The New Yorker Radio Hour - The U.F.C. President, Dana White, on Donald Trump: “He’s Not a Racist”

Episode Date: May 22, 2026

There will be a variety of celebrations to honor America’s two-hundred-and-fiftieth anniversary this year. Much of it is to be expected: fireworks, red, white, and blue lights, even a military parade. But something else is happening, something that probably wouldn’t occur if anyone other than Donald Trump were President. The Ultimate Fighting Championship, the premier league for mixed martial arts, is staging a fight at the White House. The U.F.C. was founded in 1993, and exploded in popularity after Dana White took over as president of the company, in 2001. He’s also been friends with Donald Trump for a quarter century, and spoke on the President’s behalf at all three Republican National Conventions where Trump was the nominee. He’s stumped for him at rallies, and Trump even called him up to speak at his victory celebration on Election Night in 2024. David Remnick and White discuss his remarkable rise to prominence, and his relationship with the increasingly unpopular President. “He’s not a racist,” White tells Remnick. “He’s not a fascist. He loves this country. And if you’re an American—race, religion, whatever it is—President Trump is on your team, that I guarantee you.” Further reading:  “Donald Trump’s U.F.C. Victory Party,” by Sam Eagan “Cage-Fighting During a Pandemic: Is This the Future of Sports?,” by Kelefa Sanneh “Fighting for Trump: The U.F.C. Comes to New York City,” by Kelefa Sanneh   New episodes of The New Yorker Radio Hour drop every Tuesday and Friday. Join host David Remnick as he discusses the latest in politics, news, and current events in conversation with political leaders, newsmakers, innovators, New Yorker staff writers, authors, actors, and musicians. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The New Yorker Radio Hour is a co-production of WNYC and The New Yorker. Welcome to The New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. There will be a variety of celebrations to honor America's 250th anniversary this year. And much of it can be easily anticipated. Plenty of fireworks, buildings bathed in red, white, and blue lights, even a military parade. But something else is happening. Something that probably would not be. happening if anyone other than Donald Trump was in the White House.

It sounds crazy. I know it's going to be very high security and high stress and weird to have a fight at the White House in the middle of a fucking war. I would hope the war will be sorted out by June, but quite honestly, I'm not confident that that's going to be the case. No. Yeah. No. Yeah. So that would be weird. That's Joe Rogan describing the upcoming fight on the South Lawn of the White House, put on by UFC, the ultimate fighting championship. That's the Premier League for Mixed Martial Arts, where fighters call on a variety of styles from around the world,

and it's arguably the most brutal professional sport and also one of the most popular. UFC was founded in 1993, but it wasn't a big success until Dana White took over as president of the company in 2001. It kept growing and growing until last year, the UFC cut a broadcast deal with Paramount for $7.7 billion.

Dana White has also been friends with Donald Trump for a quarter century, and he's been one of the president's most influential supporters. And we also have a man, Dana White, who has done some go. He's that tough guy. I recently sat down with Dana White to find out more about his remarkable rise to prominence and his relationship with the president of the United States. I've got to figure that our audience, let me put it to do this way, not all of them watch UFC fights regularly. Let's put it that way.

But I think you would also be surprised in who isn't a UFC fan. So where does this all come from? We know about the origins of boxing people, have been fighting forever for sport and otherwise. This form of fighting comes from where? In the early 90s, a bunch of television guys, local guy here from New York named Bob Meyer, got together and said, let's answer the age-old question of which fighting style is the best. We put a boxer against a wrestler, kung fu versus karate and all these type of things. And they did the first one, and it rivaled the WWM boxing pay-per-views at the time.

So they were like, wow, we got something here. So they did another one and another one. What they never realized at the time is that they were building a sport. And the answer to that age-old question is, no one fighting style is the best. You have to have a little piece of everything to be a complete fighter. And Bruce Lee was saying that in the 60s. So I went to see, when I was a kid, I went to see on what was called closed circuit in a movie theater. Muhammad Ali fight a Japanese Yanokey was his name.

And the wrestler just stayed on his back and kept kicking Ali in the shins. It was not exciting. I got to tell you. It's very true. But UFC has what kind of rules? You get into this octagon, two men or two women, and then what? So what you're saying is exactly right. When you started pitting style versus style, it wasn't very exciting.

And there was a lot of stalling. And when we bought the UFC back in 2001, we ran toward regulation, meaning to have the athletic commissions in each state oversee us. What are the rules for the uninitiated? Two fighters get into the octagon, this kind of padded ring with a kind of a fence around it. And then I've got these gloves that aren't quite boxing gloves on me. Maybe they protect my hands. Maybe they don't. They do.

That's right. And then you just go in and you'll forgive me. You go to beat the living crap out of the other guy. What's allowed? What's not? Because in boxing, you can't hit below the bells. Right. You can't do that here.

