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.
Donald Trump holds up a Bible outside of St. John’s Episcopal church across Lafayette Park in Washington, D.C., on June 1, 2020.BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/Getty Images
Donald Trump speaks in front of the American flag at the White House, on May 12, 2026.
It’s the Corruption, Stupid
Let’s say it plainly: There has never been a president as corrupt as Donald Trump. There is no close second in our history.
Take two days in May as Exhibit A. Americans just found out that in the first quarter of this year, Trump’s stock portfolio made 3,600 trades — an average of nearly 60 a day. This is a rapacious pace that would make a day trader on meth blush. Many of these appear suspiciously timed to benefit from actions approved by the president himself. For example, his Nvidia stock surged after Trump announced the company would be permitted to sell its cutting-edge AI chips to China. Similar suspiciously well-timed calls were made ahead of big government moves involving other companies, from Intel to Palantir to Boeing. The Trump Organization says all trades are made by a third-party investment advisor. If so, they appear to be psychic.
But the apparent insider trading scam being run from within the Oval Office is small change — merely millions of dollars — compared to the self-dealing plunder of $1.8 billion tax-payer dollars being pushed through the DOJ and IRS.
There’s never been a sitting president who sued his own government for $10 billion. That’s because it’s absurdly corrupt. But that’s what Donald Trump did, arguing he had suffered damages from prosecutions pursued before he was reelected. Trump, like many of his supporters, persistently confuses persecution with prosecution.
The judge who heard the case convened an independent panel to review the suit, suspecting it might be a scam. Before the case could be dismissed, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche — who had previously served as Trump’s personal lawyer — declared that the bogus suit would be preemptively settled, not for $10 billion, but for the symbolic sum of $1.776 billion, which Trump said will be distributed to persecuted political allies.
This is a shakedown. The president is compelling a Justice Department he controls to redirect money from taxpayers — that’s you — to his most fervent supporters. This slush fund will set off a cash grab among MAGA lawyers and be used to reward partisan fanatics who attacked the U.S. Capitol — and police officers — on his behalf.
If that wasn’t enough of a blatantly illegal use of presidential power, it was revealed that the “settlement” deal included a pledge signed by the acting attorney general that would ensure — in the hysterical all caps of a Trump tweet — that the government would be “FOREVER BARRED and PRECLUDED from prosecuting or pursuing” any tax claims, audits or related prosecutions against Trump, his family or their businesses. This is an attempt to get a permanent get-out-of-jail-free card for the Trump family — a license to steal.
All of this is insane. All of it is unethical, and much of it is illegal and impeachable — but our system was not designed to deal with a shamelessly self-dealing president, a spineless Republican Congress, and a complaint conservative Supreme Court that has refused to enforce the emoluments clause of the Constitution and ruled that Trump has immunity for actions he takes as president. That ruling may prove to be the most consequential — and most corrosive — act of judicial abdication in American history. Against this partisan-group think, individual acts of courage matter. So kudos to the top lawyer at the Treasury Department, Brian Morrissey, who at least had the integrity to resign rather than oversee this tax-payer funded plunder.
Just to close out the corruption-palooza, Trump announced that he would endorse the Lone Star State poster-boy of corruption, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, in his primary against incumbent GOP Senator John Cornyn. Paxton’s scandals include a truly buffoonish array of fraud and bribery charges that resulted in him nearly being impeached by the state legislature. But corruption is a feature, not a bug, of Trumpland.All this smacks of late Rome and you’d be forgiven for half expecting Trump will next appoint a horse to an open Cabinet position, with Republicans rationalizing the need for more equine representation. It is no more absurd that the cavalcade of Trump appointees refusing to say that Biden won the 2020 election during their confirmation hearings in the Senate. The decision to parrot unreality for partisan gain defines deviancy down.
But in the search for something hopeful to hold onto in dark times, you can find some comfort in the fact that corruption is often the thing that turns the tide against authoritarian-adjacent administrations. And there is evidence this is happening.
Trump’s billions in self-enrichment, his reflexive twisting of U.S. policy to sell out long-term national interests and enduring values, comes at a moment when nearly half of Americans say they are feeling extremely anxious about their own financial situation.
That anxiety is driven by the widening gap between Main Street and Wall Street, a gap set on fire by a trade war and a real war Trump started, which has no end in sight but promises to further raise energy prices, fertilizer prices, and strangle the global economy. While CEOs embrace the transactional nature of this president, kissing his ring and offering vigs, the situation is grim if you’re not lining up at the Trump trough. At a time when the super-rich are getting richer, everyone else is told to go to hell by the man in the White House.
These are precisely the kinds of conditions that turn people against an aging, autocratic president who shows contempt for the very people who put him in office. It is not just that Trump’s approval numbers have plummeted to the point where two-thirds of Americans disapprove of the job he is doing. It is that Trump, for the first time, is opposed by a majority of non-college-educated white voters — a.k.a. his base — and they feel betrayed because Trump is raking in billions of dollars while they struggle to pay rent and buy groceries. Trump has dismissed and discounted their concerns, turning a blind eye to the anger about rising costs that carried him back into the presidency.
Trump’s aim is to make his thievery so blatant that we collectively become numb to it and disfigure our democracy in the process. Once upon a time conservatives warned about the dangers of “crony capitalism” and corruption. Now they are silent and complicit. It is the temporary triumph of partisanship over principle. Patriotism demands that we reassert the basic American idea that no man is above the law and that our presidents are not kings.