{"id":737971,"date":"2026-06-15T09:23:13","date_gmt":"2026-06-15T09:23:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/737971\/"},"modified":"2026-06-15T09:23:13","modified_gmt":"2026-06-15T09:23:13","slug":"reeks-of-corruption-protesters-rally-as-trump-hosts-ufc-event-on-his-birthday-donald-trump","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/737971\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Reeks of corruption\u2019: protesters rally as Trump hosts UFC event on his birthday | Donald Trump"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dozens of people stood across the entrance gates to the Ellipse, the park south of the White House<\/a>, on Sunday afternoon, holding protest signs and chanting as the president prepared to host seven mixed martial arts fights on the lawn.<\/p>\n

Thousands of fight fans streamed past the protesters into the sprawling public viewing area that the Trump administration<\/a> and the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC<\/a>), which is hosting the fights<\/a>, erected steps from the White House. The cage fights, marketed as a celebration of the country\u2019s \u201cfighting spirit\u201d ahead of its 250th anniversary, are being held on Donald Trump\u2019s 80th birthday<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Protesters held a large puppet cage of oversized figures of Trump and his cabinet members, a piece of street theater that drew looks from tourists and boos from UFC<\/a> spectators.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis reeks of corruption \u2013 way too much corruption,\u201d said Susan Douglas, an organizer with Third Act Virginia, the progressive pro-democracy grassroots organization that organized the demonstration. \u201cLet\u2019s face it,\u201d she added. \u201cIt\u2019s for Trump\u2019s birthday and has nothing to do with the founding of our country.\u201d<\/p>\n

Douglas was one of two plaintiffs in an emergency federal lawsuit brought by the Public Integrity Project, an anti-corruption non-profit, seeking to block the UFC event entirely. But just two days earlier, Douglas learned that a federal judge had rejected<\/a> the lawsuit. \u201cI\u2019m just appalled,\u201d Douglas said, watching the crowd flow past.<\/p>\n

Thousands of UFC fans and Trump supporters stood behind two rows of barricades on Constitution Avenue as they waited to enter the viewing area at 15th Street. As protesters walked by with signs, chanting \u201cWhose house? Our house!\u201d and \u201cWhose lawn? Our lawn!\u201d Trump fans replied: USA! USA! UFC! UFC!\u201d<\/p>\n

The afternoon rally, organized under the banner \u201cThe Real Fight Is for Democracy,\u201d was one of several demonstrations that played out across Washington DC<\/a> and the country as Trump hosted the first private, for-profit sporting event ever held on White House grounds.<\/p>\n

Protesters said that they opposed the event for a variety of reasons, including that Trump holds significant stock in TKO, the UFC\u2019s parent company, and that that event commercializes federal park lands. Others opposed the inherently violent nature of the event, claiming that a cage fight was inappropriate for federal property, especially as the US continues to fight wars abroad.<\/p>\n

Protesters with Third Act erected a cage and puppet heads to represent Trump and his cabinet. The bamboo cage doesn\u2019t represent a UFC cage, but a jail cell where the Washington protesters said Trump and his allies belong. Photograph: Fabiola Cineas\/The Guardian<\/p>\n

Fighters will emerge from the Oval Office and walk to a 92-ft-tall steel cage known as \u201cthe Claw<\/a>\u201d on the South Lawn, while VIP guests who had paid up to $1.5m for access watch from ringside.<\/p>\n

\u201c[The Claw] is not the least bit stately,\u201d Douglas said. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t fit with the beautiful architecture of our city. The people\u2019s house should not be used for a money-making sports event. Full stop.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe just wanted to show what an awful group of people this administration is,\u201d said Marco Smith, a member of Third Act Virginia who led the construction of the cage and puppets. \u201cWe made the cage to show them behind bars where they belong \u2013 not in the UFC cage, but in a jail cage.\u201d<\/p>\n

