President Trump and Dana White, his close friend and carnival barker of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, even staged their own ring walk from the Oval Office, while soldiers who had sworn an oath to support and defend the Constitution instead saluted a motley crew of pugilists in tight shorts. For one night only, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue was re-imagined as a studio for a lurid reality show, with the jingoism best summed up by the TV commentatorsâ reaction to the F-15 fighter jetsâ flypast. âIâm so filled with testosterone, dude, I could hit somebody,â one gasped.
For the next four hours, this was precisely what the UFC boys did, smearing blood all over the octagon for the leader of the free worldâs delectation. For 25 years, an unashamedly savage sport has been Trumpâs safe space. Even in the early days, when the UFC was banned in 36 states and disdained by Senator John McCain as âhuman cockfightingâ, Trump still embraced it, inviting White to put on his brutal circus at the Taj Mahal casino he owned in Atlantic City. The love affair has since only deepened, to the point where the re-elected president, flanked by the unlikely duo of Elon Musk and Kid Rock, strode out for a Madison Square Garden fight night in 2024 to a reception verging on rapture.
It all depends on the sport, though. When Trump returned to the same venue last week to watch the New York Knicks in the NBA finals, he was booed mercilessly. So when it came to toasting both Americaâs semiquincentennial and his own 80th birthday, there was only one party that could furnish him with the requisite adoration. The Venn diagram of the UFC audience and MAGA disciples has become almost a perfect overlap, as reflected in the mass rendition of âHappy Birthday, Mr Presidentâ once Josh Hokit had finished reducing Derrick Lewis to a pulp. John F Kennedy famously had Marilyn Monroe to sing that for him. Trump had to settle for a chorus of sycophants begging for the next tear-up. Tyson Fury was also in attendance, clad in a garish suit and wearing a cap that read: âDonald Trump for Prime Minister.â
This administration can be very upset by any suggestion of imperfection in Trumpâs displays of machismo. When the Weather Channel, of all places, had the temerity to point out that a 60 per cent chance of thunderstorms threatened a âchaoticâ evening, Rapid Response 47, the official White House account for âholding the Fake News accountableâ, replied: âThis event is about celebrating Americaâs unmatched greatness after 250 years â which apparently doesnât sit well with the friendless loser who wrote this b------t clickbait headline.â Welcome to Trumpâs America, where even meteorologists can be cast as enemies of the state.
The more the storm clouds gathered, the greater the bleakness grew. Hokit, dressed in shades and a star-spangled bandanna, used his moment of victory to declare: âMichelle Obama is a man, am I right America?â Interviewer Joe Rogan, the most listened-to podcaster on the planet, grinned, before Hokit presented his necklace to Trump at ringside. There is nothing like having a baseless conspiracy theory amplified for millions on a canvas emblazoned with beer and cryptocurrency sponsors. It was, the organisers appeared to calculate, just what the Founding Fathers would have wanted.
For days, the great landmarks of Washington DC had been defaced by this charade. Hokit arrived for his weigh-in claiming to be drunk, before dribbling over himself. Other fighters shoved each other in front of the Lincoln Memorial, sullying the etching of the Gettysburg Address with their asinine trash talk. A ramp was installed in front of the White House for motorcyclists to perform somersaults, as if this were some cheap state fair rather than the focal point of the worldâs pre-eminent superpower.
It all required ÂŁ60m to choreograph, evoking the time-honoured Dolly Parton line that it âcosts a lot of money to look this cheapâ. But where she could make fun of herself, Trumpâs latest horror was simply a masterclass in tone-deaf self-aggrandisement, every bit as grim as it was grandiose. And still Rubio, by all accounts an intelligent man, kept up the pretence that it was somehow an appropriate national festivity, likening the creation of the UFC to the US putting the first man on the Moon. In the end, it was fitting only as an expression of where the land of the free has found itself, treating the absurd and the reprehensible as somehow perfectly normal.
For the next four hours, this was precisely what the UFC boys did, smearing blood all over the octagon for the leader of the free worldâs delectation. For 25 years, an unashamedly savage sport has been Trumpâs safe space. Even in the early days, when the UFC was banned in 36 states and disdained by Senator John McCain as âhuman cockfightingâ, Trump still embraced it, inviting White to put on his brutal circus at the Taj Mahal casino he owned in Atlantic City. The love affair has since only deepened, to the point where the re-elected president, flanked by the unlikely duo of Elon Musk and Kid Rock, strode out for a Madison Square Garden fight night in 2024 to a reception verging on rapture.
It all depends on the sport, though. When Trump returned to the same venue last week to watch the New York Knicks in the NBA finals, he was booed mercilessly. So when it came to toasting both Americaâs semiquincentennial and his own 80th birthday, there was only one party that could furnish him with the requisite adoration. The Venn diagram of the UFC audience and MAGA disciples has become almost a perfect overlap, as reflected in the mass rendition of âHappy Birthday, Mr Presidentâ once Josh Hokit had finished reducing Derrick Lewis to a pulp. John F Kennedy famously had Marilyn Monroe to sing that for him. Trump had to settle for a chorus of sycophants begging for the next tear-up. Tyson Fury was also in attendance, clad in a garish suit and wearing a cap that read: âDonald Trump for Prime Minister.â
This administration can be very upset by any suggestion of imperfection in Trumpâs displays of machismo. When the Weather Channel, of all places, had the temerity to point out that a 60 per cent chance of thunderstorms threatened a âchaoticâ evening, Rapid Response 47, the official White House account for âholding the Fake News accountableâ, replied: âThis event is about celebrating Americaâs unmatched greatness after 250 years â which apparently doesnât sit well with the friendless loser who wrote this b------t clickbait headline.â Welcome to Trumpâs America, where even meteorologists can be cast as enemies of the state.
The more the storm clouds gathered, the greater the bleakness grew. Hokit, dressed in shades and a star-spangled bandanna, used his moment of victory to declare: âMichelle Obama is a man, am I right America?â Interviewer Joe Rogan, the most listened-to podcaster on the planet, grinned, before Hokit presented his necklace to Trump at ringside. There is nothing like having a baseless conspiracy theory amplified for millions on a canvas emblazoned with beer and cryptocurrency sponsors. It was, the organisers appeared to calculate, just what the Founding Fathers would have wanted.
For days, the great landmarks of Washington DC had been defaced by this charade. Hokit arrived for his weigh-in claiming to be drunk, before dribbling over himself. Other fighters shoved each other in front of the Lincoln Memorial, sullying the etching of the Gettysburg Address with their asinine trash talk. A ramp was installed in front of the White House for motorcyclists to perform somersaults, as if this were some cheap state fair rather than the focal point of the worldâs pre-eminent superpower.
It all required ÂŁ60m to choreograph, evoking the time-honoured Dolly Parton line that it âcosts a lot of money to look this cheapâ. But where she could make fun of herself, Trumpâs latest horror was simply a masterclass in tone-deaf self-aggrandisement, every bit as grim as it was grandiose. And still Rubio, by all accounts an intelligent man, kept up the pretence that it was somehow an appropriate national festivity, likening the creation of the UFC to the US putting the first man on the Moon. In the end, it was fitting only as an expression of where the land of the free has found itself, treating the absurd and the reprehensible as somehow perfectly normal.
