Norges Bank Investment Management podcast<\/a>. \u201cI represented the president for seven, nine years in his days on NBC. He had an incredible relationship with Dana when the UFC started. He was the first one in Atlantic City to put the UFC on when nobody would do it and they were calling it cockfighting.<\/p>\n\u201cThey\u2019ve maintained an incredible relationship. When the president was running for the second time, Dana helped him out with his strategy in social and was very helpful and has been helpful for the president for a long time.\u201d<\/p>\n
White became one of Trump\u2019s biggest supporters ahead of his election in 2016, which included a speaking appearance at the Republican National Convention, but he was even more involved in the 2024 election.<\/p>\n
The UFC CEO routinely stumped for Trump publicly, making appearances on television and White even spoke during the president\u2019s celebration after he got re-elected. Now that relationship has resulted in the first \u2014 and perhaps only \u2014 UFC White House card.<\/p>\n
Of course, Trump\u2019s popularity among UFC fighters and fans is well documented but it\u2019s also impossible to ignore the growing political discourse in the United States, which has often times resulted in extreme violence.<\/p>\n
Right wing political commentator Charlie Kirk was assassinated during a speaking engagement in Utah back in September, which only further inflamed political tensions in the country.<\/p>\n
For his part, Emanuel hopes that the volatile climate calms down sooner than later, especially as the UFC embarks on the White House card in 2026.<\/p>\n
\u201cI hope not,\u201d Emanuel said when asked about politics potentially turning into a combat sport. \u201cGoing to this Charlie Kirk situation, I hope this is a kind of watershed moment where people realize this is a very bad path for the United States and for the world. I think it\u2019s all over the world, there\u2019s a very combative situation in politics. But I hope nobody gets choked out in politics. I just hope we kind of realign our thinking.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think as Bill Maher said, it\u2019s very important to talk to everybody and I agree with that. Because you have to understand them and express your opinion so that there can be a middle ground. It\u2019s like any negotiation. You can\u2019t take everything off the table.\u201d<\/p>\n
While White and Emanuel both maintain a strong relationship with Trump, it\u2019s going to get really interesting in the future when the 2028 election comes around, especially if a certain person gets involved in the next presidential race<\/p>\n
During the interview, Emanuel addressed his relationship with his two brothers including Rahm Emanuel, who served as the chief of staff during President Barack Obama\u2019s administration before being elected as the Mayor of Chicago.<\/p>\n
Rahm Emanuel has teased potential interest in running for president, and he clearly has his brother\u2019s support if that happens.<\/p>\n
\u201cHopefully he runs for president,\u201d Ari said about his brother Rahm. \u201cI think he\u2019s the most qualified guy out there for the Democratic party.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The UFC lands at the White House for a historic event on June 14 after President Donald Trump…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":248612,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[49,48,641,701,638,82,640,702],"class_list":{"0":"post-248611","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mma","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-fighting","11":"tag-latest-news","12":"tag-mma","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-ufc","15":"tag-ufc-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248611","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=248611"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248611\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/248612"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=248611"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=248611"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=248611"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}