As the UFC fans entered the gates to the viewing event, they booed the protesters and chanted Trump\u2019s name. The protesters screamed back: \u201cNo national guard!\u201d, \u201cfree DC!\u201d and \u201cNo hate! No fear! Immigrants are welcome here!\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a fascist, money-grabbing opportunity,\u201d said Jason Simpson, a protester who banged a gong at the UFC fans and traveled from Connecticut to join the protest. \u201cWe need to keep fighting back,\u201d he said, explaining that he attended protests outside of Delaney Hall<\/a> in Newark, New Jersey in the past few weeks where he was pepper-sprayed by police and beaten with a baton.<\/p>\n

As protests carried on, the sound of sport bikes revving could be heard over the steel fences where the crowd entered. Hundreds of law enforcement officials, including the national guard, Metropolitan police, Park police and Secret Service, patrolled the area on foot, horseback, motorcycles, and from tanks and other armored vehicles.<\/p>\n

A few blocks away, a different kind of action is under way. Roughly 100 people gathered at the Wilson Building on Pennsylvania Avenue \u2013 brought together by Code Pink, the feminist anti-war organization, alongside the Federal Unionist Network, DC Ward 2 Mutual Aid, and the DC Local to Global Solidarity Network \u2013 before moving toward the fight area at Constitution and 15th for a community meal and programming under the banner \u201cThey Fight, We Feed\u201d.<\/p>\n

As UFC fans waited in line, they chanted \u2018USA! UFC!\u2019 while protesters held a sign that read \u2018USA NOT UFC\u2019 to signal their disapproval of the Trump-hosted cage fights. Photograph: Fabiola Cineas\/The Guardian<\/p>\n

For Olivia DiNucci, an anti-militarism organizer with CodePink who helped lead the evening\u2019s action, the UFC fight was not just a birthday party or a corruption scheme. It was a symptom of something deeper.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are calling out how this is already a very militarized city, and now we have people fighting each other on the South Lawn and trying to elicit fear and violence, like they do all over the world,\u201d DiNucci said. \u201cWe need a world of peace and caring for each other and nurturing each other.\u201d<\/p>\n

The group raised funds for local organizations and laid out a community meal, drawing a deliberate contrast with what was happening a few hundred yards away. The connection between military spending and hunger, DiNucci said, was not incidental.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are about to sign a $1.5tn Pentagon budget \u2013 the highest Pentagon budget we\u2019ve ever had, the highest DHS budget we\u2019ve ever had \u2013 and the biggest cuts to social safety nets,\u201d she said. \u201cWhenever people say, \u2018How do we pay for this?\u2019 I tell them that poverty is violence in this country. The fact that we have endless money for war and for weapons isn\u2019t surprising when you then see how much war and violence are glorified in the backdrop with something like this UFC fight.\u201d<\/p>\n

DiNucci added: \u201cIt\u2019s absolutely horrifying that people in this country go to bed every night not knowing where the next meal will be, when weapons manufacturers are making a killing off of killing. Elon Musk is now<\/a> the world\u2019s first trillionaire<\/a>. That should never ever exist in a world where people are being starved to death and bombed to death.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sunday\u2019s action was part of a broader season of counter-programming, DiNucci said. \u201cOur protest today is just one of the ways that people are pushing back against this false narrative of Freedom 250<\/a> all summer,\u201d she said. \u201cWe are building out counter-programming to juxtapose supernationalism, fascism and militarism.\u201d<\/p>\n

As the main card gets under way on the South Lawn, the Committee for the First Amendmentwill begin Rise Up, Sing Out: A Concert for the First Amendment, a 90-minute program featuring Bette Midler, Patti Smith, Rufus Wainwright, Jane Fonda, Julia Roberts, Joy Reid, Lily Gladstone and others. The concert streams live<\/a> to more than 500 watch parties organized by the No Kings Coalition and Indivisible.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can let strongman politics and corruption define the moment,\u201d No Kings said in a statement. \u201cOr we can make the story of America about people coming together \u2013 across race, background, identity, belief and community \u2013 to defend our rights and build a future rooted in people power.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dozens of people stood across the entrance gates to the Ellipse, the park south of the White House,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":737972,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-737971","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/737971","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=737971"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/737971\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/737972"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=737971"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=737971"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=737971"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}