Miami
CNN
—
President Donald Trump traded the Oval Workplace for The Octagon on Saturday night time.
The president arrived to raucous applause on the Kaseya Heart in Miami, taking part within the “walkout” historically reserved for athletes as he grew to become the primary sitting president to attend a UFC occasion.
Trump, who walked out forward of the featherweight title bout between Australian Alexander Volkanovski and Diego Lopes of Brazil, was joined by shut ally Elon Musk, together with prime administration officers, together with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Well being and Human Providers Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Director of Nationwide Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and FBI Director Kash Patel. Trump was noticed embracing UFC CEO Dana White, in addition to podcast host Joe Rogan and basketball legend Shaquille O’Neal, on the sector ground.
His attendance on the late-night combat underscores his reemergence within the American pop cultural mainstream as he deploys the trimmings of workplace to attend a number of the nation’s premier sporting occasions. It additionally highlights his lengthy and dependable ties to the UFC group and its CEO, Dana White, and the alignment between the blended martial arts model and the younger males who propelled Trump back to the White Home.
Except for almost weekly journeys to his Mar-a-Lago property in South Florida, the president’s home journey has been uncommon throughout his second time period. However since taking workplace, he has flown aboard Air Pressure One to attend the Super Bowl in New Orleans, the Daytona 500 in Daytona Seaside, and the NCAA males’s wrestling championships in Philadelphia.
His heat reception at these occasions has emphasised his transformation from a pariah and punchline of American fashionable tradition again to the standing he loved throughout his “Apprentice” days.
“President Trump and the UFC are cultural icons. He’s a fan of the game and the elite aggressive spirit of all of the athletes who step into the Octagon,” White Home communications director Steven Cheung instructed CNN.
Cheung added, “He’ll be sitting cage facet, like he at all times does, and the gang will erupt in applause as he makes his signature walkout.”
Trump, who has lengthy styled himself a “fighter,” efficiently tapped into the male-oriented podcast sphere throughout his 2024 marketing campaign, boosting his turnout amongst low-propensity voters as he and prime surrogates leaned into interviews with Rogan, Barstool Sports activities’ “Bussin’ With The Boys,” and Andrew Schulz’s “Flagrant,” amongst others – providing listeners long-form, unfiltered and un-fact-checked conversations.
Many male-oriented podcasters focus on bodily health, promote conventional traits of masculinity and infrequently share a deep appreciation for blended martial arts, particularly UFC.
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Based in 1993, UFC has emerged as a mainstream, main sporting group lately — in parallel, in some methods, to Trump’s political ascendance. In 2019, the game introduced a cope with the Walt Disney Firm to broadcast its “Struggle Night time” occasions on ESPN+, and UFC broadcasts now attain an estimated 975 million households throughout 170 international locations, in keeping with a current press release.
Trump has supported the model for many years, most lately attending a UFC occasion shortly after his November election victory at New York Metropolis’s Madison Sq. Backyard, where he was cheered upon his arrival to a ringside seat, feted with a particular video celebrating his win, and flanked by White, Child Rock, Home Speaker Mike Johnson, Tucker Carlson and Donald Trump Jr.
Like with lots of the president’s closest allies, Trump’s longtime friendship with the UFC CEO is one solid in loyalty.
In White’s early days with the group, he was struggling to safe venues for his fights. Trump agreed to host the occasion on the Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic Metropolis in 2001.
“No person needed to offer him a hoop as a result of they stated it’s a tough sport, a bit tough. And I helped him out a bit bit and I went and so they stated, ‘That is the roughest sport I’ve ever seen.’ However I started to love it and he beloved it, and no one’s accomplished a greater job in sports activities,” Trump stated throughout his 2024 victory speech in West Palm Seaside as White joined the brand new president-elect’s nearest and dearest onstage.
White emerged as a key surrogate for Trump in 2024 as his marketing campaign sought to bolster its attraction to younger males. UFC has a plugged-in fan base on and offline — boasting tens of hundreds of thousands of followers on social media. One in every of its greatest stars, Conor McGregor, has 46.7 million Instagram followers.
So when the time got here for the then-former president to pick somebody to introduce him on the Republican National Convention in July 2024, Trump, who was launched by daughter Ivanka in 2020 and spouse Melania in 2016, went with White.
“I’m within the powerful man enterprise, and this man is the hardest, most resilient human being that I’ve ever met in my life,” White stated in his remarks, calling Trump a “actual American bada**.”
This story has been up to date with extra data.
CNN’s Donie O’Sullivan contributed to this report.
