Trump, the octagon and the nation's birthday: How did they all end up in the cage together?
President Donald Trump likes to be cage-side for a battle. And fans give raucous cheers when they see him there, adding to a constituency base Trump has built among fighting sports fanatics.
Trump's announcement on Thursday, July 3 that he plans to host an Ultimate Fighting Championship event at the White House next year may come as a shock to some. But Trump's love for the octagon - and his support for its fans and stars - isn't new.
His public relations team says it's part of his appeal to a segment of the public that is not known for reading mainstream news media.
"The audience gets to see him through an unvarnished filter that isn't tainted by news media and political biases,' Trump's White House communications director Steven Cheung told the Associated Press in 2023. 'It gives us the great opportunity to connect with voters who are, quite frankly, turned off by many traditional news outlets.'
Cheung himself is intimately familiar with the cage fighting world of the UFC. He was the organization's spokesman before Trump handpicked him to be his communications director.
It's not all about votes and public image. Trump's fascination for mixed martial arts goes back years and his support for fighting sports goes back even further to his days hosting WrestleMania in Atlantic City, N.J. in 1988.
Trump said this week that the UFC event during the White House's celebration of the nation's 250th birthday will be part of a broader package of events. But he emphasized it as a highlight.
"We're going to have some incredible events, some professional events, some amateur events. But the UFC fight is going to be a big deal, too," Trump told a crowd at the Iowa State Fairgrounds on July 3. "We're going to have a UFC fight on the grounds of the White House. Championship fight - full fight."
He said he expects that the fighting card will host close to 25,000 spectators at the White House.
Trump and the octagon
The UFC's CEO Dana White is a friend of the president. White introduced Trump at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee in 2024.
"I know President Trump is a fighter," White said while introducing Trump to the crowd. "I'm in the tough guy business and this man is the toughest, most resilient human being that I've ever met in my life."
White and Trump have been friends for 25 years, the CEO said at the convention.
The first UFC fight held under the ownership of White and his partners was held at the Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City in 2001. Trump "gave us our start when nobody would talk to us," White told Fox News in 2018.
Trump has frequented UFC bouts with famous entourages in the years since the first fight under White.
His first public appearance after his conviction on hush money charges in 2024 was at a high-profile UFC event in Newark, N.J.
Video from the event shows Trump, newly convicted felon on all 34 counts, entering the stadium through the fighters' tunnel to raucous applause.
Trump attended another UFC event with White, Elon Musk and Kid Rock last November shortly after becoming president-elect.
Again, Trump received a warm welcome from the crowd before the start of the main card action.
One of the top men in Trump's corner
Cheung, the former UFC director of communications, became the Trump campaign's director of rapid response, whose focus was on "keeping the campaign up to date on breaking news and pushing back on false or unbalanced reporting."
According to Sports Joe, Cheung had a reputation of revoking the media credentials of reporters he didn't like. At least four reporters had their credentials revoked due to Cheung, the sports news outlet reported.
A former high school football player, Cheung became a martial arts fan and dabbled in taekwondo and Muay Thai boxing, according to a Mother Jones profile of Cheung. "To the Trump campaign, which had a hard time attracting seasoned professionals, Cheung's past political work—and perhaps even more so his role with the UFC—made him an ideal hire," the publication wrote.
Political analysts have opined for years that Trump has cleverly used combat sports venues such as UFC to cheaply and effectively reach out to voters who don't read mainstream news media or follow election campaigns. It's also given him visual appeal as a fellow UFC fan to Latino and Black fans of UFC. Trump's high-profile visibility at Ultimate Fighting Championship events has garnered praise from past champions of the sport, including Colby Covington, who have openly praised Trump in front of UFC crowds and elsewhere.
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