“The UFC at the White House last night was incredible,” Donald Trump posted on Truth Social in the early hours of Monday morning, calling it “one of the most exciting days in the history of our fabled White House.” UFC Freedom 250 event at the White House was sold as a celebration of America. In reality, Sunday was Trump’s 80th birthday and the weekend was a case study in how the modern right-wing ecosystem transforms public institutions into branding opportunities while portraying anyone who notices as an enemy of the nation.
During his post-fight interview with Joe Rogan, UFC fighter Josh Hokit brought up the right-wing’s favorite conspiracy theory to attack former first lady Michelle Obama. “And lastly, Michelle Obama is a man! Am I right, America?” Hokit yelled to a cheering crowd as Rogan smiled. CNN reported that Trump, who was seated ringside, “appeared to show a half-smile.”
A trimmed version of the interview appears on the official UFC organization page, with no mention of Michelle Obama. And UFC President Dana White told Time he was completely against saying nasty and false things about people’s families when asked about the comment.
There is the version of UFC Freedom 250 that right-wing media wants you to remember: the swirling spotlights, the Washington Monument in the background, the weigh-in on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, the Marines saluting as fighters walked past with Medal of Honor recipients as honor guards, the red, white, and blue Octagon Girls, Travis Pastrana’s dirt bike backflip. A perfect, patriotic, made-for-television night, wrapped in corporate sponsorships, branding opportunities and promotional partnerships.
Stripped of the spotlights, however, it was a gathering of people, like Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, with overlapping financial interests in the Trump administration’s goodwill, gathered on public land, at public expense, to watch a private company’s product, sponsored by the president’s own businesses. The billionaire class was hosted to a weekend of high-rolling access, buying policy influence on Saturday and sitting cageside at the executive mansion on Sunday. Freedom 250 isn’t free — and millions of Americans are being forced to foot the bill, whether they realize it or not.
The billionaire class was hosted to a weekend of high-rolling access, buying policy influence on Saturday and sitting cageside at the executive mansion on Sunday.
To watch what Secretary of State Marco Rubio, with a straight face, called “a gift to the American people,” viewers had to pay $8.99 plus tax to Paramount+, the streaming service owned by Paramount Skydance, which is run by David Ellison, the son of Oracle billionaire and Trump megadonor Larry Ellison. The company is pursuing a $110 billion merger with Warner Bros. that requires sign-off from Trump’s own Justice Department. Hours before Sunday’s fight, Trump’s DOJ approved the acquisition. While states like California and New York prepare antitrust lawsuits to block this consolidation of media power, the White House gave these exact corporate entities unfettered, exclusive access to our nation’s most sacred monumental spaces.
It marked the culmination of a decades-long relationship between Trump and White. White frequently recounts how Trump allowed the UFC to hold events at the Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City during the promotion’s early years, helping provide legitimacy to a sport then viewed by many regulators as little more than human cockfighting. Whether every detail of that origin story is accurate has become a subject of dispute, but the political alliance that emerged from it is undeniable. White became one of Trump’s most visible supporters, speaking at multiple Republican National Conventions and helping introduce the UFC audience — particularly young men — to Trump’s brand of politics.
Now that alliance has reached its logical conclusion: the White House itself becoming a stage set.
There is a 600-ton octagon still sitting on the South Lawn. It has a 92-foot lighting rig they’re calling “the Claw” that aggressively towers over the White House itself and has Bud Light ads on it — yes, the same Bud Light that Fox News spent the better part of 2023 urging its viewers to pour down the drain for the sin of a transgender partnership. The lush green grass is entirely gone, replaced by a dusty, barren expanse of dirt. And it will cost American taxpayers a sum that, depending on whose accounting you trust, runs somewhere between tens of millions of federal labor dollars and the $10 to $12 million that Washington, D.C. alone estimates it spent on the event.
