WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump turns 80 on Sunday and plans to mark the occasion with a spectacle few would once have imagined: a UFC-style fight card on the White House South Lawn.
Yet the realities of the presidency have threatened to eclipse the lavish mixed martial arts event, where fighters inside a fenced octagon will battle with punches, kicks and takedowns until one is forced to submit.
Trump is also contending with fallout from the costly and unpopular conflict in Iran, a war his administration helped set in motion. While a deal to end the fighting may be within reach, key terms remain unresolved. At the same time, just over a mile from the White House celebration, workers removed Trump’s name from the Kennedy Center after a judge ruled the renaming had overstepped legal bounds.
Still, the president is expected to emerge from the White House to a temporary arena packed with Cabinet members, senior administration officials, Republican lawmakers and more than 4,000 cheering spectators. Overhead will be “The Claw,” a giant arch outfitted with lights, sound systems and video screens, while thousands more are set to follow the action from large displays on the nearby Ellipse.
“This event is a one-of-one event, incredible event. I love it,” UFC president Dana White, a close Trump ally, said during a Friday night promotional appearance at the Lincoln Memorial, where fighters traded shoves and staged tense faceoffs before cameras under the gaze of Abraham Lincoln’s statue.
Trump has framed Sunday’s program — a seven-fight lineup expected to run past midnight — as part of the broader, months-long observance of the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
But it is much more geared toward feting himself, so much so that the G7 summit for leaders of industrialized nations pushed back their get-together so that the president could attend his cage-match party and then fly straight to France for the meetings.
The weather, though, could put a major damper on things. Strong thunderstorms and heavy lightning disrupted Friday’s Lincoln Memorial event, and the forecast for Sunday evening also looks threatening.
“I’m sick and tired of hearing about the weather,” White declared on Friday, before conceding that he’ll prefer to hold future UFC events inside arenas only.
A dramatic departure from how the last president marked his 80th
When Trump’s predecessor, President Joe Biden, turned 80 in November 2022, he celebrated with a private family brunch at the White House, laying bare just how much and how quickly things have changed.
Asked about the contrast, White House spokesperson Allison Schuster said that the fight “will be one of the most entertaining nights in American history” and said that the timing was appropriate. “Having this spectacle take place at the people’s house on Flag Day during our nations’ semiquincentennial anniversary is a fitting tribute,” Schuster said in a statement.
When he turned 80, Biden was the oldest president in U.S. history, and was months away from launching a reelection bid that he would ultimately abandon after a disastrous debate against Trump and mutiny among Democrats concerned he was too old to handle a second term.
Trump has now supplanted Biden as the oldest person to be elected U.S. president. He’s constitutionally barred from running again, yet constantly toys with the notion publicly. That’s despite polls showing rising public skepticism about Trump’s mental and physical health — recalling concerns Biden faced as he turned 80.
A Washington Post/ABC News/Ipsos poll conducted in April found that less than half of U.S. adults think Trump has the mental sharpness or physical health to serve effectively as president.
The White House countered with a lengthy statement from Trump’s former White House physician, Texas Republican Rep. Ronny Jackson, saying Trump’s “stamina, focus, and strength are exceptional and on display every day. Claims to the contrary are pure fiction.” Jackson added that polling concerns were “being propagated by the same biased, liberal, Trump-hating press that completely ignored the absolute cognitive and physical disaster that was President Biden.”
Trump has nonetheless undergone four publicly announced physical examinations this term alone, with White House physician Dr. Sean Barbabella recently declaring him in “excellent health.”
‘Bread and circuses’ — Trump-style
The UFC event is an apt metaphor for Trump’s pugilistic political style. He is as big a fan of cage-match-style politics as he is of cage-fighting itself.
But Trump has also long been a master of political misdirection, purposely presenting people with something other than his presidency to focus on when things aren’t going well.
With the war in Iran grinding on despite weeks of assurances from Trump that its end is nigh, gas prices staying high, renewed concerns about inflation and plummeting job approval ratings for Trump — a White House birthday party unlike anything America has ever seen is definitely a diversion.
“This is all distraction,” said Mike Fontaine, a classics professor at Cornell University, who likened it to the gladiatorial games of Imperial Rome, when combatants brutalized each other for public entertainment meant to bolster rulers’ popularity and quell potential unrest.
“This is a classic strategy,” Fontaine said. “In ancient Rome, the phrase would be, ‘bread and circuses.’”
Trump says the UFC is paying for the event and while its full costs haven’t been divulged, the National Park Service said in a court filing that $60-plus million and tens of thousands of hours of labor have gone into it, while seven government agencies have “allocated significant resources and manpower.”
UFC also announced on Friday that it was adding as an official partner for the event World Liberty Financial to create a special $250,000 athlete bonus pool for Sunday night’s winners. The cryptocurrency company is co-owned by the Trump family, founded with the president’s special diplomatic envoy Steve Witkoff and run by his son, Zach. The arrangement further blurs lines between the Trump family’s financial interests and the events and construction projects the president has prioritized and used government resources to pull off.
Still, Fontaine said that when it comes to a personal flair for pageantry, the president’s second-term tendency to lean into “hardcore masculinity and brute fighting” is marrying the UFC’s blood sport with Trump’s trademark humor and enduring sense of showmanship.
“President Trump has a once-in-a-generation talent for this stuff,” he said.
