The U.F.C. President, Dana White, on Donald Trump: “He’s Not a Racist”
Transcript
Title: The U.F.C. President, Dana White, on Donald Trump: "He's Not a Racist"
[music]
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.
[clip begins]
Joe Rogan: 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, but 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.
Speaker 2: Yes.
Joe Rogan: Yes, so that would be weird.
[clip ends]
David Remnick: 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.
[clip begins]
Donald Trump: We also have a man, Dana White, who has done some [crosstalk].
[applause]
Donald Trump: He's a tough guy.
[crowd cheering]
[clip ends]
David Remnick: 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.
[music]
David Remnick: I've got to figure that our audience-- Let me put it this way. Not all of them watch UFC fights regularly, let's put it that way.
Dana White: Right, yes, but I think you would also be surprised in who is and who isn't a UFC fan.
David Remnick: 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?
Dana White: In the early '90s, a bunch of television guys, a local guy here from New York named Bob Meyrowitz, 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 types of things. They did the first one, and it rivaled the WWE and boxing pay-per-views at the time. 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. 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. Bruce Lee was saying that in the '60s.
David Remnick: When I was a kid, I went to see what was called closed-circuit in a movie theater, Muhammad Ali fight a Japanese wrestler, Inoki was his name.
Dana White: Yes, that's right.
David Remnick: The wrestler just stayed on his back and kept kicking Ali in the shins. It was not exciting, I got to tell you.
Dana White: It's very true.
David Remnick: UFC has what kind of rules? You get into this octagon, two men or two women, and then what?
Dana White: 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. When we bought the UFC back in 2001, we ran toward regulation, meaning to have the athletic commissions in each state oversee us.
David Remnick: What are the rules for the uninitiated? Two fighters get into the octagon, this padded ring with a fence around it.
Dana White: Fence[crosstalk].
David Remnick: Then I've got these gloves that aren't quite boxing gloves on me. Maybe they protect my hands, maybe they don't.
Dana White: They do, that's right.
David Remnick: 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 belt. There's all kinds of rules.
Dana White: Right, you can't do that here. There's most of the same types of rules, except this can go to the ground, where you can use submissions, you can strike on the ground.
David Remnick: What's a submission?
Dana White: A submission is where probably--
David Remnick: What used to be called the sleeper hold in professional wrestling?
Dana White: Yes. 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, yes. The sleeper hold--
David Remnick: "Goes to sleep" is a euphemism?
Dana White: No, no. What you do is, the choke closes the carotid arteries, which slows the blood flow to the brain and makes you go to sleep.
David Remnick: Okay, I think I just sensed a lot of people passing [unintelligible 00:04:50].
Dana White: Yes, it's--
David Remnick: How dangerous is this compared to boxing and the other martial arts?
Dana White: This is how dangerous it is. Thirty years, never had a death or serious injury. Cheerleading can't say that. Six to seven boxers die a year.
David Remnick: Nobody's ever died?
Dana White: Thirty 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.
David Remnick: What about injury down the line? We all know the effects of football, CTEs and the rest. 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.
Dana White: Absolutely.
David Remnick: Floyd Patterson, Muhammad Ali, many, many other fighters that I've met and tried to interview, they've really lost it. It's very clear that this is the result of repetitive blows to the head.
Dana White: Trauma to the head. Yes, absolutely.
David Remnick: Are you saying that UFC is free of that?
Dana White: No. Any time you're taking shots to the head, it is very bad for you.
David Remnick: How do you justify it?
Dana White: You don't. You have grown adults who choose to do this for a living, and this is what they want to do. They make-- It's not like that thing that went on in the NFL where they thought helmets were protecting their brains.
David Remnick: Became a weapon.
Dana White: Everybody that goes into this knows that getting punched in the head is bad for you.
David Remnick: Yes. What's the appeal to you? How did you get into this?
Dana White: I was a big fan of boxing and grew up loving boxing. It was my favorite sport. I went to high school with these guys, the Fertitta brothers. They owned Station Casinos in Las Vegas, like the fourth--
David Remnick: You grew up on the East Coast and then you moved to Las Vegas?
Dana White: I moved to Las Vegas when I was in fifth grade, and I ended up going to high school with these guys. One night, Frank Fertitta 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. 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. 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, it wasn't the same story as boxing. Boxing's 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."
