
Donald Trump to Host UFC Fight on White House Grounds: What to Know
Trump said the event would be a "full fight" with about 20,000 to 25,000 people in attendance.
"So every one of our national parks, battlefields and historic sites are going to have special events in honor of America 250. And I even think we're going to have a UFC fight," the president said during a speech at the Iowa State Fairgrounds in Des Moines on Thursday.
Newsweek contacted the White House and UFC for comment by email outside regular working hours.
Trump, an enthusiast for the sport, has attended multiple mixed martial arts matches in recent months and is a friend of Dana White, the UFC's president.
The unprecedented White House event forms part of Trump's broader effort to celebrate the nation's 250th birthday, which is also expected to feature national ceremonies, military flyovers and special programs at national parks.
Trump has also described plans for the "Great American State Fair," a nationwide series of events culminating on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. Each state would have a pavilion to showcase its culture and contributions.
Speaking in Iowa on Thursday, Trump said: "We're going to have a UFC fight, think of this, on the grounds of the White House. We have a lot of land there."
"Dana is going to do it," he continued, adding, "We are going to have a UFC fight-championship fight, full fight, like 20-25,000 people-and we are going to do that as part of 250 also."
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed after the speech that Trump was "dead serious" about hosting the event.
Trump has regularly attended UFC fights, most recently last month in Newark, New Jersey. He also attended a fight in Miami in April.
Trump's friendship with White goes back to at least 2001, when he allowed the UFC to hold a fight at his Trump Taj Mahal hotel in Atlantic City.
White also introduced Trump at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee last July.
A UFC official told CNN: "We are in discussions with the White House about hosting a UFC event on site."
President Donald Trump said during his Memorial Day address in May: "We're gonna have a big, big celebration, as you know, 250 years. … In some ways, I'm glad I missed that second term where it was because I wouldn't be your president for that."
Monica Crowley, the chief of protocol of the U.S., said: "We've had so much division and so much polarization over the last many decades, but certainly over the last few years, that to be able to bring the country together to celebrate America's 250th birthday through patriotism, shared values and a renewed sense of civic pride, to be able to do that in the center of the country, is incredibly important."
Officials have not yet confirmed a date for the proposed UFC fight or provided logistic details.
Related Articles
Donald Trump Calls Bankers 'Shylocks'Trump Shares Candid Assessment of Putin CallVideos Show Trump's Crowd Size at Iowa State Fair
2025 NEWSWEEK DIGITAL LLC.
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


Politico
29 minutes ago
- Politico
How Elon Musk's Third Party Gamble Could Succeed
Elon Musk is reentering national politics after a brief hiatus, vowing to disrupt the midterm elections with a new 'America Party' that will contest a narrow set of federal offices and aim to control the balance of power in Congress. It's a daring scheme if Musk commits to it, which is by no means certain. His alliance with President Trump lasted less than a year, his role at DOGE just a few months and his recent vow of abstinence from national politics only days. So what would a serious attempt at this plan look like? The usual third-party fantasy in Washington involves finding unicorn candidates who can claim the ideological center and rally temperate problem-solvers on all sides (see: Unity08, No Labels, Americans Elect, Bloomberg 2016.) This is a recipe for failure in a divided country where most Americans have chosen a side. Musk's plan can only work if he learns from the most successful political disruptors, including Trump on the right and Bernie Sanders on the left, and identifies places where both political parties are neglecting the real preferences of voters. This means not finding a midpoint on a left-right spectrum but rather seizing issues beyond the standard D-versus-R menu. Trump built his political rise on three areas of policy where much of the electorate felt unrepresented: immigration, trade and global security. He rejected Clinton- and Bush-era consensus on all three. For Musk's new party to have a purpose, it must find similar ideological targets of opportunity. Here are three that might make sense: — Championing free trade. Trump shattered U.S. trade policy and reorganized national politics around protectionism. In a way, he was too successful. Now, there is no longer a major party that consistently backs lowering trade restrictions and defends free trade as a force for good. The Republican Party is so deferential to Trump's worldview that even former free-trade conservatives now mouth support for the most aggressive tariff policy in generations. Among Democrats, there are plenty of officials eager to trash Trump's version of protectionism — and far fewer making an affirmative case for free trade. Even the Biden administration tried to coopt rather than roll back MAGA trade policies. This protectionist consensus excludes most has found since 2015 that at least 60 percent of independent voters consistently see foreign trade as an opportunity rather than a threat; this spring, that number stood at 81 percent and even higher among Democrats. This is a fat opportunity for a political disruptor willing to defy regional voting blocs and special interests. — Radical fiscal rebalancing. Most Americans say they worry about government