On June 14, President Donald Trump will celebrate both his 80th birthday and the 250th anniversary of the United States’ founding with the country’s greatest spectacle: several hours of undoubtedly bloody cage fights on the White House’s South Lawn.
The event is the culmination of a long relationship between Trump and the UFC’s president, American businessman Dana White. White, who recently told Rolling Stone that he was “right down the middle” politically, has been a staunch ally of the president for Trump’s entire political career. Trump, in turn, has been both Dana White and the sport of MMA’s biggest fan for decades.
“Everyone has their thing, and Donald Trump’s thing is the UFC,” White told Rolling Stone.
In recent years, the UFC’s rising popularity has helped White establish something of a chokehold on American culture, as his sport is integral to the increasingly right-leaning “manosphere.” MMA now sits at the nexus of American politics and culture. A fight at the heart of the capital, then, was almost inevitable — all Donald Trump had to do is ask.
Rolling Stone will be at the fights in June, but until then, here’s everything we know.
Why is the White House hosting a UFC event?
In short, because Donald Trump asked them to. Plans for a UFC event at the White House started about a year ago, when Trump privately suggested to White that they hold an event in D.C. White described it as an offhand comment while both men were sitting cageside at an event in South Florida, but it quickly became a reality as preparations for the 250th anniversary of the United States’ founding ramped up.
The longer answer is a bit more complicated. White and Trump have been friends since the early 2000s, when Trump allowed White to host several of his first UFC events at the Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City. Trump also became a huge fan of the sport, sitting cage-side for every fight during those first few events.
The two men’s relationship deepened when White agreed to introduce Trump at the 2016 Republican National Convention.
“When he first called me [in 2015], he said, ‘Listen, if you don’t want to do this, I completely understand, but I’d be honored if you’d speak for me at the Republican convention,’” White told us during the Rolling Stone Interview. “Everybody told me not to do it. The two reasons were, number one, you don’t want to get anywhere near politics, and number two, he’s never going to win.”
Since that moment, the UFC has grown into a major cultural force in America. In the run-up to the 2024 election, White personally put his thumb on the scale for Trump, utilizing contacts in new media spaces like podcasting and social media to help Trump get in front of a new demographic of younger voters. White facilitated Trump’s appearances on Theo Von’s podcast, the Nelk Boys channels, various Barstool Sports podcasts and, of course, The Joe Rogan Experience. It worked, of course: Trump was elected to a second term, and celebrated his victory at a blowout UFC event at Madison Square Garden a few days after the election.
But the real reason for the White House event is a little more personal. Trump loves the UFC. Throughout his career, UFC events have been safe spaces for him — he’s always introduced to a standing ovation, and rarely has to contend with the boos or jeers that sometimes dog him at other sporting events. Trump is always looking to put his own stamp on world events, so it makes sense that he’d want to bring a spectacle that is intricately linked with his own rise to the America 250 celebrations in the capital.
Who is fighting?
The fight card is both exciting and a little bit bizarre. There are some huge names on there, but also some last-minute additions as well as Trump’s personal favorite fighter, Derrick Lewis.
Here’s the full card.
Main event: Ilia Topuria vs Justin Gaethje for the Lightweight Championship
Co-main: Alex Pereira vs Ciryl Gan for the Heavyweight Interim Championship
Sean O’Malley vs. Aiemann Zahabi at Bantamweight
Josh Hokit vs. Derrick Lewis at Heavyweight
Mauricio Ruffy vs. Michael Chandler at Lightweight
Bo Nickal vs. Kyle Daukaus at Middleweight
Diego Lopes vs. Steve Garcia at Featherweight
The lineup leans heavily towards fighters like Bo Nickal, Josh Hokit, and Michael Chandler, all of whom have publicly said they support the president. Chandler famously fought in the co-main event at the Madison Square Garden event right after Trump’s election.
What has Trump said about the event?
Trump seems stoked. In May, the president hosted the four fighters competing in the two main-event fights in the Oval Office.