There's most of the same type of rules, except this can go to the ground where you can use submissions. You can strike on the ground. What's a submission? A submission is where, What used to be called the sleeper hold in professional wrestling? That's what I was just going to say. Probably the best one is called the rear naked choke, where you get the choke in,

and the guy either taps out or he goes to sleep. Yeah. So the sleeper holds to sleep is a euphemism. No, no. So what you do is the choke closes the carotid arteries, which slows the blood flow to the brain and makes you go to sleep. Okay, I think I just sensed a lot of people passing out at home. So how dangerous is this compared to boxing and the other marshal?

This is how dangerous it is. 30 years, never had a death or serious injury. Cheerleading can't say that, okay? And six to seven boxers die a year. Nobody's ever died. 30 years. When you spend the money on the proper medical attention before they get in during the fight and after the fight,

you eliminate a lot of the risks in the sport. What about injury down the line? We all know the effects of football, CTEs and the rest. And, you know, I've met a lot of boxers who might have their wits about them when they're active, but years later, you've met them too. Absolutely. Floyd Patterson, Muhammad Ali, many, many other fighters that I've met and tried to interview. They've really lost it.

And it's very clear that this is the result of, you know, just repetitive loads to the head. Yep, absolutely. Are you saying that USC is free of that? No. Anytime you're taking shots to the head, it is very bad for you. So how do you justify it? You don't. You know, you have grown adults who choose to do this for a living and this is what they want to do.

They make this. It's not like that thing that went on in the NFL where they thought helmets were protecting their brains. Right. You know. Everybody became a weapon. That goes into this knows that getting punched in the head is bad for you. Yeah. What's the appeal to you?

How did you get into this? So I was, you know, a big fan of boxing and grew up loving boxing. was my favorite sport. And I went to high school with these guys, the Fortita brothers. They owned station casinos in Las Vegas. I grew up in the East Coast and then you moved to Las Vegas. I moved to Las Vegas when I was in fifth grade. And I ended up going to high school with these guys.

And one night, Frank Fortita and I were at the Hard Rock in Las Vegas. And there was a fighter there named John Lewis who fought in the UFC. And he had a jiu-jitsu school. And Frank said, I've always wanted to learn jiu-jitsu. So we went over and talked to him. we set up a private lesson on Monday, and we became obsessed. We started training four or five times a week in Jiu-Jitsu, and through that we started to meet a lot of the fighters that fought in the UFC,

and we were blown away. Most of these guys, you know, it wasn't the same story as boxing. Boxing story is I came from the mean streets of such and such, and if it wasn't for boxing, I'd be dead or in jail. Right. The complete opposite with UFC fighters. Why would that be? Because when you think about if your parents put you in martial arts when you were young, your parents had money.

And a lot of these guys were college wrestlers. So they all went to college. Like Chuck Ladell. Do you know who Chuck Lidl is? So. Tell everybody. The stereotypical ultimate fighter, if you saw him, he's got a Mohawk, big, mean-looking guy with a foo manchu. He looks like an axe murderer if you saw the guy.

He graduated from Cal Poly with a degree in. accounting. So these were the type of guys that were fighting in the UFC. And I thought that their stories were very interesting. And the truth is, if you've ever been to a UFC fight, anybody who's listening right now that's been, it is the most exciting live sporting event you will ever see. There's so many different ways to win and lose. And just the energy and the buzz inside the building is amazing.

What do you mean there's so many ways to win and lose? So in boxing, I punch you to the head or body more times than you punch me to the header body and I win or I knock you out. And in the UFC, you can do all of that too, but you can also kick, knee, elbow, punch. It can go to the ground where you fight for submissions. So it's just, it's nonstop action. Tell me this, Dana, I gave, I wrote a book about Muhammad Ali long ago. I think we both agree he might be the greatest, even athlete, whoever lived, certainly the most exciting in my lifetime.

Or human. Yeah. Who's the Muhammad Ali of the UFC in your estimation and why? Well, we have a guy named Connor McGregor, who I would say is like our Muhammad Ali. Right. But if you're looking for your Michael Jordan, it would be John Jones, who is the greatest. Now, why is that? Tell us about John Jones and why he would do that.

So John Jones is undefeated still. He's never been beat, and he's moved up and down weight classes. It's very, very unique. hard to be undefeated in the UFC. How did you buy UFC? Because you seemed to, in retrospect, have bought it for a song. Yeah, $2 million. So when we were training in Jiu-Jitsu and we started to meet a lot of the fighters, I started

to manage some of the guys. And I got into a contract dispute with the old owner, Bob Meyerowitz, and Bob said, you know what, there is no more money, okay? I don't even know if I can afford to put on the next event. We hung up and I said, wow, that's interesting. I called my partner's Lorenzo and Frank Fortita and said, I just got off the phone with the owner of the UFC. I think they're going bankrupt. They're in trouble and we should buy them.

