Latest / INSIGHT TODAY / White House UFC event spotlights Trumps decades-long partnership with Dana White

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White House UFC event spotlights Trumps decades-long partnership with Dana White · INSIGHT TODAY

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  Speaker 1: A federal judge today declined to block the White House
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  Speaker 1: from hosting cage fights on the South Lawn on President
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  Speaker 1: Trump's birthday, clearing the way for Sunday's event to move forward.
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  Speaker 1: White House correspondent Liz Landers reports on how the event
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  Speaker 1: came together and on the decades long relationship between mister
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  Speaker 1: Trump and the UFC that helped bring a first of
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  Speaker 1: its kind sporting spectacle to the.
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  Speaker 2: White House Today. The Ultimate Fighting Championship is the premier
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  Speaker 2: Mixed Martial Arts organization, a full contact sport that combines
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  Speaker 2: striking and grappling, and it's worth billions of dollars. On Sunday,
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  Speaker 2: it takes center stage in American political life. Yet this
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  Speaker 2: is a picture a few could have imagined back in
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  Speaker 2: nineteen ninety three when the UFC began.
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  Speaker 3: Eight street tough warriors wage combat in a battle where
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  Speaker 3: anything can happen and probably will.
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  Speaker 4: Basically, at this time, there's something called traditional martial arts.
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  Speaker 4: They're all making a bunch of competing claims about what
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  Speaker 4: works in a fight, right, And the idea was, though,
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  Speaker 4: that they all live in their own siloed universes. What
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  Speaker 4: would happen if you just put those together? And created
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  Speaker 4: a sort of set of open rules. What would we
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  Speaker 4: discover that question.
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  Speaker 2: The lack of rules and the spectacle of violence attracted
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  Speaker 2: attention but also scrutiny, including from boxing fan and late
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  Speaker 2: Arizona Senator John McCain, who described the sport as human
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  Speaker 2: cockfighting and led efforts to ban it in most states
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  Speaker 2: and on TV. The scrutiny in the UFC's state by
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  Speaker 2: state efforts at legalization also led to more rules and regulations,
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  Speaker 2: which Dana White now credits was saving the sport.
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  Speaker 3: I think that without Senator John McCain, I probably wouldn't
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  Speaker 3: be sitting here having this conversation with you right now.
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  Speaker 3: You know, tell me because I think what you know.
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  Speaker 3: His stance on the UFC drove them toward you know,
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  Speaker 3: and not only them, but us when we bought it,
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  Speaker 3: toward regulation and being regulated by the athletic commissions in
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  Speaker 3: each state.
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  Speaker 2: Yet the UFC still struggled to stay on its feet.
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  Speaker 2: In two thousand and one, White, who had been a
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  Speaker 2: boxing enthusiast and Finnis entrepreneur, led the purchase of the
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  Speaker 2: league for two million dollars well.
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  Speaker 4: Tonight to the world's both prestigious mex martial arts event.
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  Speaker 2: That same year, casino owner and longtime fight fan Donald
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  Speaker 2: Trump opened the doors of his taj Mahal casino in
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  Speaker 2: New Jersey for a fight, a move White says was
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  Speaker 2: critical when the.
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  Speaker 3: Trump brand was here and the UFC brand was down there.
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  Speaker 3: He saw it and said, I'd love to have this
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  Speaker 3: at my casino.
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  Speaker 4: As being part of the casino business, he was sort
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  Speaker 4: of very visible in the boxing world in the late
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  Speaker 4: eighties and then the early nineties, and in fact, you'll
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  Speaker 4: recall he was the guy principally responsible for making the
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  Speaker 4: fight between holy Field and Foreman possible at one of
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  Speaker 4: his casinos. This was a Donald Trump driven effort. So
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  Speaker 4: he's kind of always been around the fight game.
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  Speaker 3: These guys don't realize the opportunity that they have right now.
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  Speaker 2: But Thomas says it was The Ultimate Fighter, a two
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  Speaker 2: thousand and five reality show on Spike TV that ultimately
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  Speaker 2: saved the UFC, and despite Trump joining a short lived
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  Speaker 2: rival to the UFC in two thousand and eight, White
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  Speaker 2: and Trump became close allies.