“As you know, June 14th. We’re having a big fight,” Trump said. “It’s never gonna happen again. Never happened before. And it’s all of the best fighters, best four fighters standing right behind me, and all champions. And it is gonna happen right in front of the White House.”
“These are real warriors,” he said of the fighters behind him. “They really love the sport,” he continued later. “They come out of a ring, the most incredible fight you’ve ever seen. And they say this is the greatest sport … you know, I’d rather sink a three-footer personally. But there’s no better thing to watch than this.”
Trump’s love for bloodsport is genuine. He shows up to UFC fights consistently in both Florida and New York, and he’ll be completely in his element during the June 14 event.
What has the UFC said about the event?
The funny thing about the White House event is how much was left up to the UFC. In the Rolling Stone Interview, White described how the event came to be:
“We’re at a fight, and he looks at me in the middle of the fight and says, ‘You know what? We should do a fight at the White House.’ And I’m like, ‘Yes, you should do a fight at the White House.’ White said. “I don’t know if you’ll ever meet anybody more proud of the White House than he is. He absolutely loves that place and he feels like it’s America’s house, and we should do things where more people can come to the White House and be able to experience it.”
But after that, it was sort of the UFC’s show. The company is allegedly footing the bill for the show itself — tickets are free, but spots on the South Lawn itself are one of the hottest invites in Washington. Behind the scenes, Republican lawmakers and bigwig conservative donors are jockeying for a limited number of seats. White thinks that Trump might actually regret causing such a stir — but that no matter what, the show must go on.
“To have the opportunity to fight at the White House — we’re in,” White said. “[With everything going on,] he probably wishes he didn’t say that to me. But again, we’re in. It’s happening. Everything’s in motion. He’s never said anything to me like that, but this guy’s dealing with shit that people like you and I can’t even imagine and don’t want to.”What does the stage look like?
The physical venue for the fight is perhaps one of the most controversial aspects of the entire event. UFC fights require a substantial amount of infrastructure to hold both the octagon cage and the lighting and camera rigs needed for a broadcast. To accommodate that on the open-air South Lawn, White has had a massive arch constructed in Pennsylvania and shipped to D.C., which is now going in place over the lawn, right next to Trump’s half-destroyed East Wing, future site of the White House ballroom.
The South Lawn will only hold about 4,000 fans. Sponsorship packages for those seats (which are “technically free,”) are reportedly going for as much as $1.5 million for a ringside view.
Everyone else, meanwhile, will be in the Ellipse, across the street from the South Lawn, where the UFC plans to have a massive watch party. Attendees won’t be able to see the fight in person, but they’ll be in a makeshift arena watching on jumbotrons. The UFC will also host a free “fan fest” event the day before the fights, Saturday, June 13. Fans won’t have to pay for either of those experiences, but they will need tickets, which have already mostly been claimed online. For those not in Washington, the fights will stream on Paramount+, which acquired the exclusive rights to stream the UFC in a massive, $7.7 billion deal last August. Trump-friendly David Ellison bought Paramount just weeks before locking down the UFC for the next seven years.
The event’s press conference will take place at the Lincoln Memorial on June 12. The main event will kick off at 8 p.m. on Sunday, June 14 — prime time on the president’s birthday.
A Canadian flag flies along the waterfront of Lake Ontario, on Aug. 27, 2026. Cole Burston/AFP/Getty Images
Vladimir Putin addressing the audience during the Valdai Discussion Club meeting on Oct. 1
As Trump Dithers, Ukraine War Is Approaching a ‘Fatal Point of No Return’
The war in Ukraine is becoming increasingly dangerous, with the risk of escalation spilling further into Europe. As Russia and European governments trade explicit warnings that the conflict is spreading, the United States is pursuing diplomacy aimed less at stopping the carnage than restoring ties with Moscow.
With the Russian military making little progress on the ground in eastern Ukraine despite nearly five years of war and more than a million casualties, the Kremlin is intensifying aerial attacks. Ukraine, which has been the target of Russian missiles and drones since the war began in February 2022, is now experiencing a sharp uptick in attacks on infrastructure and populated areas that threaten to plunge parts of the country into cold and darkness over the winter.