Wasn't it kind of risky? You had Senator John McCain, who's nobody's idea of a wimp, God knows, call MMA human cockfighting. How do you respond to that? Yeah. You know, I think that without Senator John McCain, I probably wouldn't be sitting here having this conversation with you right now. You know, his stance on the UFC drove them toward, and not only them, but us when we bought it, toward regulation and being regulated by the athletic commissions in each state, this many people want to see a freak show. This many people want to see a real sport. So what separated it from the old form to the new form?

What were the regulations that were put into place? It used to be banned in 36 states. Well, here's what happened. Well, think about this. it wasn't allowed on pay-per-view. You as a grown adult didn't have the option to buy it on porn was on pay-per-view. UFC was not allowed.

So when we bought it for $2 million, our goal was to get it back on free television, which everybody thought was impossible. So what were the regulations put into place so that it was no longer a freak show? So what sort of tripped them up early was them's sensation It's just nationalizing it like two men entered the octagon.

One man leaves. The most brutal, bloody violent sport in the world, you know, there are no rules. There's this, you know. That's just hype. Right. You hear that in boxing too. But at the time, and I was involved in boxing. And when the first one was coming, nobody believed it was true.

There's like, there's no way this could be real, that this is going to happen. And it was real. It did happen. And everybody tuned in because of the sensationalism. But that eventually ended up biting him in the end. How so? Because Senator John McCain went after it and said, this is disgusting. Think about at this time.

And again, when you and I grew up, right, John Wayne movie. John Wayne would hit a guy, right? Guy would go down. John Wayne didn't jump on top of him and start pounding him. He'd stand him back up and he'd hit him again. You didn't do that. You didn't jump on a guy when he was down. You didn't hit a man when he was down.

What do you tell the referees at what point do the referees jump in and stop the proceedings because sometimes somebody will go down and then the other fight will jump on him and start punching him mercilessly in the head. It's the fighter's job to keep going, I assume. It's the referee's job to do what? It's the fighter's job to protect himself at all times. And if the referee feels like he can't anymore and the fight needs to be stopped, he stops it. No different than boxing. I mean, you've seen some boxing fights where the guy's out in his feet, he goes down. Yeah, but I see some terrible, terrible refereeing. I agree. You'll see it in the U.S.

too. There's terrible refereeing sometimes in the UFC. But you're saying it's terrible because they're too hesitant to stop it or too quick to stop it? Both. So sometimes they're too quick, sometimes they're too late. You know, there's terrible refereeing and boxing, UFC, basketball, the NFL. I mean, you're always going to have some human error. What is the breakdown of fans, men and women?

Well, a lot more women now than there was in the beginning. In the beginning, because you have women fighters, too. My base was males 18 to 34. It was a no-brainer. Really, you know, I went through COVID, right? I don't own brick and mortar. All I need to do is set up an octagon somewhere and beam it. You know, back then I was on ESPN, beam it to ESPN.

And our business grew like 77% during COVID. And a lot of them were women. Wow. I've noticed that there are a lot of foreign-born fighters in the UFC. And a lot of them come from Dagestan, Georgia, Chechnya, Uzbekistan. Is it a challenge to try to market the UFC when you have so many foreign fighters or it doesn't really matter? No, no. You know, people ask me, what about language barriers?

What about this? You can be a deaf mute, okay? If you are the baddest man or woman in the world, people want to watch you. If you have that Connor McGregor, that Muhammad Ali thing, I mean, that's just a, Okay, tell me about Connor. They're unicorns. What does Connor McGregor have that separates him out? He has that ability that when he walks into a room, people just, you know, are fascinated by them to listen to them.

They're funny. They have incredible magnetic personalities. And they're real personalities, you know, or are they put on in the way that pro wrestlers of my childhood and then after? Some are. Some are, have the thing that they turn on when they're, Connor McGregor has. Like Muhammad Ali was the same guy in the living room with his wife and kids that he was when you saw him on TV. And Connor McGregor's the same. Why do you think UFC has taken off now?

What is it about the culture, the other sports, the media sphere? Why now? Well, I have this philosophy that no matter what color you are, what country you come from, what language you speak, we're all human beings and fighting's in our DNA. We get it and we like it. Even a sophisticated guy like you that writes for the New Yorker and whatever, if a fight broke out in here right now, it would create this sort of energy in here with you and I, and we'd be like, oh, wow, and we would watch the fight play out.

Right. It's just, as humans, it's just in us. It's in us, absolutely. Is that something ugly in us? I don't know about ugly. We're all fighters. Even everybody listening to this show, right now, we get up every day and we battle something.

We all have to fight. When you get out of bed every morning, life is standing right there to kick you in the face. I've noticed. I've noticed. I'm speaking with Dana White, president and CEO of the ultimate fighting championship. We'll continue in a moment. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour.