overspending and debt. Neither major party is credible on this issue. The Biden administration grew the size of government, failed to enact promised tax hikes on the wealthy and only proposed raising taxes in the first place to pay for more spending. Republicans, meanwhile, have put tax cuts ahead of fiscal responsibility at every opportunity for a quarter century; Trump's Big Beautiful Bill put America on track to assume trillions in new debt,obscuring that reality with a brazen congressional accounting trick. It is unclear how many Americans would vote for a take-your-medicine party that advocates fiscal austerity, even if that means asking conservatives to raise taxes and left-leaning voters to give up on resurrecting the New Deal era. Perhaps someone should find out. Musk — whose sneering, chainsaw-swinging DOGE theatrics alienated much of the public — is not the ideal figure to test this proposition. Other wild-card outsiders, running for office backed by Musk's money, might connect on this issue. — Securing American technological and scientific supremacy. Both parties say they want the United States to outcompete China and dominate this century. When it comes to scientific research and technological competition, Republicans and Democrats tend to subordinate that goal to factional and cultural politics. The Trump administration's onslaught against elite universities, its crackdown on foreign students and academics and the grant-slashing spree carried out by DOGE have upended some of America's core strategic assets in a global intellectual arms race. In his post-DOGE persona, Musk also blistered Trump's sprawling tax law for 'severely damaging industries of the future' — a reference to the legislation's attempt to throttle growing parts of the clean-energy sector where the United States is already lagging behind China. Democrats have not gone on the attack like this against incubators of innovation. But they have treated investment in technology as a vehicle for other social change, rather than as an end unto itself. Exhibit A is the Biden administration's implementation of the CHIPS Act, when a law aimed at upgrading U.S. semiconductor manufacturing became an instrument for advancing progressive workplace equity policies. And Biden kept tech tycoons like Musk himself at a distance, viewing them as malignant oligarchs despite some obvious overlapping interests. Despite his DOGE record, Musk could be a magnet for this strain of politics: one that says the United States must win the future by amassing all the intellectual and industrial might it can muster, using every available lever of policy — including the tax code, trade deals, immigration policy, energy regulation and more. High-tech research policy is not typical soapbox fare. But American leaders have a history of inspiring voters with scientific goals, separated from other cultural and interest-group politics. John F. Kennedy did not say the United States would put a man on the moon, so long as rockets were built in compliance with Davis-Bacon. Ronald Reagan did not call for scientists to help make nuclear weapons obsolete, provided that no woke postdocs were working in the lab. Is all this an agenda for Musk's America Party? Probably not. It's unclear that the party will exist in any organized form or that Musk is even capable of executing a disciplined political strategy. Still, in an age of churning disorder in U.S. politics, these ideological gaps and blind spots are opportunities for any political entrepreneur — especially one who can freely spend billions of dollars on an electoral experiment.


Politico
29 minutes ago
- Politico
Hamptons hopping with Eric Adams
THE EAST END ELECTION: The Hamptons-hopping Mayor Eric Adams is raising the temperature on former Gov. Andrew Cuomo as he tries to get the business community to coalesce behind him in the general election. The mayor spent his Saturday in ritzy Bridgehampton and Southampton where he knocked Cuomo and made his pitch to the assembled elites. His message for the well-to-do donors? Zohran Mamdani, the anti-American candidate, demeans you. I, the working-class lover-of-country, will comfort you. His message to Cuomo? Get. Out. 'This must be a city where you don't have mayors say, 'We don't need billionaires in our city' and, 'We're going to tax only white communities,'' Adams said to the crowd of expensively dressed onlookers in the summer heat of Bridgehampton. He was referring to Mamdani's stated beliefs that there shouldn't be billionaires and that the tax burden should shift 'to more expensive homes in richer and whiter neighborhoods.' 'I want the person that drives the limousine to love the city and the person in the back seat of the limousine to enjoy the city,' Adams told attendees. The mayor's bid to woo the billionaire class is picking up steam as the Cuomo campaign continues to dither over whether he'll actively run in the general election. Cuomo's name will appear on the ballot, but how much effort he puts into the race remains an open question. Meanwhile, Mamdani's foes are scrambling to find a viable candidate to beat him in November. This afternoon the Cuomo campaign backed long-shot independent candidate Jim Walden's call for an independent survey that would poll who has the best shot to beat Mamdani in the general election. If Walden, Adams and Cuomo simultaneously run, 'it all but ensures a socialist victory,' Cuomo's campaign said in a statement supporting Walden's survey idea. The campaign added, 'We do not see any path to victory for Mayor Adams.' Adams' remarks Saturday on Long Island's East End came after a breakfast-time speech at the well-known Hamptons spot 75 Main, where Cuomo happened to have dined the night before, PageSix reported. But a source close to Cuomo said his visit to the Suffolk County shores had nothing to do with politics. While speaking with the Hamptonites, Adams took a shot at the former governor. 