Transcript of Dana White on Trump, men and UFC at the White House | NPR's Newsmakers

Hi, it's Steve Inskeep with a special episode from our sister show, NPR's Newsmakers. We interview some of the most influential people of our time. And today, we hear from Dana White, president of the UFC and a prominent supporter of President Trump. New episodes of Newsmakers can drop anytime, as soon as they're available. So the best way to stay caught up is to follow or subscribe to this show on Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you watch or listen. You can also find us in the NPR app. Now, here's Dana White on NPR's Newsmakers. Dana White is the head of the UFC, the Ultimate Fighting Championship, a mixed martial arts, often brutal sport that he's built into a multibillion-dollar business. On June 14th, Dana White will stage an event at the White House for his friend and frequent supporter, President Trump. And we talked about that here in Newark, New Jersey, before a UFC event. Dana White, thanks for welcoming us here. This is an amazing event.

Thanks for coming.

Great to see you. Um, we were just watching your press conference at— here in Newark, New Jersey, where you introduced some of the fighters who are going to fight at the White House, June 14th. What does that event mean for you and for the UFC?

Well, if you look at our humble beginnings and where we came from, meaning that when we bought the company in January of 2001, We weren't even allowed on pay-per-view. Venues didn't want us and many other negative things, stigma that was attached to the sport.

John McCain called it human cockfighting once upon a time.

There you go. Perfect. There you go.

Yeah.

Yeah. That's where we were then. And now we're on the South Lawn of the White House and, you know, with 4,000 people, mostly military. And then across the street at the Ellipse, there'll be 85,000 people. Over 300,000 people have applied for tickets.

You're setting up a kind of outdoor arena there at the White House, right? Right.

It's— yeah. Which There's two things I hate. I hate stadiums and I hate— even worse than a stadium is fighting outside. There's just so many different variables you have to deal with, you know, the weather and, you know, the worst obviously being rain and lightning.

Yeah.

And then bugs and, you know, temperatures and could be anything that I don't like.

How involved has the president been in the details?

Not very. Not very. He put Ivanka on it, and Ivanka early on when we were laying this thing out was our point person. And the only thing, he was at the fight in Miami and he said, why is Derrick Lewis not on the card? We called Derrick Lewis and now Derrick Lewis is on the card.

This is a fan, this is a fighter that he likes.

Yes.

He's a fan, obviously.

Derrick the Black Beast Lewis.

Uh-huh. Let me ask about a couple of other fighters, the guys who are at the top of the ticket, and you just introduced them here in Newark, New Jersey. Ilia Topuria. Ilya who is your lightweight champion and Justin Gaethje is the, the challenger. I've seen videos, they're pretty brutal as fighters, right? But talk to me about their backgrounds. Where do they come from? What kind of people are they?

Yeah, so, so Ilya lives in Spain. He's, he is literally, it's either him or Islam Makhachev right now, the pound-for-pound best fighters in the world, and he is very tight with all the big, like, most famous soccer players all throughout Europe. Um, he has unbelievable grappling, and he has even crazier knockout power. Uh-huh. He's beat, uh, some of the best fighters in the history of the sport, and he's going up against Justin Gaethje, who is the human highlight reel. He's another one— unbelievable power, unbelievable knockout highlight reels, uh, And that fight means something in the division and should be a really good fight.

Here's the thing that caught my attention about their backgrounds. Topuria, the champion, I believe comes from a refugee family, Republic of Georgia, and the challenger used to work in a copper mine. Uh, is that representative of the UFC? People who maybe in some way are on the bottom in society and they're using sports to fight their way up?

100%. Like most, you know, most sports, whether it's soccer, football, boxing, obviously combat sports. People that are this tough come from some tough backgrounds.

Yeah, absolutely. You were a boxer once, weren't you?