I'm David Remnick, and I'm speaking with Dana White, the president and and CEO of UFC. Donald Trump was an early supporter of UFC when the league was just getting started in popularity. Dana White, in turn, has stumped for the president at many rallies, and he spoke on his behalf at the last three Republican national conventions, as well as at Trump's victory party in 2024. As Joe Rogan and many others are now wavering in their support for Trump,

I asked Dana White how he feels about this second term. We'll continue our conversation now. Dan, I think you've got to give me credit for going 17 minutes or whatever it is without mentioning Donald Trump's name. But you're associated with him. I'm not associated with him. He's one of my very, very good friends. Okay. You spoke for him at the nominating conventions.

I think at the victory celebration, you were one of the speakers right there with him. Which I didn't see coming. That was not planned. Why? Tell me a bit about the origins of your... relationship with Donald Trump. I don't know if it's political in origin or just maybe it's just the U.S.

political. Tell me. So when we started this, all the things that we've talked about in buying and building the U.S. Now, imagine if this wasn't allowed on pay-per-view, imagine venues, right? Arenas did not want us. Yeah.

Right? What kind of people would show up to see an event like this, human cockfighting? So Donald Trump, own the Atlantic City casinos at the time. And he had us come to the Taj, the Taj Mahal for the, for the first fight that we did, UFC 30.

We did UFC 30 and UFC 31 at the Taj Mahal. What year is this? 2001. He showed up for the first fight of the night and stayed till the end both times that we went there. And every good thing that ever happened to me in my career after that, He was always the first guy to reach out and say, congratulations. I always knew this was going to be big.

I knew you were going to... What did he like about it? Well, I think he's a fight fan, you know. You don't talk about a fighter. I mean, that guy's a fighter. One of the most resilient human beings I've ever met in my life. And he, you know, he had the big Tyson fights and boxing matches at his place. So he's a fight fan.

And the guy has always been a good friend of me. and then in 2015 when he decided he was going to run, he reached out to me and he said, I would be honored if you'd speak from, well, this is the way he said it. He called me and said, if you don't want to do this, I completely understand,

but I would be honored if you would speak for me at the Republican convention. And everybody told me not to do it. First, Donald has great business instincts. He supports businesses of all sizes. He'll make it possible for them to grow and succeed which is the backbone of a strong economy. Second, Donald is a hard worker.

This guy's going to get up there. He's going to roll up his sleeves. He will work with people and he will put in the time to get things done. Third, for over 15 years, Donald Trump has been a loyal and supportive friend. Well, Dana, tell me a little bit what your politics were like up until then. And what was your sense of his politics up until that? I would say that my politics have always been common sense, down the middle, leaning a little left. That's what I would say I was.

In what sense? In my 20s, you know, my late teens and 20s, I spent in Massachusetts, which is very liberal. And, yeah, I would consider myself a 80s, 90s Democrat. Have you changed over time politically? No. I haven't changed. So you remain a kind of center-left Democrat? Yeah, I would, yeah, yeah.

Do you talk politics with Trump? Or did you before the first convention? No. That wasn't a currency of your conversation, of your relationship. If you look at any of my speeches at the conventions or any of that, I don't ever say the left is wrong or the left is bad or the left is this. I spoke about who he is as a person and as a friend and as a human being because a lot of the, you know, the narrative that they put out there about him and who he is as a person is gross. And absolutely positively not true. Okay. So let's dig into that a little bit.

Yeah. I think it's fair to say that if he has that reputation, it doesn't come from outer space. Oh, it does. It comes from politics. That's where it comes from politics. Doesn't it come from some of his rhetoric and some of his way of treating people and talking about people? No, I think that, listen, you know, do I wish that back in the day he'd stay off Twitter a little bit more and things like, listen, he's a tough guy. And, you know, he's not afraid to give his opinion.

But he's been talking about politics since he was young. I mean, if you look back at him, but, you know, these things that he's a racist and he's a Nazi and he's this and that. I mean, Donald Trump, all this stuff's coming out now. You know, the Michael movie just came out. And you see all these videos now popping up of Trump defending Michael Jackson and the type of person that he was and that Michael Jackson was around his children and around his family a lot. Wait a minute, Dana, Michael Jackson as talented as he was, as brilliant as he was, was a deeply, deeply flawed human being. No doubt about it. was abusive to everything we know about him.

Wait, wait. That he was abusive? Yes, it's terrible. I don't know if that's true. I don't know if that's true. But I can tell you that, you know, the president had a very good relationship with Michael Jackson

and had Michael Jackson around his kids all the time and, you know, defended him when that stuff was going down. Do you ever talk politics with the president? So to call the guy a racist is crazy. He's not a racist. Well, how do you, how do you, look, I don't want to go on endlessly about Donald Trump because, you know, then that's all we'll do. But when he puts out a video that shows the Obama's as apes and then won't even apologize for it, you don't get the willies from that?