David Remnick: Right.
Dana White: The complete opposite with UFC fighters.
David Remnick: Why would that be?
Dana White: Because when you think about, if your parents put you in martial arts when you were young, your parents had money. A lot of these guys were college wrestlers. They all went to college, like, Chuck Liddell. Do you know who Chuck Liddell is?
David Remnick: Sure, yes. Tell everybody.
Dana White: The stereotypical ultimate fighter, if you saw him, he's got a mohawk, big mean-looking guy with a Fu Manchu. He looks like an ax murderer, if you saw the guy. He graduated from Cal Poly with a degree in accounting.
[laughter]
Dana White: These were the types 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'll ever see. There's so many different ways to win and lose, and just the energy and the buzz inside the building is amazing.
David Remnick: What do you mean, "There are so many ways to win and lose"?
Dana White: In boxing, I punch you to the head or body more times than you punch me to the head or body, and I win, or I knock you out. 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 submission. It's non-stop action.
David Remnick: Tell me this, Dana. I wrote a book about Muhammad Ali long ago. I think we both agree he might be the greatest even athlete who ever lived, certainly the most exciting in my lifetime.
Dana White: Or human.
David Remnick: [laughs] Or Human.
Dana White: Yes.
David Remnick: Who's the Muhammad Ali of the UFC, in your estimation, and why?
Dana White: Well, we have a guy named Conor McGregor, who I would say is like our Muhammad Ali, but if you're looking for your Michael Jordan, it would be Jon Jones, who is the greatest.
David Remnick: Why is that? Tell us about Jon Jones and why he would be that.
Dana White: Jon Jones is undefeated still. He's never been beat. He's moved up and down weight classes. It's very, very unique and hard to be undefeated in the UFC.
David Remnick: How did you buy UFC? Because you seem to, in retrospect, have bought it for a song.
Dana White: Yes, $2 million. 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. I got into a contract dispute with the old owner, Bob Meyrowitz. 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 partners, Lorenzo and Frank Fertitta, 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."
David Remnick: 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.
Dana White: Right.
David Remnick: How do you respond to that?
Dana White: I think that without Senator John McCain, I probably wouldn't be sitting here having this conversation with you right now.
David Remnick: Tell me why.
Dana White: 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.
David Remnick: 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.
Dana White: 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. Porn was on pay-per-view. UFC was not allowed. When we bought it for $2 million, our goal was to get it back on free television, which everybody thought was impossible.
David Remnick: What were the regulations put into place so that it was no longer a freak show?
Dana White: What sort of tripped them up early was them sensationalizing it, like, "Two men enter the octagon, one man leaves. The most brutal, bloody, violent sport in the world. There are no rules. There's this--" You know.
David Remnick: That's just hype.
Dana White: Right.
David Remnick: You hear that in boxing too.
Dana White: But at the time, and I was involved in boxing, and when the first one was coming, nobody believed it was true, like, "There's no way this could be real, that this is going to happen." It was real. It did happen, and everybody tuned in because of the sensationalism, but that eventually ended up biting them in the end.
David Remnick: How so?
Dana White: 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. John Wayne movie. John Wayne would hit a guy. 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.
David Remnick: 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 fighter 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?
Dana White: It's the fighter's job to protect himself at all times. If the referee feels like he can't anymore and the fight needs to be stopped, he stops it. No different than boxing. You've seen some boxing fights where the guy's out on his feet, he goes down.
David Remnick: Yes, but I've seen some terrible, terrible refereeing.
Dana White: Stoppages. I agree. You'll see it in the UFC too. There's terrible refereeing sometimes in the UFC.
David Remnick: You're saying it's terrible because they're too hesitant to stop it or too quick to stop it?
Dana White: Both. Sometimes they're too quick, sometimes they're too late. There's terrible refereeing in boxing, UFC, basketball, the NFL. I mean, you're always going to have some human error.
David Remnick: What is the breakdown of fans, men and women?
Dana White: Well, a lot more women now than there was in the beginning. In the beginning--
David Remnick: Well, because you have women fighters too.
Dana White: My base was males 18 to 34. It was a no-brainer. Really-- I went through COVID. I don't own brick and mortar. All I need to do is set up an octagon somewhere and beam it. Back then, I was on ESPN. Beam it to ESPN, and our business grew like 77% during COVID. A lot of them were women.
