A few hours before the first fight, Shane Gillis and Kid Rock made their way through the VIP line outside the White House. When asked how he scored a ticket, Gillis told a CNN reporter, “I swear, I don’t know.” Tony Hinchcliffe, the comedian whose infamous speech at Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally during the 2024 campaign stole the headlines, smoked a cigarette outside. They joined a crowd of Trump officials, cabinet members, and members of the president’s family, from Jared Kushner to Kai Trump, his golfing granddaughter. Paul Ingrassia, the Trump administration official whose leaked texts revealed he self-described as having a “Nazi streak,” struggled to get his female companion admitted. He pleaded with an attendant, who said she did not recognize the names he was dropping. “This came directly from the president,” he said eventually. Major celebrities were mostly absent from the event after White said in a recent interview that he’d invited a number of stars: Adam Sandler, Guy Ritchie, Tom Brady, Jared Leto, Jason Statham, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, and Mario Lopez. It did not appear that any showed up.
The UFC paid for the event, but security and other costs borne by taxpayers will run north of $10 million. The festivities were chock full of the kind of self-dealing and pay-for-play we’ve come to expect from the second Trump presidency. On the official broadcast, a UFC announcer read a promotion for World Liberty Financial, the Trump family’s cryptocurrency firm. Fighters will be paid bonuses in a Trump-backed currency. The Trump Organization is selling commemorative coins bearing Trump’s face priced as high as $12,000. Companies spent more than $1 million for sponsorship packages.
At the Ellipse, the park further south of the White House where Trump delivered his speech at the January 6 rally that turned riot, tens of thousands of fans assembled to watch the event on a jumbotron. The crowd, for the most part, was there for the fighting. Most wore MMA merch; there were few MAGA hats. A couple of anti-Trump protestors stood around, undisturbed. Several men with megaphones held signs urging sinners to repent. “President Trump Repent & Remember Nebuchadnezzar,” read one sign. Another man yelled through his megaphone about “sexual perversion.” Sean Strickland, an MMA fighter known for extreme rhetoric who backed Trump in 2024, walked around the entrance. He said he was blocked by the White House from attending because he criticized Trump over Jeffrey Epstein and US support for Israel. Strickland showed up anyway. “Trump banned me, that fucking pedophile,” he told fans.