No, I've been around the guy so much. But that doesn't give you pause, Dana? As far as what? About his views of, just about his way he talks about other human beings, much less race. But if that's the way he, if he was. that type of a person. First of all, I became friends with this guy, never even imagining that he would be the president of the United States someday. And if he was that type of person, I would never associate with that type of a person, no matter who he was or who he thinks he is. But if he does

that, how is he not that kind of person? He's not. He's not. But do you know something that I know? But I, what you're telling me is that you kind of know, of, of course, you know him better personally. But he's the most transparent personality we have in public life. He talks to the press all the time. He's on social media all the time. It seems sometimes there's nothing that we don't know about him. Very true. So he's almost as apparent to me as he is to you.

And I don't know about the Obama thing to speak, you know, to speak on it. I've never seen it. I didn't know that. But I can tell you this. He's not a racist. He's not a fascist. He loves this country. And if you're an American, race, religion, whatever it is, President Trump is on your team.

That I guarantee you. There's another person you have a very close relationship with. In fact, you hired him as an announcer, color commentator, as Joe Rogan. Tell me about him because I listen to him from time to time, written about him. but he's pretty, now that he's hugely famous, he's kind of protective of himself and his brand. Tell me about your relationship with him. So when we bought the company, the company was based here in New York. So I flew from Vegas to New York, got into the office, and I had to start cleaning out the office and, you know,

videotapes everywhere. So I had to figure out what was important to send back to Vegas and what I was going to throw away. So I literally watched hundreds of tapes. And one of the tapes that I popped in, the way that Joe spoke about the UFC and how fighters in the UFC would match up against some of these Hollywood action stars, I was like, this guy's great.

This is exactly who I need. Because his talent is what? So his talent is he's a martial artist. Black Belt and Jiu-Jitsu. So the hardest part in selling this thing, The Fratitas and I knew, everybody understands the stand-up. Punching and kicking, everybody gets. But as soon as it hits the ground, people have no idea what's going on.

What do you mean? As far as setting up submissions, like you said, the sleeperhold or the... So it's more hidden and more complicated. Yeah. Yeah. The technical side of the ground game, Joe was brilliant, and he's a really good speaker. So he could walk you through what was happening seconds before it even happened. and he was great at speaking publicly about the UFC.

A UFC commentator and all-round personality. Joe Rogan. Joe, let me start with you. Will mixed martial arts peak and fall like kickboxing or will it become a permanent part of the sports culture? Well, I certainly think it's a permanent part of the sports culture. It's a much more exciting sport than any of the other combat sports that are out there right now. And that's why it's here and that's why it's the fastest growing sport in the world.

So when we first bought the company, I flew all over the country meeting with editors of newspapers. Because remember, newspapers were the king then. So all these guys were 60 to 65 years old that I was talking to. All they cared about was ball and stick sports and sometimes boxing. You know what I mean? And the truth of the matter was there was no room for UFC in the papers. So I had to buy. by my way onto radio.

Radio was still very relevant then. So we would do these satellite radio tours, and what we learned is fighters are not good radio, all right? They'd show up late, they'd still sound like they were sleeping, there was nothing excited.

So me and Joe Rogan had to do all these radio tours. Now, we're on the West Coast. We had to wake up at 3 o'clock in the morning because they're going to drop us into the East Coast at 6 o'clock drive time. So then we'd go, East Coast, Midwest, and then the tour would end on the West Coast.

Our start all started on radio. So he went, he'd worked for you for quite a while, and then he obviously has his podcast, which is gigantic. My understanding is that you were instrumental in getting him to endorse Donald Trump this last time around. Tell me that story. Yeah, so I tried to connect him and Trump, you know, for like probably six years. Was Rogan wary of turning some way? Why?

Rogan, well, Rogan didn't want to be political. He did not want to get into politics. He did not want to be political. And his thing was all, but then he had Bernie Sanders on. And, you know. That's right. He was kind of prored Bernie Sanders. Very. And, you know, and even when I talked to him about Trump going on the podcast, he says, Well, okay, well, I'm going to invite Kamala too. Yeah. Oh, cool. Get it. Love it.

And early on, I started telling the president, if you stay on Fox and only Fox, you're going to lose. Because most of the people on Fox are already voting for you. And every other network says horrible things about you. You got to start getting into podcasts. And who is he going to reach when he goes on Joe Rogan in your view? Well, it wasn't just Joe Rogan. It was other podcasters, which I, he was picking me up in Las Vegas, and we were flying to Arizona for a rally. And there's a group called the Nalk Boys that I had created a relationship with.

They're young kids that do pranks and they're YouTubers, influencers. And I called Jared Kushner, and I said, I want to bring this group of kids, the Nelke Boys on on Air Force One with us to Arizona. And Jared Kushner says, well, you're asking him that. I'm not. And so I called them and he said, yeah, let's do it. We get in there and these guys are all excited because they're Trump fans and, you know, they're kids.