I was. What I like about when me and my partners, the Fertitta brothers, got into the UFC, what we started to like was some of these stories of these guys. At the time, Chuck Liddell, I don't know if you know who he is, mohawk, Chinese writing on the side of his head, Fu Manchu mustache and beard. You know, he looks like a serial killer, but he was actually an accounting major from Cal Poly. Matt Hughes at the time, who was a farmer from the Midwest. And these were the different types of stories that, other than boxing, which was, "I came from the mean streets of such-and-such. If it wasn't for boxing, I'd be dead or in jail," which was everybody's story.

Immigrants, people who don't speak English as their first language.

Right.

On and on.

Well, one of the things that I, you know, believed about the UFC in the early days was, No matter what country you come from, what color you are, what language you speak, we're all human beings. Fighting's in our DNA. We get it and we like it. When guys like you and I grew up, your parents would put you in karate or taekwondo. This is the new martial art that men, women, and children are taking all over the world.

Has this— has the UFC after all these years become an expression of your personality? It is you and you are it.

Me? Yeah, you! I would say that the, the live event and the television side I have honed and sort of dialed in over the last 25 years. But this sport has its own personality and basically whoever you are and where you're from, that's what I'm selling.

What do you mean by that?

Who are you as a person? Where do you come from? What's your background?

You're talking about a fighter. Who are you as a person?

Exactly.

Story.

Who are you and where do you come from? That's what I sell every Saturday night.

Uh, how real is that as opposed to performance?

Well, you sell who they are and where they come from, and then it's up to them to perform. I always say I'm the bells and whistles guy, and then they have to come in and deliver, which for 25 years they have. That's why the sport has grown as big as it has. On NPR's Wildcard podcast, Julio Torres says he doesn't need to prove himself to anyone. When someone makes me feel like I have to prove something to them, I just walk away. Really? I'm like, "Seek help." Watch or listen to that Wildcard conversation on the NPR app or on YouTube at NPR Wildcard.

Why do you think the president has been such a fan since long before he was president?

He's a fight fan. I mean, if you think about, you know, the, the Trump Atlantic City properties, he was putting on big fights with all the, you know, all the biggest stars back in the '80s and '90s.

And, uh, gave you a big break, as I understand.

Yeah, so what happened was when we first bought this thing, you know, uh, it wasn't— think about this— it wasn't allowed on pay-per-view. You as a grown adult Didn't have the option to pay for it on pay-per-view. Porn was on pay-per-view. UFC was not allowed. And our goal was to get onto free TV and everybody thought it was impossible. So you can imagine venues. Venues were like, what kind of people are going to show up for this kind of event with the stigma that was attached to it? So yeah, venues were tough to get. So Trump ended up reaching out to us somehow. Invited us to the Taj, and that was where we did our first two fights.

Is there something about this sport that represents Trump's view of America or even Trump's view of the world?

Well, Trump—

it can seem like there's no rules, even though there are rules. It's a pretty brutal sport.

Trump is one of the toughest, most resilient human beings that I've ever met in my life. The most. I don't know anybody. And I've been in the fight business since I was 19 years old. He's the toughest, most resilient guy I've ever met by far.

And does this represent his idea of—

I think fighting, I think sports does. I think the will to win, the will to overcome, the will to, you know, he has every ounce of that plus some, even at 80 years old.

He also is very frank, like he doesn't respect rules a lot. He doesn't respect niceties a lot. Does he like that side of the sport?

Well, I don't, I don't know if that's necessarily—

The blood on the face.

I don't know if that's not necessarily true. I think that he comes off that way. I've never, ever had anybody, including the two latest, Bill Maher and Ilya Toporya, show up at the White House and walk out the door and say, yeah, he's not a good guy and I don't like him.

What is it that people who don't like him are missing? What are they missing about him?

I think that, listen, no matter who you are, you can be Donald Trump, you can be the president of the United States. Not everybody is going to like you. And multiply that by 10 million when you're in politics.

Some people are going to be watching this, listening to this, and think there may be a bit of a contradiction because we've been talking about how your fighters are often immigrants, people from disadvantaged backgrounds, even a refugee in the case of your champion fighter who's going to be at the White House. These are people not universally, but in large measure, the president wants out of the country.