'I don't have anything negative to say about Andrew,' he said. 'But you took it for granted. New Yorkers have five fingers. They love the middle one the most. You can't just think because of a name that you're going to be the mayor of New York City.' Rich Azzopardi, a spokesperson for the former governor, noted Cuomo received 24,000 more votes than Adams in 2021. The mayor's weekend appearances were topped off by a spot on CNBC's 'Squawk Box' this morning, when he described a phone call he had with Cuomo in which the former governor displayed 'the highest level of arrogance.' 'Has [Cuomo] asked you to step aside?' one of the program's hosts asked Adams. 'Yes,' Adams replied. 'I said, 'Andrew, are you that level of arrogance?' I'm the sitting mayor and you expect for me to step aside when you just lost to Zohran by 12 points?… You lost. They heard your message and you lost.' — Jason Beeferman From the Capitol PATERSON'S PLEA: Former Gov. David Paterson got into the act of trying to narrow the general election field too today. He held a press conference in midtown with billionaire Republican donor John Catsimitidis, who appeared alongside Adams this weekend in the Hamptons, and conservative radio host Sid Rosenberg. The trio were there to echo the urgency felt by the city's business class that a single challenger must emerge to take on Mamdani in the general election. 'We can do this, but it's going to take a united effort, and it's going to take some sacrifice that someone is going to have to make,' Paterson said. The former governor, who backed Cuomo in the primary, declined to name who he thinks should drop out of the election, or how they might be persuaded. 'As public polls and surveys are revealed over these coming weeks, it is my hope and belief that the other candidates still in the race will come to the logical conclusion that New York City needs the most effective leader to navigate what comes next and that cannibalizing each other's support will be doing a disservice to the millions of people who call New York 'home',' Paterson wrote in a statement. — Amira McKee FROM THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL HOMAN VS. MAMDANI: The anti-Mamdani drumbeat continued to emanate from Republican quarters as well. President Donald Trump's border czar Tom Homan pledged earlier today at the White House to keep the pressure on New York City and intensify deportation efforts, waving away Mamdani's resistance to Trump's agenda. 'Good luck on that because we're going to be in New York City, and President Trump said it two weeks ago, we're going to double down and triple down on sanctuary cities,' Homan said, responding to a reporter's question about the Democratic nominee for mayor. 'We'll flood the zone in 'sanctuary' cities,' Homan continued, adding that if migrants can't be arrested at jails because New York City and other 'sanctuaries' limit cooperation between federal immigration agents and local law enforcement officers, then they'll be stopped 'in the community' and 'at a worksite.' Mamdani, a state assemblymember, confronted Homan in March when the border czar visited Albany. 'Do you believe in the First Amendment?' Mamdani shouted at the time. Trump has said that Mamdani would be arrested if he blocks Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, officers from detaining New York migrants. 'The President of the United States just threatened to have me arrested, stripped of my citizenship, put in a detention camp and deported,' the Queens Democrat said last week in a statement. 'Not because I have broken any law but because I will refuse to let ICE terrorize our city.' Mamdani has more recently said the Trump administration's threats are a distraction from the president's unpopular 'one big, beautiful bill.' — Emily Ngo FROM THE DELEGATION FIRST IN PLAYBOOK: Upstate Rep. Josh Riley has about $1 million cash on hand for his reelection bid, even if it's not yet clear who his GOP challenger or challengers may be. The freshman Democrat raised $725,000 in the past three months and nearly $1.6 million for the cycle, his campaign told Playbook ahead of next week's second-quarter filing deadline. Riley, a top GOP target in the midterms, has lambasted Trump's domestic policy megabill as the 'one big, beautiful scam.' Others in his party are sure to run against the cuts to Medicaid and food aid too, while Republicans defend the bill as providing tax relief. 'Out of touch Democrats Tom Suozzi, Laura Gillen, Pat Ryan and Josh Riley's vote is a betrayal of New Yorkers,' National Republican Congressional Committee spokesperson Maureen O'Toole told Playbook on Sunday. 'Instead of standing up for New Yorkers, they voted to raise taxes, kill jobs and gut national security.' In his House floor speech opposing the megabill, Riley accused the GOP of 'shitting on the middle class.' He used similarly fiery language in a fundraising text to supporters today that listed how the legislation hurts upstate families. 'Republicans might be okay with letting working families, farmers, and kids get less so that billionaires and big corporations can have even more,' Riley wrote, 'but I sure as hell am not.' IN OTHER NEWS — HOW BIG, BEAUTIFUL, BILL AFFECTS NYC: The sprawling federal law is expected to force Adams to decide whether to cut or backfill a host of city programs. (THE CITY) — GAME OF CHICKEN: Adams wants Cuomo out. Cuomo wants Adams out. But neither is budging. (POLITICO) — DECONGESTANT PRICING: Air quality has improved or remained steady across the five boroughs since congestion pricing launched in January, according to new Department of Health data. (Streetsblog) Missed this morning's New York Playbook? We forgive you. Read it here.