So they're, you know, at one point he looks like at me and he's like, are you kidding me right now? Are you serious? And we're all in there taking pictures. To his brilliance, we go to the rally. He does the rally and he's leaving the stage and the YMCA thing's playing. and he sees one of the kids whose name is Steve will do it. And he's going crazy. The president calls him up on stage with him.

And the whole crowd erupts. And they start doing the YMCA thing. It was the most viral thing on the Internet that day. And then he got it. The power of these kids that most people don't know. Right. You know, the media is all starting to get into it now, which the... Right.

It's not 60 minutes. It's not the mainstream newspapers. If that media catches up, it's, you know, it's over. So we, then we got him on their podcast. And the podcast did something like 8 million views in four hours. He got it. If I understand you called Rogan, as the campaign between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump was winding down, you called Rogan, I think.

And you said, are you going to endorse or not? What happened? Yes. Tell me about that conversation. I was flying to Mar-a-Lago. me and Frank Fortita for election night. And he had done the podcast, and a podcast was blowing up,

pulling huge numbers. And I text him and said, are you voting for Trump? And he said, yes. I said, then endorse. Why have you not endorsed him? What did he say? He said,

I'm just busy, I'm this, I'm that. I'm busy. Yeah. He said, I'm busy? Yeah. Please. So what happened? He endorsed.

You think, so that was you. It's on you. Is it on me? But you gave him the extra shove. Yeah, well, I had been working on him for a few years. So now these days, I'm sure you've noticed, he's pretty critical of Trump. Now, he was thrilled to see him endorse hallucinogens and Ibogaine, Ibogaine. But he's been very tough on him on a number of issues, including ICE, the war in Iran.

Do you agree with Rogan on this? I think that anybody who is the president of the United States, you're never going to agree with 100% of what they do. But what do you disagree with with Donald Trump? Me and Donald Trump are friends. I get. So you have this, you're saying we're friends. I don't have a transactional relationship with Donald Trump. But you don't want to express any disagreement, be honest with me, between on the air.

No, it's not that I just told you before. I wish I could take his Twitter away, you know, sometimes in the past. I know who this guy is. Do you agree with him on Iraq? I mean, I'm not a political guy. I'm not a political guy. You're on the, speaking at the conventions, you're at the, you know, triumphant victory party. And what did I say?

What did I say when I was at those? No, they were congratulatory. They were personal for sure. There weren't policy-oriented speeches. They were absolutely personal speeches. They weren't political and. any way, shape, or form. It would be disloyal, you're saying?

What would be? To criticize him in any... No, no, no. Not to criticize them. And I'm not saying that I agree with all those policies. But you want to keep that general, not specific, is what you say. Me, personally? Yeah.

You know what I do? I can control my little world that I live in in my bubble, my employees, my fighters, my family and my friends. You're about to have an extraordinary event in Washington. You're going to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence with a UFC fight event on the White House lawn. And I've heard the Wayans may take place

at the Lincoln Memorial, is that true? Correct. Tell me about that event, its origins, and what you hope to do. Yeah, so we were at a fight, and I can't remember if it was in New Jersey or Miami, we being me and the president. And he leans over to me in the middle of the fight and goes,

we should do a fight at the White House. I said, yes, yes, we should. I'm in. I'm in. And he's like, I think it would be great to have an event, you know, for America's 250th. And so literally that was a Saturday on Monday. The White House started calling saying, let's start getting a logistics set up. And you're in charge.

How's it going to work? Who are you going to have a fight? So every fight actually means something and matters in the division. two world titles on the line, and stylistically, it should be a great fight. What's it going to look like? I've seen sketches. Yeah.

It looks like a fight in outer space with the White House there. So here's what happened. And the reason that it looks like that is I don't want to see a light, a screen, a microphone. All I want to see is the White House, the entire White House, and the monument, if the fight goes the other way. So we had to build this thing that we were calling the claw.

It is the lighting grid. And how many people are going to be in the stands around it? So there will be a little over 4,000. The president has 1,000 tickets. I have 200 tickets, and Ari Emanuel has 200 tickets. And the rest are going to all the different branches of the military of the 4,000 people that will be there. And then in the ellipse, which is a park right across the street from the White House,

there will be 85,000 people. So you're going to, how are you going to broadcast this? So we just signed a new. seven-year deal with Paramount Plus, and all of our content is there. Do you notice people on the other side of the aisle, Democrats, liberals, trying to show up at UFC fights, or are you concerned that you have a kind of partisan image? No, we haven't had anybody, but... Why do you suppose that is?

