply. When Ultimate Fighting was initially taking root in the United States, I mean, famously, John McCain, the former senator, the late Senator, called it human cock fighting. And there were a number of states in which UFC was not allowed to operate in.

How popular is it now in 2026? Boy, that is such a good question. And this is something that, I mean, I'm so glad you asked this because nobody. has asked me this, and I've been doing weeks of media. One thing you may not appreciate out there, and I want to be clear, the jury is not out on this. It is debatable, so I want to be as fair as I can to the truth. But there is good reason to believe that MMA is contracting globally. In the three largest markets in the world, that would be the U.S., Brazil, and Russia,

for about the last 10 years, maybe even longer than that, the number of aggregate events in each of those countries and overall globally has declined, year over year. If you ask UFC fans about their enthusiasm absent last night, they're going to have an enormous amount of complaints. The fights that they want to get made don't get made. There's just a glut of content that no one is asking for, and rivals are all dying because they cannot compete ultimately in a monopolistic universe. But then they just signed this huge deal.

The company was bought up by, or parts of it were bought up by a management company, and that that was worth billions of dollars, would suggest that UFC's never been bigger? Yeah, I would not in any way suggest that UFC has never been bigger. I would suggest that I've seen it bigger. I've experienced it bigger. I mean, there's just a number of different ways in which you can understand it. One anecdote is one way to look at it.

The MMA media industry, for example, has collapsed. I know media more generally is having trouble, but it's because there's not enough views to power the existence of previous things that were able to do that. there are less people watching in that regard. Let me ask you. We just have a couple of minutes left. You have received hostility from people within the MMA world for some of your views,

particularly on the U.S. president. The current American men's UFC middleweight champion, Sean Strickland, used to be a vocal supporter of Donald Trump said he was barred from Sunday's fight because of his criticism of the president over his war in Iran and his stance on Israel. How divided is the mixed martial arts world over support of Donald? Donald Trump, do you think? So it's a good question. I mean, we'll see what happens after last night. What's kind of interesting is Donald Trump can't deliver on much in terms of policy objectives, particularly domestic policy objectives, but he can deliver on creating a show. And I definitely

Maybe not to the degree which we saw on Sunday, but that this union will continue for the reasons it has. I would be very surprised if it didn't. Luke, really good to speak with you about this. Thank you very much. Thank you. Luke Thomas is a combat sports analyst and host of the podcast Morning Combat. He was in Washington, D.C. You've been listening to the current podcast. My name is Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening. I'll talk to you soon.

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