The aerial blitzkrieg is intended to destroy Ukraine’s morale, infrastructure, and economy, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy recently told the Financial Times, citing intelligence intercepted by his country’s security services.
Zelenskyy told the paper that Russian President Vladimir Putin, in discussions with top Kremlin officials, had removed constraints on the bombardment campaign: “He said there are no rules now.”
U.S. disengagement from the conflict during Trump’s second term, coupled with the American president’s animosity toward Zelenskyy and Ukraine more generally, has only emboldened Putin. After promising he would stop the war “within 24 hours” after reelection, Trump’s tepid support for Ukraine and its European allies has increasingly convinced the Kremlin it has a chance to permanently rupture the NATO alliance.
At the Valdai Discussion Club on Thursday — an annual high-profile international summit in St. Petersburg — Putin said that continued European support for Ukraine was pushing the conflict toward a “fatal point of no return.”
The Kremlin has long described the war as an extension of a confrontation with the collective West. With more than 1.5 million active service members in the Russian military, about 44 percent of Moscow’s budget for 2027 is dedicated to defense and security spending. Around 700,000 Russian soldiers are serving on the front lines in Ukraine, where casualties remain staggeringly high.
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Meanwhile, Moscow is conducting a campaign of so-called “hybrid warfare” — with officials in multiple countries alleging that a series of drone attacks, arsons, and sabotage originated with Russian intelligence services. The Kremlin also continues to carry out targeted killings on European soil — and has even attempted to assassinate political dissidents in the United States, according to the FBI.
Russia’s belligerent activity has set alarm bells ringing across Europe.
Speaking at a NATO event on Thursday, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said that the continent must brace for “severe hybrid attacks,” as Russia targets production facilities and logistics hubs by which Ukraine’s allies supply the beleaguered country with arms. Europe must be prepared to “respond quickly and very clearly” to Russian provocations, Merz said.
For its part, Moscow asserts that NATO is provoking conflict, citing recent unannounced military exercises near Kaliningrad — a Russian exclave on the Baltic coast. In a communiqué to NATO this week, Russian officials warned that action against Kaliningrad would initiate a serious response, “including nuclear weapons” in order to defend its territory, and “Russian strikes against decision-making centers in the alliance’s member states.”
“This is a war that Europe is waging against us,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told reporters at the Valdai forum. When asked about hybrid attacks outside Ukraine that European leaders have attributed to Russia, he said his country was only targeting support for what it dubs the “Nazi regime” in Kyiv.
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As the sabers rattle louder, American engagement with Moscow and Kyiv comes in fits and starts, with no apparent overarching strategy.
Critics of the White House’s approach point to a recent trip by Trump’s friend and special envoy to the Middle East, real estate attorney Steve Witkoff, and son-in-law Jared Kushner, to Moscow and Kyiv. Their tour yielded headlines, but little progress toward negotiations between the warring parties — let alone toward ending the conflict.
“I hope they had a great discussion about opening a hotel or something,” one European official told Rolling Stone. “Because it was useless otherwise.”
Diplomacy via haphazard tête-à-têtes with the president’s personal envoys is almost certainly viewed as a sign of weakness by Putin, who is well aware that Trump hopes to claim normalized ties between the United States and Russia as a crowning foreign policy achievement.
The White House is considering a range of unprecedented diplomatic deals that would help keep Russia’s economy functioning while doing little to benefit Ukraine.
These proposals reportedly include an easing of economic sanctions if Putin agrees to release some political prisoners, and a potential multibillion-dollar oil deal ostensibly aimed at stabilizing energy markets and reducing gas prices.
With gas prices rising amid the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran and midterm elections around the corner, Trump has made energy central to his Russia policy. Washington has called for an “energy ceasefire” — while Trump has blamed Kyiv for rising diesel prices in the United States.