David Remnick: 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?
Dana White: No, no. People ask me, "What about language barriers? What about this?" You can be a deaf mute. If you are the baddest man or woman in the world, people want to watch you. If you have that Conor McGregor, that Muhammad Ali thing, that's just a-- they're unicorns.
David Remnick: Okay, tell me about-- What does Conor McGregor have that separates him out?
Dana White: He has that ability that when he walks into a room, people just are fascinated by him, to listen to him. They're funny. They have incredible, magnetic personalities.
David Remnick: They're real personalities, or are they put on in the way that pro wrestlers of my childhood and then after?
Dana White: Some are. Have the thing that they turn on when they're-- Conor 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. Conor McGregor's the same.
David Remnick: Why do you think UFC has taken off now? What is it about the culture, the other sports, the media sphere? Why now?
Dana White: 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, 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, that 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. It's just as humans,--
David Remnick: You think it's just in us?
Dana White: It's in us, absolutely, 100%.
David Remnick: Is that something ugly in us?
Dana White: 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.
David Remnick: I've noticed.
Dana White: [laughs]
David Remnick: I've noticed.
[music]
David Remnick: 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.
[music]
David Remnick: This is The New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick, and I'm speaking with Dana White, the president 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.
[music]
David Remnick: Dana, I think you got to give me credit for going 17 minutes or whatever it is without mentioning Donald Trump's name,-
Dana White: [laughs]
David Remnick: -but you're associated with him.
Dana White: I'm not associated with him.
David Remnick: You are.
Dana White: He's one of my very, very good friends.
David Remnick: Okay. You spoke for him at the nominating conventions.
Dana White: Yes.
David Remnick: I think at the victory celebration, you were one of the speakers right there with him.
Dana White: Which I didn't see coming. That was not planned.
David Remnick: 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 [crosstalk].
Dana White: Furthest thing from political.
David Remnick: Tell me.
Dana White: When we started this, all the things that we've talked about, in buying and building the UFC, now imagine, if this wasn't allowed on pay-per-view, imagine venues. Arenas did not want us. What kind of people would show up to see an event like this, human fighting? Donald Trump owned the Atlantic City casinos at the time, and he had us come to the Taj Mahal for the first fight that we did, UFC 30. We did UFC 30 and UFC 31 at the Taj Mahal.
David Remnick: What year is this?
Dana White: 2001. He showed up for the first fight of the night and stayed till the end both times that we went there. 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--"
David Remnick: What did he like about it?
Dana White: Well, I think he's a fight fan. You want to 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. He had the big Tyson fights and boxing matches at his place. He's a fight fan, and the guy has always been a good friend to me. 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 for me." Well, this is the way he said it.
David Remnick: Go ahead.
Dana White: 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." [laughs] Everybody told me not to do it.
[clip begins]
Dana White: 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.
[applause]
Dana White: Second, Donald is a hard worker. This guy is 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.
[clip ends]
David Remnick: 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 then?
Dana White: I would say that my politics have always been commonsense, down the middle, leaning a little left. That's what I would say I was.
David Remnick: In what sense?
Dana White: In my late teens and 20s, I spent in Massachusetts, which is very liberal. I would consider myself an '80s, '90s Democrat.
David Remnick: Have you changed over time politically?
Dana White: No, I haven't changed.
David Remnick: You remain a kind of center-left Democrat?
Dana White: Yes.
David Remnick: Do you talk politics with Trump, or did you before the first convention?
Dana White: No.
David Remnick: That wasn't a currency of your conversation or your relationship?
Dana White: 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 narrative that they put out there about him and who he is as a person is gross. Absolutely, positively not true.
David Remnick: Okay, let's dig into that a little bit too. I think it's fair to say that if he has that reputation, it doesn't come from outer space.
Dana White: Oh, it does. It comes from politics. That's where it comes from.
David Remnick: Doesn't it come from some of his rhetoric and some of his way of treating people and talking about people?
Dana White: No, I think that-- Listen, did I wish that, back in the day, he'd stay off Twitter a little bit more and things like that? Listen, he's a tough guy, and he's not afraid to give his opinion. He's been talking about politics since he was young. If you look back at him-- But these things that he's a racist and he's a Nazi and he is this and that. Donald Trump, all this stuff's coming out now. 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.