Yahoo
30 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Taxpayers Are Supposed To Shell Out $150 Million for Next Year's July 4th Celebrations
Consumer spending on 2025 Fourth of July celebrations is expected to reach $8.9 billion, according to the National Retail Federation—a slight decrease from previous years, but still well above pre-pandemic level spending. Next year, taxpayers can expect to pay even more for Independence Day festivities, albeit indirectly. On Friday, President Donald Trump signed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act into law. Tucked away in the sprawling 870-page tax and spending bill is a section that allocates $150 million for "events, celebrations, and activities surrounding the observance and commemoration of the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States." The funding, which will be appropriated to the Interior Department, shall remain available through FY 2028. Appropriately, Trump signed the bill—which is expected to add nearly $4 trillion to the national debt over the next decade—at a Fourth of July celebration on the White House South Lawn, complete with fireworks and a B-2 jet flyover. Commemorating America's 250th birthday has been a quiet priority of the second Trump administration. In January, the president signed an executive order that established the White House Task Force on Celebrating America's 250th Birthday. The task force, which is housed in the defense department, will coordinate with federal agencies "to plan, organize, and execute an extraordinary celebration of the 250th Anniversary of American Independence and shall coordinate agencies' communications with the United States Semiquincentennial Commission." (The White House has since launched a website that includes a countdown to next year's festivities.) This order also reinstated two executive orders signed during the first Trump administration, which had been rescinded by President Joe Biden, to establish a National Garden of American Heroes. In April, the National Endowment for the Arts began accepting applications from sculptors for the garden, reports Reason's Joe Lancaster. However, the garden faces several roadblocks to its planned opening of July 4, 2026, including a lack of quality sculptures and a designated location. It is unclear exactly how the $150 million included in the bill will be spent, but the cost is exorbitant, even by Trump's standards. In 2019, the president hosted the "Salute to America" event to celebrate that year's July Fourth, which included a grandiose display of America's military power and several flyovers of multiple stealth aircraft that ended up costing American taxpayers more than $13 million, "well above the $6 million to $7 million that had been spent in the previous three years," The Washington Post reported at the time. The following year, Trump held two Independence Day celebrations—one in Washington, D.C., and one at Mount Rushmore on July 3—which drew a price tag of $14,573,608, per Newsweek. More recently, Trump hosted a military parade to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the Army (which fell on his 79th birthday) that included M1 Abrams main battle tanks, over 6,000 marching soldiers, and (yes) more aircraft flyovers. With an estimated cost of $25 million to $45 million, the parade cost taxpayers "$277,778–$500,000 per minute," Reason's Billy Binnion reported. The fact that America is on track to see its 250th anniversary is certainly worth celebrating. However, a state-sponsored celebration that saddles taxpayers with even more debt is the type of event that the founders would diametrically oppose. Lawmakers still have time to rescind the wasteful spending of "big, beautiful bill," but given Trump's hold on the Republican party, and Democrats' penchant for government spending themselves, it is unlikely. For now, taxpayers can look forward to once again financing the federal government's celebration of Independence Day, only this time at a much higher price tag. The post Taxpayers Are Supposed To Shell Out $150 Million for Next Year's July 4th Celebrations appeared first on