For his 80th birthday, Trump combined his two favorite things—celebrating himself and gaudy spectacles—in a UFC event on the White House lawn. Whatever one thinks of the UFC—or its Trump-enabling CEO Dana White—a cage fight is hardly appropriate symbolism for the land of the free.
The Guardian reports:
Fighters walked through the White House, bathed in warm amber light in the dark night sky, and down a military honor-guard corridor of flags and rifles, with the south portico repurposed as a grand entrance. Trump and White made the walk together, cameras trailing, before reaching a balcony where the Zac Brown Band played and military aircraft passed low overhead, which Trump saluted. They walked a red carpet to their seats in the front row. …
Sponsor logos on the mat included Polymarket; the offshore crypto casino Stake; a tourism campaign for the once-ostracized Riyadh; and Bud Light. The event was broadcast on Paramount+, the streaming service now controlled by the billionaire Ellison family, whose patriarch Larry happens to be a close ally of Trump. The Paramount Skydance CEO, David Ellison, was in attendance, and so was Meta’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, and Crypto.com’s CEO, Kris Marszalek. …
Some fighters were due bonuses in USD1, a stablecoin from World Liberty Financial, a Trump family venture and official sponsor of the card. (A White House spokesman said there was no conflict of interest, since the relevant assets sit in a trust run by the president’s children.)
Trump can display his poor taste at Mar-a-Lago to his heart’s content. But at the people’s house? The Founders would have been appalled.
The Executive Watch is a project of the Institute for the Study of Modern Authoritarianism, and its flagship publication The UnPopulist, to track in an ongoing way the abuses of the power of the American presidency. It sorts these abuses into five categories: Personal Grift, Political Corruption, Presidential Retribution, Power Consolidation, and Policy Illegality. Click the category of interest to get an overview of all the abuses under it.
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