And that's not necessarily true either. I— what the president wants is what everybody has talked about, including the Democrats back in the day. You have to get documented the right way. Mm-hmm. You know, there's a lot of people waiting in line to get green cards in this country. You know, the borders have been open for the last 4 years and lots of criminals came in here, lots of bad people. They got them out first. I don't think The president has ever said he doesn't want— well, people from other countries. He has said if you do it the wrong way.

Yes, in his first term, he did talk about legal immigration and being in favor of legal immigrants. But in the second term, they've actually canceled a lot of people's legal status. They've taken refugees and said it's time to go. I was actually wondering, as I was watching your fighters at this press conference here, some of them, I wondered if they've come to you and said, I got a problem with my aunt, I got a problem with my brother, can you help me?

There's one, a kid that retired from here who hit me up last week and he had a problem with his wife. Mm-hmm. But he said, you know, it was 110% our fault and how this ended up happening.

Mm-hmm.

But can you help? And I don't think I can help. No, you didn't call up the president and say, hey, the president has done some great things. For instance, I don't know how long ago it was now. My time is a blur to me. I've been so busy this year, but I bet there was a girl who was a fighter's wife and she was Russian, but she has American citizenship. She went back to visit her family in Russia and the military kicked her door in in the middle of the night and arrested her.

Wow.

They had found that she had donated $15 to Ukraine, and they arrested her and had her in a Russian prison. And President Trump, I called him and he got her out. He got her released.

And do you know how he did that?

He called Putin.

I would assume that's a pretty high person to call in Russia to get something done. I want to ask about another aspect of your, of your business. You've talked a lot about brain injury, which is part of this sport. It's part of a lot of sports, of course. But how do you think about it? How do you think about those guys you were just with at that press conference and their health?

Yeah, it's a— it's an inevitable, you know, side effect of this business. You know, when you get punched in the head, it's not good for you. And everybody going into this knows it's not, you know, we talked about this briefly a couple of minutes ago. I did it. And at that time in my life, You know, I wouldn't take back one punch now or one second of any of that. It's what I was super passionate about when I was younger. I absolutely loved it and I wouldn't change a thing. And these are all grown men and women that know the, the possibilities of competing in a combat sport. And this is what they choose to do.

Why didn't you stick with it?

Well, you know, what happens is one day I realized that wasn't it. And, uh, you know, I think the hard part in this business is I've known a lot of guys that I've met throughout the years that didn't realize that and stuck around too long, longer than they should have. And, uh, sitting here right now talking to you, I guess I was right about myself. So you— it all worked out in a different way.

You made a better choice. Have you ever had to have that conversation with a fighter who wants to go home?

I made a better choice.

You You made a different choice, okay.

I realized that I wasn't the guy. You wouldn't have seen me fighting in a title fight.

You weren't gonna be Rocky.

100%, yeah.

So you might, it wasn't a fear of injury, of permanently hurting yourself.

No, no.

You weren't realizing your ambitions.

Right, it's the realization when you wake up one day, it's like no different than AAA baseball players or guys that are trying to get into the NFL. At some point you go, you know what, I gotta pull the ripcord. I'm not gonna make it, or I don't believe I'm gonna make it. And if you stick around too long trying to make it, you might miss another opportunity.

Have you ever had to have that conversation with a fighter who wants to go on and you're the one who has to tell them, no, you're done?

Yeah, I've had a lot of those. Not just guys that probably aren't gonna be talented enough to stay here, But guys who are staying here too long past their prime too, I've had to have all those types of conversations.

I'm thinking about— there was a lawsuit that you settled recently having to do with compensation for fighters. And one of the fighters said publicly, I need the money because I got CTE, which is a brain condition, and I can't take care of myself. That's why I need the money. You're right that a lot of sports have this problem. The military also has this problem and they think about it and they study it and sometimes they change their practices. Have you changed anything to make this sport a little less risky in the long run? Absolutely.

