Donald Trump and his confederacy of douches—a clique that included Marco Rubio, Dana White, and Dan Bongino—showed up ringside at Miami’s Kaseya Center for last night’s UFC card around the same time that America's murderers row of peace negotiators (JD Vance, Steve Witkoff, and Jared Kushner) announced they were leaving Pakistan without a deal to end the US/Israel attacks on Iran.
Despite the bad war news, the show went on with the commander-in-chief, secretary of state, and failed FBI stooge sitting put to take it all in. And as was surely part of some promotional plan, shortly after Trump’s arrival, the UFC debuted a commercial for its scheduled June 19 card at the White House, which has somehow become part of our nation’s official sestercentennial celebration. That fight night, dubbed “UFC Freedom 250,” is described in the new AI-generated clip as “the most historic sporting event of all time.”
But even more embarrassing than the handle and tag line, the spot uses a fictional version of the White House to promote its event.
Just before the end of promo, as "Freebird" plays, viewers get an artistic rendering purporting to be what the South Lawn will look like come fight night. It shows a metal canopy with lots of spotlights shining down on the UFC’s trademarked octagon cage, with the White House in the background looking as majestic as ever. Well, as majestic as it looked before Trump went all ground and pound on the people’s house.
The UFC's White House still has the East Colonnade.
That covered walkway, extending from the main White House building, was conceived and constructed in the early 1800s during Thomas Jefferson’s presidency. Fast forward about 220 years: In October 2025, Trump reduced the East Colonnade, along with the rest of the East Wing, to rubble to satisfy the president's appetite for construction and make room for a 90,000-square-foot ballroom.
The plot of land where it sat remains empty. No real building has yet taken place since the East Wing's destruction, partly because of a federal judge’s ruling last month that prohibited the president from moving forward with the project without Congressional approval. The administration immediately appealed that suspension. Assistant U.S. attorney general Brett Shumate didn’t argue in his filing that there’s a practical or artistic national need for a dance hall to be built at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue; hell, the most famous ballroom dance in the history of mankind, between John Travolta and Princess Di, took place in 1985 inside the pre-demolition White House. Shumate instead told the appeals court that “the ballroom is clearly a vital project for the safety and security of the White House and the President, his family, and his staff.”
And as absurd as Shumate’s focus on safety and security seems—the word “security” shows up 55 times in his brief, and “safety” 33—it worked. On Saturday, mere hours before his UFC appearance, a federal appeals panel answered the White House’s prayer and by a 2-1 vote allowed Trump's ballroom blitz to restart without further adieu.
Regardless, UFC’s shindig there is only about two months away, so if the new promo video were reality-based, the lighted octagon would be located in front of a building with no majesty whatsoever, and surrounded by cranes and other heavy equipment and lots of dirt.
Everything about having the UFC front and center during America’s big-number birthday party is embarrassing. Dana White’s outfit didn’t get the gig because mixed martial arts played any role in the building of the republic we're supposedly celebrating. UFC didn’t even exist til the 1990s. This is all happening because Trump was putting on UFC shows at his casinos back when John McCain was dismissing cage fights as “human cockfighting,” and because UFC cards are by now among the few sporting events that Trump can see live without being booed into submission. No other sitting president has ever attended a UFC show.
There’s already been lots of debacles surrounding this supposed most historic sporting event of all time. Early last month, Trump was boasting about building a stadium for 100,000 people for the fights. Nobody with a brain bought that. Dana White swooped in days later to say there’ll actually only be seating for about 5,000 folks surrounding the octagon on the White House's south lawn. They’ll place jumbotrons on the Ellipse for the hoi polloi.
More cringe came when the card for the supposedly patriotic shindig was announced, revealing that the two co-main events feature one UFC champion from Spain and one from Brazil. Fans responded with a massive ho-hum. The weakness of the proposed card was such that the UFC announced last night that a heavyweight fight will be added to the event at Trump's suggestion, a move that screams desperation. White is now predicting 85,000 folks will gather by the National Mall to watch the UFC on its TVs.
If you buy that, have I got White House with a colonnade to sell you.