I would never disrespect or turn anybody away. You know what I mean? I get that. I get that, but it's interesting to see them show up at Joe Rogan's microphone, and they might go to a baseball game or a World Series game or an NBA playoff game but they're keeping their distance from UFC? Yeah, I don't think they're keeping their distance. I think that the difference with President Trump is

he was a day one fan. I mean, this guy's been a fan since day one gave us that opportunity to come to the Taj Mahal and you saw it with Obama. Obama's a fan of the NBA. So he showed up at NBA games and... Not UFC. Yeah, and, and, uh,

Has Obama been to UFC? Bush, too. I mean, Bush is a baseball fan. No, I know, but has Obama ever showed up at UFC fight? I'm just curious. No, no, but at the inauguration, I was sitting behind all the ex-presidents. I saw that. Yeah, and there was some things that went out online that said, oh, look at Dana, mad dog and Obama and all this other stuff.

President Obama turned around and said to me, congratulations on all your success. I'm really happy for you. And I said, thank you, Mr. President. That must have made you feel. Yeah, it was great. Yeah. UFC president and CEO, Dana White.

This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. Stick around. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. We'll return to my conversation now with UFC President Dana White. He made headlines recently for attending a different kind of D.C. event.

He was at the White House Correspondence dinner where a would-be shooter was taken down by Secret Service. And White's reaction to it all was unusual. And they were screaming, get down. I didn't get down. It was fucking awesome. I literally took every minute of it in, and it was a pretty crazy, unique experience.

Here's the rest of my conversation with Dana White. You were just at the White House correspondence dinner, and you were quoted as saying, and I don't want to take this out of context. I'll let you tell the story. You said, it was awesome. That could have been, it was pretty horrible. What did you mean by it was awesome?

So, we had, I was sitting there talking to Pete Hegseth. The Secretary of Defense. Yes. Or war, depending on your, yeah. And, you know, we were talking about all this fascinating stuff. And all the sudden. Well, you can't go that fast. What was the fascinating stuff?

You were talking about Iran and, you know, and what's going on over there? And what was he telling you? I'll leave that long. I make a living at this. I understand, sir. I understand. All of a sudden, you start hearing just crashing, like plates and dishes and glasses. And turn around and what looked like 50 secret service guys kicking tables over, running on the top of tables, and they're screaming, everybody got on the ground.

And I was like, oh, my God. Then I watched them pull Vance and Trump off the stage. They clear the stage and then literally the entire stage are guys with guns, what lights on them pointed at us. Now, the Secret Service guys are coming toward our table. I was the first table in front of the stage. And we don't know what's going on. Is there a shooter?

Is there a bomb and just the adrenaline in your body and mine anyway? was off the charts. I mean, it was, they're saying get down, get down. First of all, I'm never a get down kind of guy, okay? That's never going to happen. If there's something going on here, I got a bad news for my family, it's going to be a closed casket, okay? Because I'm not getting shot in the back laying on the ground.

And these guys came in and how fast they moved through this place. It was just, now being another man, Tell me the greatest movie you ever saw with those type, just on steroids. I mean, it was, it was now. Dana, it wasn't a movie. I know, which made it even greater. And when it was over, I was like, for four hours, I was bouncing off the walls. I was just.

What did Hexseth do? The fact that-Hexet, they dragged off? Let me tell you what Hexed didn't do. He didn't get on the ground either. He was sitting right next to me, and then his wife was with him, and then he ended up taking his wife out of there. But you stayed. Oh, yeah. Well, I had to stay.

Nobody could drag me off. Yeah, nobody dragged me off. You know, we had to stay in there. And I'll tell you this, too. So you had the who's who from politics, the who's who from the media, and the who's who in business in this room. And lots of far left liberal media, which were a lot of women. None of these women were screaming. none of these women were

getting, you know, overly excited about this thing. And then when it was over and we knew that the threat was over, you know, everybody just started started getting together and talking. It was pretty badass and pretty impressive. You weren't scared at all?

Never. Not even for Trump's sake? No, they had the... You thought that was in control? They had them out of there pretty quick. And... What did you think Trump was going to say that night about the press?

Well, he tried to come back. He wanted to finish it. He wanted to do, you know, the event and Secret Service wouldn't let him. You know, I'm sure there were a lot of far-left women in there that probably don't like me or, you know, or think that I, you know. What counts for far-left for you? What do you mean? You know, in the media. CNN.

We all got together after that, and everybody was talking. And there's just this level of camaraderie and just that. Holy shit, what we just went through kind of thing. And, you know, the fact that you could experience something like that, and nobody got hurt, but to be in it and see it play out like you would see in a movie, but actually experience it was hopefully a one-of-one, but an incredible experience. Have you talked to President Trump since then? I was with him last night.

I had dinner with him last night. And had that dinner go, what you talk about? It was great. Well, there were other people at the... He opened the Rose Garden last night. And he had his first dinner out there. I flew in and had dinner with him and then flew here. What do you talk about?

You know, he and I just talk about anything that you would normally talk to your friend about. What's new? How's the family movies? How you been? He looked great. He looks like he's in good shape right now. So you don't buy the business of these, you know, he's around 80, and... It's not easy being president.