While high oil prices are the result of a concatenation of crises, Ukraine has been targeting Russian oil refineries, producing fuel shortages and long queues for gasoline — in one of the world’s largest oil producers — over the summer.
Ukraine is also developing its own domestically produced tactical ballistic missiles. Ukrainian officials said Friday that one type of missile, the FP-7, had been successfully used in combat for the first time. But whether Kyiv can produce enough of them to create a meaningful deterrent is unclear.
As winter nears, the outlook for Ukraine is bleak. A recent attack on Kyiv consisted of nearly a dozen ballistic missiles and hundreds of drones in a single night. That many munitions slip through highlights the dire situation faced by Ukrainian defenders, who are running out of advanced missile interceptors. They also struggle to shoot down drones that are becoming increasingly numerous, sophisticated, and effective as the war drags on.
In recent months, Russia has adopted widespread use of an advanced drone, the Geran-5 — a jet-powered drone that bears an uncanny resemblance to the V-1 “buzz bombs” used by the Nazis to bombard London toward the end of World War II.
As with the German V-1 campaign against London 80 years ago, the targets are often indiscriminate. Even before the ramping-up of attacks this fall, 2026 was on track to be the deadliest year for Ukrainian civilians since the early months of the full-scale war in 2022.
The proliferation of Russian attack drones and ballistic missiles means that cities like Kyiv now spend much of each day under air alert. Even aside from the human toll and physical damage that the weapons inflict, officials estimate that the disruptions to daily life are costing the country as much as $45 million per hour in lost economic activity.
Since Friday, a series of drone attacks has targeted two of Kyiv’s major bridges spanning the Dnieper River. The damage has disrupted traffic between the capital’s “Right Bank” — with its historic core and city center — and its “Left Bank,” with its sprawling Soviet-era industrial and residential developments.
Ukraine is already experiencing a severe financial squeeze. Prime Minister Sergii Koretskyi says the country is facing a $27 billion “funding gap” before the end of the year.
Ukrainian lawmakers warn the government could even run out of funds to pay soldiers. One serving member of the Ukrainian military, who spoke to Rolling Stone on background, said by the end of the summer, members of his unit had already begun experiencing “delays” in receiving their pay.
The Ministry of Defense disputes that soldier’s salaries could go unpaid, but acknowledges that “technical issues” had caused some delays.
Meanwhile, Zelenskyy is under pressure from corruption scandals and resignations involving members of his inner circle. Polls show him potentially losing hypothetical match-ups against rivals, including former Ukrainian Armed Forces commander Valerii Zaluzhny. The country’s “long-admired cohesion” has begun to crack — an outcome that aligns with Russia’s strategic objectives.
But after nearly five years of war, both combatants are showing signs of political and economic strain.
Russia’s regular military conscription process — 120,000 new recruits are expected over the next three months — barely offsets the grievous casualties its military is experiencing at the Ukrainian front, with high estimates exceeding 1,000 casualties per day.
Some analysts believe the Kremlin is considering a massive mobilization in the wake of parliamentary elections. But Putin so far has merely called for an increase in the total number of active-duty military members by a little more than 15,000. Russia’s president remains wary of generating a meaningful anti-war movement inside Russia, while also facing pressure from hard-line nationalists expecting him to deliver victory.
Across Europe, governments are no longer treating a direct confrontation with Russia as a remote possibility. They are preparing for worst-case scenarios, particularly in the Baltic states and other countries that experienced Russian rule under the Soviets. Meanwhile, NATO insists that all members — including the United States — have an “ironclad commitment” to collective defense.
In 1914, at the outset of the First World War, few leaders understood how faulty strategic assumptions, entangling alliances, and lethal technologies were pushing the continent toward cataclysm.
But some did. On the eve of war, U.K. Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey famously wrote that “The lamps are going out all over Europe.”
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Across Ukraine, darkness will again become a feature of daily wartime life amid rolling blackouts as a hard winter looms. And the shadows are lengthening, far beyond its borders.
But in America, the White House dithers as the president has his attention elsewhere. Perhaps Trump’s new ballroom, at least, should be well lit.