President Donald Trump Didn’t Tell UFC CEO Dana White Before Announcing There Would Be A UFC Fight At The White House

Forgetting about somebody?

next year America will be celebrating her 250th birthday, and President Donald Trump is already hard at work planning the festivities for the historic event.

Last night, President Trump was in Iowa to kick off a yearlong celebration for America250. And he unveiled some of the plans that he has lined up for the next year.

The event at the Iowa State Fairgrounds served as an opening ceremony of sorts for the festivities, which will culminate next year with a massive fair on the grounds of the National Mall in Washington DC featuring exhibits from all 50 states. And he also announced plans for what he calls the “Patriot Games,” featuring high school athletes from all across the country competing in various sports “to show off the best of American skill, sportsmanship and competitive spirit.”

But that’s not the only sporting event Trump has in mind: He also announced that he plans to host a UFC fight on the White House lawn.

Trump is obviously close friends with UFC CEO Dana White, often attending the fights in person. But this time he won’t have to go far for the event:

“Every one of our national parks, battlefields and historic sites are going to have special events in honor of America 250. And I even think we’re going to have a UFC fight…

Think of this: On the grounds of the White House. We have a lot of land there.”

The president said that he was going to have help from Dana White in pulling off the event:

“We’re going to build – we’re not, Dana’s going to do it. Dana’s great, one of a kind. We’re going to have a UFC fight, championship fight, full fight, like 20, 25,000 people. And we’re going to do that as part of 250 also. We’re going to have some incredible events. Some professional events, some amateur events, but the UFC fight’s going to be a big deal too.”

But as it turns out, he forgot to tell one very important person before making the announcement: Dana White.

During an appearance on the Full Send podcast, White was asked about the UFC fight and whether he knew the announcement from the president was coming:

“No. I was up at my place in Maine, and that day, we probably text four or five times that day and he never even told me he was going to announce it.”

Of course while the announcement was a surprise for White, the event itself obviously wasn’t. The CEO announced that there’s already been quite a bit of planning that’s taken place:

“My team already went and walked the White House. We did all the logistics, and we’re putting together sort of the layout for it right now and probably going to pitch it to him in the next week or two. The day that he said he wanted to do it he put Ivanka in charge, so I worked with Ivanka and my team and got to where we are now, and now we gotta go pitch the whole thing to him.”

And when Trump pitched the idea to White, it sounds like he was all in:

“He loves the sport, and wants to do a UFC event there. Why would we say no to that?”

Naturally there are a lot of logistical challenges that they’re going to have to work through, not the least of which being security and coordinating with the Secret Service to get guests onto the White House grounds for the event. But White says that fighters have already reached out to him wanting to be a part of it:

“Everybody wants to fight in this fight. Literally everybody.”

The event is still a year away, but now that Trump let the cat out of the bag, there’s no going back now. And White sounds like he’s up for the challenge.

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