It's not easy being 80. And then his health is lousy. You don't see that. His health is far from lousy. Tell me about that. And this isn't the Biden, you know, buddies is his backing him up saying he's whatever. He looks like he's in better shape than the last time I saw him.

And, you know, he was on point last night. Do you worry about his presidency? His popularity is at a record low, record low for other presidents, too. Where do you think he is at this point? You know, I think that he's got three more years left. And again... Two and a half, but it was counting.

You judge him when it's over. When his run is over and he moves on and you look back at what he accomplished and what he's done. You know, I think there's a lot of things that he's obviously never going to get credit for because, you know, if you don't like him, you don't like him. What do you give him credit for as president? Securing our borders. I mean, how do you not give him credit for that? The Middle East. Look at the work he did in the Middle East during his first term. You're referring to the Abraham, of course. Yeah, of course. And now?

Yeah. I mean, the Middle East is a tricky place to navigate. And I think he does a better job than most. I get the sense, Dana, that to some degree, you'll be glad not to have to answer questions about Donald Trump when he's out of office. No, I think. You want to be a loyal friend. No, no, no, no. And when it comes to the specifics of his politics, you'd rather, I get it. No. Am I wrong? No, not at all.

Go ahead. People can ask me about Donald Trump for the rest of my life. And I'll tell you all the great things that I love about this guy. What I'll be happy to be out of is politics. Yeah, I don't want to talk about politics. Whether they're his, Obama's, this guy, that guy, none of them.

Yeah, you made a huge deal with the UFC. A huge deal. How much did you come away with? 7.7 billion. You personally. Oh, no, no. No, no, no. The company, yeah. And how about you?

Yeah. I do really well. I do really well. Are you a billionaire now? No. No. Close. And you recently... I spend too much money. I'll never be a billionaire. It's really funny.

But I've watched you play poker on television and other games of chance. And the bets on the table are in the hundreds of thousands of dollars and sometimes on a single bet over a million bucks if they'll take the bet. Right. Are you out of your mind? Yes. You're married, right? Yes. How does your wife feel about these bets?

Yeah, you know, my wife's doing okay, too. You know, we don't have a lot to complain about. No, but you know that in the end, the house wins, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And in the end, you only live once. I just went to the conduct a derby for the first time with my wife and kids. Do you put down a bet? I did, yeah.

How did you do? I didn't do well. I didn't do it. How much do you put down? I put down 70,000. Now, how big is gambling? in your line of business with UFC? It's big, yeah.

I mean, betting on fights. Sports betting, period, is massive right now. I do not sports bet, though. But how do you ensure, how do you keep it clean? How do you keep it on the up and up? Yeah, we've had those problems, not with a mob or any of that kind of stuff, but we've had a couple of betting issues, yeah, but we have a company called U.S. integrity that watches this type of stuff.

That's a private company that they let us know whenever. The state doesn't get involved? No. So we had an issue where we saw some irregular betting going on. Right. And we call the FBI. So tell me the story. What does a regular betting mean in this context?

It means when you have a fight that isn't like the main event and the line starts to move a lot. But that's the indicator in fighting that the line moves so there's the suspicion that somebody's about to throw a fight. A hundred percent. There's something fishy going on when an undercard. fight and a line starts moving that much. Particularly the undercard, not the headliner. Yeah, because the headliners are very high profile and lots of people are betting on it. And, you know, it can happen there too, but it's a lot more noticeable when it happens on a prelim fight.

You're also in the boxing business. You've just recently launched a new boxing company called Zufa. Zufa. Zufa mean, by the way. To fight in Italian. Oh, okay. Yeah. My impression has been that with some exceptions in recent years,

boxing is not, certainly not what it was in the 50s and 60s and 70s. 80s or 90s. Is boxing declining? And if so, why are you getting into it? Yeah, I think that boxing has been broken for a long time for a lot of different reasons. And I love the sport.

And I've always talked about jumping in and trying to sort of, you know, put my spin on boxing and try to see what I could do with it. And everything in life is about timing. And the timing just worked out, you know, in the last year. And so far, so good. I'm having fun with it. What I want to do is try to rip it apart, build it from the ground up

and see what I can do with it over the next, you know, five years. Got it. All right. I hope you come back. This was fun. I'd love to. Thanks for having me. Dana White, the president and CEO of the Ultimate Fighting Championship.

I'm David Remnick. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next time. The New Yorker Radio Hour is a co-production of WNYC and The New Yorker. Our theme music was composed and performed by Merrill Garbus of Tune Arts, with additional music by Louis Mitchell. This episode was produced by Max Bolton, Adam Howard, David Krasnow, Mike Cutchman, Jeffrey Masters, Louis Mitchell, Jared Paul, and Ursula Summer. With guidance from Emily Boteen.

The New Yorker Radio Hour is supported in part. by the Trurina Endowment Fund.