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  Speaker 3: Donald was the first guy that recognized the potential that
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  Speaker 3: we saw in the UFC.
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  Speaker 2: White endorsed Trump at the twenty sixteen, twenty twenty, and
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  Speaker 2: twenty twenty four Republican National Conventions.
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  Speaker 3: I know Donald J. Trump is the best choice for
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  Speaker 3: President of the United States.
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  Speaker 2: In twenty twenty four, White also successfully pushed Joe Rogan,
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  Speaker 2: the longtime MMA announcer whose podcast is enormously popular with
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  Speaker 2: young men, to endorse Trump. Yet, Luke Thomas says the
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  Speaker 2: most important thing White did for Trump was following the
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  Speaker 2: assault on the US Capitol on January sixth, when he
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  Speaker 2: openly welcomed Trump at UFC events.
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  Speaker 4: There is no mainstream actor anywhere that did as much
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  Speaker 4: to try and rehabilitate Donald Trump's image after January sixth,
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  Speaker 4: as much as the Ultimate Fighting Championship. You want to
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  Speaker 4: see how important that was to Donald Trump. Look at
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  Speaker 4: what he is doing for them as part of this payback.
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  Speaker 2: For his part, White has said he supports Trump on
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  Speaker 2: a personal level.
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  Speaker 3: I mean, I'm not a political guy. I'm not a political.
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  Speaker 5: Guy on the speaking of the conventions. You're at the
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  Speaker 5: triumphant victory part.
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  Speaker 3: And what did I say? What did I say when
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  Speaker 3: I was at those.
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  Speaker 5: No, they were congratulatory, they were personal, for sure. They
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  Speaker 5: weren't policy or speeches.
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  Speaker 3: Absolutely personal speeches, they weren't political in any way, shape
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  Speaker 3: or form.
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  Speaker 2: On Sunday, more than four thousand spectators will attend the
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  Speaker 2: fight in person on the White House lawn, while tens
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  Speaker 2: of thousands more will watch in a nearby overflow area.
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  Speaker 2: Alex Perreira is hoping to be the first MMA fighter
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  Speaker 2: to win in a third weight class.
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  Speaker 6: The event will be streamed on Paramount Plus, which bought
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  Speaker 6: the TV rights to the UFC last year for over
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  Speaker 6: seven billion dollars. The owner of Paramount skyde and David Ellison,
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  Speaker 6: is a Trump ally who just was each sign off
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  Speaker 6: from the Justice Department on his purchase of Warner Brothers.
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  Speaker 6: The company that now owns the UFC, TKO Group Holdings,
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  Speaker 6: is putting the over sixty million dollar tab for the event.
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  Speaker 6: Last month, President Trump disclosed that he'd purchased TKO's stock
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  Speaker 6: in addition to the favors being exchanged. Thomas says Trump
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  Speaker 6: may be hoping the event boosts his image with the
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  Speaker 6: young men who make up the MMA fan base, but
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  Speaker 6: who have largely fallen off as supporters.
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  Speaker 2: Since his election. And while the location of this event
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  Speaker 2: and its nature may feel unprecedented in our two hundred
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  Speaker 2: and fifty year history. Thomas says it fits into a
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  Speaker 2: long global tradition.
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  Speaker 4: Why was the Thriller in Manila in Manila, It's because
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  Speaker 4: a dictator paid to put it there. Why was the
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  Speaker 4: Rumble in the Jungle in kinshasa then Zaire, It's because
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  Speaker 4: a dictator paid to put it there. Some of the
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  Speaker 4: biggest fights in history are related to authoritarian strongmen who
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  Speaker 4: had an attachment to combat sports, either genuine or transactional,
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  Speaker 4: or some combination of the two, trying to either make
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  Speaker 4: themselves look better or the country to look better, or
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  Speaker 4: some combination of it.
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  Speaker 2: For the PBS News Hour, I'm Liz Landers.
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  Speaker 1: even better, start a monthly contribution today.