Everything that we do in this business every day, nothing is more important than health and safety to us. Think about this. 30-year history of the UFC. Mm-hmm. Never a death or serious injury. In 30 years. Cheerleading can't say that. Okay?

I gotcha. But there are guys like this guy with CTE who did have a long-term condition.

Well, later on in life, when you are in a combat sport where you get hit in the head, this isn't like the NFL where they believe for years that helmets would protect your—

Yeah.

There's none of that here. You know exactly what you're getting into.

You're getting hit in the head.

When you get into this sport, 100%. And there's never been a— 6 to 7 boxers die a year. Never been a death or serious injury in the sport. We spend the money to make sure that two healthy guys are stepping into the octagon. We have the proper medical attention there that night and after, after the fight. Um, the other thing that we do is we, we, we started a, uh, a study with the Cleveland Clinic where we go in and we scan their brains and we continue to monitor their brain health throughout their careers.

I want to go on to another topic. You get a lot of credit for encouraging young men particularly to vote for Trump in 2024.

Right.

And a lot of them did. I mean, young people generally vote Democratic. About half of young men, 18 to 29, voted for Trump, which was a big deal. And now, according to surveys, a lot of them have backed away. His approval rating is very low among young men. Why do you think that would be?

I don't know if that's true.

Is it true? The Harvard survey is 28% approval.

They also said he wasn't going to win the election. All these studies are polls that they did both times. So I don't, I don't really believe much in polls. He wasn't supposed to win the first election. Mm-hmm. And he wasn't supposed to win the second election based on polling. And he won both. So, so you don't— I don't listen to any of that stuff. I think that During the COVID craziness and all the stuff that went on during that time, a lot of young men felt displaced and a lot of negative things were being said about young men. And obviously this sport speaks to young men. A lot of the guys in this sport speak to young men, not personally, but Yeah. And, you know, we supported Trump.

What does this sport say? What message does it send about what it means to be a man?

What does this sport say about what it means to be a man? Hmm. I don't know. I think that hard work, dedication, setting goals for yourself, believing in yourself, um, those type of things.

Does it say something about the need to confront people, to be aggressive, to be in combat?

No, I, I don't think you need— this sport says to be aggressive. It's the exact opposite, really. What this sport has is, is a martial arts history, and in martial arts it's more about controlling yourself. But being able to defend yourself.

I want to ask another question. You said after speaking for Trump at the convention in 2024 and speaking upon his victory, you were quoted as saying you were done with politics.

Yeah.

You said you were done with this shit, to be exact.

Right. Yeah, that's exactly what I said.

Why?

Why? Listen, I don't know how anybody could stay involved in politics, you know, as a career politician or Yeah, it's just, I don't like it. I don't like it. I think it's dirty, especially after seeing what happened to him, you know, going into that second election. The media, the things the media said about him, and it's just all of it's nasty. And the day and time we live in now with social media, I mean, it's, everybody has an opinion and We all have to hear it if you're on social media, but I'm in the fight business my whole life, and I just think politics is the nastiest business there is.

But does the White House event bring you right back into politics? It's on Trump's birthday.

It landed on Trump's birthday. It's the 250th birthday of America.

It's coming up. Yeah, yeah, true. His flag day.

It's not coming up. That's what we're celebrating.

Okay, gotcha, gotcha. Gotcha.

We're celebrating America's 250th birthday on the lawn of the White House. And, you know, there possibly couldn't be a greater honor than that, especially for me as an American. And I think that everybody thought that I was going to build a card, America versus the world, where we did the exact opposite. America is, is a, is a country of immigrants that all came from, from somewhere else, and they're all going to be represented. I tried hard to have a Chinese fighter on the card too, but didn't work out.

I want to underline that for people who don't follow this. Like the old-time WWF was, you know, there's the Iron Sheik and people could hate the foreigner, and you're saying you didn't want to do that.

