It\u2019s the ultimate symbol of American politics under Donald Trump \u2013 a blood-soaked cage match on the lawn of the White House for the US president\u2019s 80th birthday.<\/p>\n
A giant arena dubbed \u201cThe Claw\u201d has been built on the famed South Lawn for Sunday\u2019s tournament featuring 14 Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) contestants.<\/p>\n
Critics have panned the unprecedented US$60 million \u201cUFC Freedom 250\u201d event as tone-deaf at a time when Trump\u2019s war in Iran has sent the cost of living soaring for ordinary Americans.<\/p>\n
Trump says it is a great way to kick off the 250th anniversary of American independence \u2013 not to mention his own birthday \u2013 and insists UFC is bearing all of the cost.<\/p>\n
But the billionaire Republican is also revelling in the macho side of an event that will see bare-knuckle fighters battle it out in a mesh-framed cage known as the \u201cOctagon\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re the roughest people you\u2019ll ever meet,\u201d Trump told the New York Post on Thursday. \u201cIf you haven\u2019t seen it much, you\u2019re not going to believe it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s the ultimate symbol of American politics under Donald Trump \u2013 a blood-soaked cage match on the lawn…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":699131,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,76377,791,9852,12,50597,302536,594,81666,801,302537,643,33824,3,302535,229115,3504,291329,302534,6493,21,19,22,20,25,24,3123],"class_list":["post-699130","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-american-politics","tag-bill-clinton","tag-dana-white","tag-donald-trump","tag-eiffel-tower","tag-ellipse","tag-france","tag-george-washington-university","tag-iran","tag-joshua-fisher","tag-marco-rubio","tag-new-york-post","tag-news","tag-oslo-peace-accords","tag-peter-loge","tag-richard-nixon","tag-south-lawn","tag-the-claw","tag-ufc","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa","tag-white-house"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/699130","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=699130"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/699130\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/699131"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=699130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=699130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=699130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}