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Trump, for his part, is not just hosting this event. His family is actively profiting from the spectacle, selling “Freedom 250” commemorative coins. These “Trump Coins,” which the website boasts were “designed by President Trump,” range from a $250 silver piece to a predatory $11,999.99 gold medallion that features a portrait of Trump alongside White. Trump’s super PAC, MAGA Inc., also hosted a $1-million-per-plate fundraiser at the president’s private golf club in Northern Virginia.
The president’s son was accused by his own former business partner of asking a UFC commentator whether Sunday’s fights were rigged and whether he should place a bet on the opening bout. Daniel Cormier posted screenshots showing Eric Trump asking if any of the fights were “rigged” and naming the Diego Lopes-Steve Garcia opener as a fight he was eyeing for a bet, before deleting the post within minutes. Cormier then said he’d been “hacked or something” and asked who would believe something like that, while Eric Trump called the screenshots completely fake and AI-generated. A longtime MMA reporter who says he saw the post before it vanished insisted it was real, writing that he and others had screenshotted it themselves.
This is what bread and circuses look like in the age of MAGA — except the bread isn’t included. There was no free live stream.
Trump threw himself a private, for-profit birthday party at a time when working-class Americans are profoundly struggling. The only reason the administration and its media echo chamber are frantically calling it a “patriotic celebration” is to artificially tie it to the nation’s upcoming semiquincentennial. They are maliciously conflating the official, congressionally mandated “America 250” with a corporate, trademarked money-making scheme called “Freedom 250.”
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The White House insists that the UFC is covering the costs, but court filings tell a more complicated story. Seven federal agencies — including the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Aviation Administration — committed significant resources and manpower. The Secret Service alone screened hundreds of workers and dozens of equipment trucks daily. Local estimates suggest millions more in public spending tied to logistics and security. An analysis by Public Citizen and the Revolving Door Project found that Trump’s 250th anniversary events have steered $103 million in taxpayer dollars toward “Freedom 250” events sponsored by 20 corporations with interests before the Trump administration.
Right-wing media, predictably, treated this degradation of the National Mall as an act of defiance against the “liberal elite.” Influencers and pundits rushed to frame the event as a celebration of American exceptionalism, projecting strength to a world they claim looks down on us. They utilized a classic propaganda maneuver: make the imagery emotionally overwhelming — deploying Medal of Honor recipients to salute fighters as they walked toward the cage — and then frame any critique of the institutional rot as an inherent hatred of America. They want you to believe that if you notice the machinery, you are the enemy.
Even many Americans who otherwise support Trump seem unconvinced. A Reuters/Ipsos poll found that only 16 percent of Americans viewed hosting the UFC event at the White House as appropriate, while 46 percent considered it inappropriate. Even among Republicans, only about a third supported the idea. Joe Rogan — the king of the MAGA-media podcast universe — initially expressed serious hesitation about the White House fight, citing concerns over unsafe working conditions for the athletes performing in the oppressive June heat of Washington, D.C. So conservative pundits and Republican lawmakers have spent weeks executing a coordinated PR campaign to justify this unprecedented commercialization of public space.
Fox News ran wall-to-wall promotion ahead of the weekend. Sean Hannity sat down with UFC fighter Bo Nickal to talk about the fights and young men’s spiritual emptiness. OutKick — the Fox-affiliated sports site — breathlessly covered the octagon girls’ new red, white and blue outfits, describing them as possessing “American glamour.” The White House called the lawsuit filed to block the event “obstructionist” and “baseless,” and Fox News Digital dutifully printed every word without a follow-up question. The UFC, Fox told us, is covering the costs — even as a court filing from the National Park Service revealed that seven federal agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Aviation Administration, had “allocated significant resources and manpower.” Even as more than $60 million was poured into construction that began May 20, with the Secret Service screening between 700 and 900 staff per day. Unless, of course, Trump really does decide to leave the arena up permanently, which he has suggested, comparing his temporary octagon to the Eiffel Tower.
The White House is not supposed to be a venue. It is not a branding opportunity. It is not a set piece for a private company’s broadcast deal. And it apparently doesn’t need a new ballroom for security purposes.
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