Well, it wasn't about that. That wasn't my thought process. But it was, you know, everybody thought that there was going to be, you know, it's the Fourth of July, it's a 250 50th birthday of America, an American versus a foreigner, where hopefully all Americans win and America feels— no, we did the exact opposite. We are a global sport. And I always have to deal with something bad going on in the world when you're a global sport. When the Russia and Ukraine war started, I had people going, are you going to have Russia? Yeah, we're going to have Russians fight. We have Russians under contract. This is That's how, you know, my guys feed their families.

So you weren't going to be like the Olympics and say, "Don't compete." No.

I don't do that, you know? And everybody that fights in the UFC— America is a free country. There's free speech. And, you know, like I said, whoever you are— Sean Strickland.

One of the fighters you were just introducing. Yeah.

He's a nightmare. A nightmare. Says horrible things about lots of different people. You know, freedom of speech.

I want to note what for some people is an irony. You're a friend of the president. You've been very close to the president. You're doing this event on the president's back lawn, and your boss is Ari Emanuel. Yeah, big-time Democrat.

What is that?

Could you explain how that works?

Left as you could possibly get.

Yeah. How's that work? I mean, how do you—

Works great, actually. We are We've built an incredible team in the new business that we've built over the last 10 years, which is TKO. We built an incredible team with him. Everybody plays a role in all the different businesses. And, you know, Ari is greatest agent of all time. And, you know, he adds a lot to the bit. But when you think about where we are in the world right now, like we're talking about all these young people that are into politics. When I was in my 20s, I didn't even know who the governor was, okay? You just, you didn't think like that. We're more political than we've ever been now. But when you think back to the Democrats and the Republicans of the '80s and '90s, they used to at least get together and talk. It's like we're at a place where people can't even talk anymore. And if, you know, if they find out that I'm friends with the president, I'm a MAGA piece of shit, you know? And people who don't even know me, you know, have these ideas about me. And the same, I actually just, I mean, I'm talking to NPR right now, right?

I talk to everybody. I did a CNN interview about 2 weeks ago at the office and it was awesome. It was a great interview. They asked great questions. She was a very, very smart woman with great follow-up questions and I like talking to everybody. I have no problem with any of this stuff.

Did you tell somebody?

I'm not political.

Did you tell somebody recently you feel like you're a 1980s Democrat?

Yeah.

Words to that effect.

Fact. Yeah.

So what does that mean?

It means that I have common sense. And whether you're right or left, I consider myself in the middle and probably lean a little left, you know, in, in a normal world. And, you know, I don't hate anybody because of their politics or what they believe. I don't— if you look at any of my speeches that I've ever done at the Republican convention, tell me one thing that I've ever said bad about somebody who's Democratic or leans left. Ever. I don't.

If you lean a little left, is there a political issue the president is wrong about from your perspective?

Uh, I don't know. I don't really— every 4 years somebody else is going to come in. Nobody's ever going to 100% agree with the president, whether they're left or right. And, you know, I think what you do is this is what happens. Like, I'll be putting on a fight on Saturday night and you'll have a group on the internet going, this fight sucks. What do you mean this fight sucks? This fight hasn't even happened yet. You can't judge the fight until the fight's over. Oh, that's my ride.

Okay.

You can't judge the fight until the fight's over. The president has 3 more years. Now, you might not love everything that's going on. Well, you don't know everything. We don't know everything that's going on behind the scenes. Judge him in 3 more years when his term is up. I'll see how he did in a 4-year term.

I hope people can hear that. We're hearing a helicopter overhead. It's landing on the roof to take you away.

Mm-hmm.

Dana, it's been a pleasure. Thank you so much. Likewise, sir.

Thanks for coming out.

Okay. Have a good flight. Just a reminder that new episodes of Newsmakers drop whenever they're available. We share them on Up First when we can, but the best way to stay caught up is to follow or subscribe to the show on Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you watch or listen. You can also find it in the NPR app. And remember, newsmakers like Up First relies on supporters who value independent journalism and a free press. Join NPR+ today to support our work and get perks from the podcasts you trust. Go to plus.npr.org. I'm Steve Inskeep. Thanks for listening to Up First from NPR News.