David Remnick: Wait a minute, Dana. Michael Jackson, as talented as he was, as brilliant as he was, was a deeply, deeply flawed human being, to say the least,-
Dana White: No doubt about it.
David Remnick: -and was abusive, everything we know about him, to even kids.
Dana White: Wait, wait. He was abusive?
David Remnick: Yes. It's terrible.
Dana White: I don't know if that's true. I don't know if that's true, but I can tell you that the president had a very good relationship with Michael Jackson and had Michael Jackson around his kids all the time, and defended him when that stuff was going down.
David Remnick: Do you ever talk politics with the President?
Dana White: To call the guy a racist is crazy, he's not a racist.
David Remnick: Look, I don't want to go on endlessly about Donald Trump, because then that's all we'll do, but when he puts out a video that shows the Obamas as apes and then won't even apologize for it, you don't get the willies from that?
Dana White: No, I've been around the guy so much.
David Remnick: That doesn't give you pause, Dana?
Dana White: As far as what?
David Remnick: About his views of, just about the way he talks about other human beings, much less race.
Dana White: First of all, I became friends with this guy never even imagining that he would be the president of the United States someday. 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.
David Remnick: But if he does that, how is he not that kind of person?
Dana White: He's not. He's not.
David Remnick: Do you know something that I don't know? What you're telling me is that you kind of know-- Of course, you know him better personally, but he's the most transparent personality we have in public life.
Dana White: True.
David Remnick: 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.
Dana White: Very true.
David Remnick: He's almost as apparent to me as he is to you.
Dana White: I don't know about the Obama thing to speak on. 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. If you're an American, race, religion, whatever it is, President Trump is on your team. That I guarantee you.
David Remnick: There's another person you have a very close relationship with. In fact, you hired him as an announcer, color commentator, is Joe Rogan.
Dana White: Yes.
David Remnick: Tell me about him, because I listen to him from time to time. I've written about him, but now that he's hugely famous, he's kind of protective of himself and his brand. Tell me about your relationship with him.
Dana White: 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. Videotapes everywhere. I had to figure out what was important to send back to Vegas and what I was going to throw away. I literally watched hundreds of tapes. In 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 is great. This is exactly who I need."
David Remnick: His talent is what?
Dana White: His talent is he's a martial artist. Black belt in jiu-jitsu. The hardest part in selling this thing, the Fertittas 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.
David Remnick: What do you mean?
Dana White: As far as setting up submissions, like you said, the sleeper hold--
David Remnick: It's more hidden and more complicated?
Dana White: Yes. 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--
[clip begins]
Speaker 1: 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?
Joe Rogan: 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.
[clip ends]
Dana White: When we first bought the company, I flew all over the country meeting with editors of newspapers, because remember, newspapers were the king then.
David Remnick: Right.
Dana White: 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? The truth of the matter was, there was no room for UFC in the papers. I had to buy my way onto radio. Radio was still very relevant then.
David Remnick: Yes.
Dana White: We would do these satellite radio tours, and what we learned is fighters are not good for radio. They'd show up late. They'd still sound like they were sleeping. There was nothing exciting. Me and Joe Rogan had to do all these radio tours. Now, we're on the West Coast.
David Remnick: By yourselves, yes.
Dana White: We had to wake up at three o'clock in the morning, because they're going to drop us into the East Coast at six o'clock drive time. Then we'd go East Coast, Midwest, and then the tour would end on the West Coast. Our start all started on radio.
David Remnick: He 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.
Dana White: I tried to connect him and Trump for like probably six years.
David Remnick: Was Rogan wary of Trump in some way, and why?
Dana White: Yes. Rogan didn't want to be political. He did not want to get into politics, he did not want to be political, but then he had Bernie Sanders on.
David Remnick: That's right, he was kind of pro-Bernie Sanders.
Dana White: Very. Even when I talked to him about Trump going on the podcast, he says, "Well, okay, I'm going to invite Kamala too." "Well, cool. Get it. Love it." 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."
David Remnick: Who was he going to reach when he goes on Joe Rogan, in your view?
Dana White: Well, it wasn't just Joe Rogan, it was other podcasters. He was picking me up in Las Vegas, and we were flying to Arizona for a rally. There's a group called the Nelk Boys that I had created a relationship with. They're young kids that do pranks, and they're YouTubers, influencers. I called Jared Kushner and I said, "I want to bring this group of kids, the Nelk Boys, on Air Force One with us to Arizona." Jared Kushner says, "Well, you're asking him that, I'm not," so I called him, and he said, "Yes, let's do it."
We get in there, and these guys were all excited because they're Trump fans and they're kids. At one point, he looks at me and he's like, "Are you kidding me right now? Are you serious?" We're all in there taking pictures. To his brilliance, we go to the rally, he does the rally, and he is leaving the stage and the YMCA thing's playing. He sees one of the kids, whose name is SteveWillDoIt, and he's going crazy.
The president calls him up on stage with him, and the whole crowd erupts. They start doing the YMCA thing. It was the most viral thing on the internet that day. Then he got it, the power of these kids that most people don't know. The media's all starting to get into it now, which--
David Remnick: Right. It's not 60 Minutes. It's not the mainstream newspapers [crosstalk].
Dana White: By the time the media catches up, it's over.
David Remnick: It's over.
Dana White: Yes. Then we got him on their podcast, and the podcast did something like eight million views in four hours. He got it.
David Remnick: 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?
Dana White: Yes.
David Remnick: Tell me about that conversation.
Dana White: I was flying to Mar-a-Lago, me and Frank Fertitta, for election night. He had done the podcast, and the podcast was blowing up, pulling huge numbers. I texted him and said, "Are you voting for Trump?" He said, "Yes." I said, "Then endorse. Why have you not endorsed him?"
David Remnick: What'd he say?
Dana White: He said, "I'm just busy. I'm this, I'm that."
David Remnick: "I'm busy."
Dana White: Yes.
David Remnick: He said, "I'm busy"?
Dana White: Yes.
David Remnick: Please. What happened?
Dana White: He endorsed.
David Remnick: So, that was you, it's on you.
Dana White: Is it on me?
David Remnick: But you gave him the extra shove.
Dana White: Yes, well, I had been working on him for a few years.
David Remnick: Now, these days, I'm sure you've noticed, he is pretty critical of Trump. Now, he was thrilled to see him endorse hallucinogens and 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?
Dana White: I think that anybody who is the president of the United States, you're never going to agree with 100% of what they do.
David Remnick: What do you disagree with, with Donald Trump?
Dana White: Me and Donald Trump are friends.
David Remnick: I get-- [laughs] You have this, you're saying, "We're friends."
Dana White: I don't have a transactional relationship with Donald Trump.
David Remnick: No, I get that, but you don't want to express any disagreement? Be honest with me on the air.
Dana White: No, it's not that-- I just told you before, I wish I could take his Twitter away sometimes in the past. I know who this guy is.
David Remnick: Do you agree with him on Iran?
Dana White: I'm not a political guy. I'm not a political guy.
David Remnick: You're speaking at the conventions, you're at the triumphant victory party.
Dana White: What did I say? What did I say when I was at those--
David Remnick: No, they were congratulatory. They were personal, for sure. They weren't policy-oriented speeches.
Dana White: They were absolutely personal speeches. They weren't political in any way, shape, or form.
David Remnick: You think it would be disloyal, you're saying?
Dana White: What would be?
David Remnick: To criticize him in any way.
Dana White: No, no, no, not to criticize him. I'm not saying that I agree with all his policies.
David Remnick: But you want to keep that general, not specific, is what you're saying?
Dana White: Me personally?
David Remnick: Yes.
Dana White: 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.
David Remnick: 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. I've heard the weigh-ins may take place at the Lincoln Memorial. Is that true?
Dana White: Correct.
David Remnick: Tell me about that event, its origins, and what you hope to do.
Dana White: We were at a fight, and I can't remember if it was in New Jersey or Miami, we being me and the president. 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." He's like, "I think it would be great to have an event for America's 250th." Literally, that was a Saturday. On Monday, the White House started calling, saying, "Let's start getting the logistics set up."
David Remnick: You're in charge?
Dana White: Yes.
David Remnick: How's it going to work? Who are you going to have fight?
Dana White: Every fight actually means something and matters, in the division. Two world titles on the line. Stylistically, it should be a great fight.
David Remnick: What's it going to look like? I've seen sketches. It looks like a fight in outer space with the White House there.
Dana White: Here's what happened. 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. We had to build this thing that we are calling "the claw." It is the lighting grid.
David Remnick: How many people are going to be in the stands around it?
Dana White: There will be a little over 4,000. The president has 1,000 tickets, I have 200 tickets, and Ari Emanuel has 200 tickets. The rest are going to all the different branches of the military, of the 4,000 people that will be there. Then in the Ellipse, which is a park right across the street from the White House, there'll be 85,000 people.
David Remnick: How are you going to broadcast this?
Dana White: We just signed a new seven-year deal with Paramount Plus, and all of our content is there.
David Remnick: Do you notice people on the other side of the aisle, Democrats, liberals, trying to show up at UFC fights, befriend you, or are you concerned that you have a kind of partisan image?
Dana White: No, we haven't had anybody.
David Remnick: Why do you suppose that is?
Dana White: I would never disrespect or turn anybody away. You know what I mean?
David Remnick: 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?
Dana White: 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. You saw it with Obama. Obama's a fan of the NBA, so he showed up at NBA games, and Bush too.
David Remnick: Not UFC?. Has Obama been to UFC?
Dana White: Bush is a baseball fan.
David Remnick: No, I know, but has Obama ever showed up at a UFC fight? I'm just curious.
Dana White: No, but at the inauguration, I was sitting behind all the ex-presidents
David Remnick: I saw that.
Dana White: There were some things that went out online that said, "Oh, look at Dana mad-dogging 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." I said, "Thank you, Mr. President."
David Remnick: That must have made you feel good.
Dana White: Yes, it was great, yes.
[music]
David Remnick: UFC president and CEO Dana White. This is The New Yorker Radio Hour. Stick around.
[music]
David Remnick: 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 DC event. He was at the White House Correspondents' Dinner where a would-be shooter was taken down by Secret Service. White's reaction to it all was unusual.
[clip begins]
Dana White: They were screaming, "Get down." I didn't get down, it was fucking awesome. I literally took every minute of it in. It was a pretty crazy, unique experience.
Speaker 2: You were on the aisle--
[clip ends]
David Remnick: Here's the rest of my conversation with Dana White.
[music]
David Remnick: You were just at the White House Correspondents' Dinner, and you were quoted as saying, and I don't want to take this out of context.
Dana White: Yes, no, you go.
David Remnick: Let you tell the story. You said, "It was awesome."
Dana White: Yes.
David Remnick: That could have been-- It was pretty horrible. What did you mean by "It was awesome"?
Dana White: I was sitting there talking to Pete Hegseth.
David Remnick: The Secretary of Defense,-
Dana White: Yes.
David Remnick: -or War, depending on your--
Dana White: We were talking about all this fascinating stuff, and all of a sudden--
David Remnick: Wait, wait, you can't go that fast. What was the fascinating stuff you were talking about?
Dana White: We were talking about Iran and what's going on over there.
David Remnick: What was he telling you?
Dana White: [laughs] I'll leave that alone.
David Remnick: I make a living at this.
Dana White: I understand, sir. I understand. All of a sudden, you start hearing just crashing, like plates and dishes and glasses. I turn around and what looked like 50 Secret Service guys kicking tables over, running on the tops of tables, and they're screaming, "Everybody get on the ground." 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, with 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?" Just the adrenaline in your body, and mine anyway, was off the charts. They're saying, "Get down, get down." First of all, I'm never a get-down kind of guy, okay?
David Remnick: [laughs]
Dana White: That's never going to happen. If there's something going on here, I got bad news for my family, it's going to be a closed casket. Because I'm not getting shot in the back laying on the ground. 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 types-- just on steroids. I mean, it was-- Now,--
David Remnick: Dana, it wasn't a movie.
Dana White: I know. Which made it even greater. When it was over, I was like, for four hours, I was bouncing off the walls. The fact that--
David Remnick: What did Hegseth do? Hegseth, they dragged off?
Dana White: Let me tell you what Hegseth 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.
David Remnick: But you stayed?
Dana White: Oh, yes. Well, I had to stay.
David Remnick: Nobody was dragging you off?
Dana White: Nobody dragged me off. We had to stay in there, and I'll tell you this too, 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. Lots of far-left liberal media, which were a lot of women. None of these women were screaming. None of these women were getting overly excited about this thing. Then when it was over and we knew that the threat was over, everybody just started getting together and talking. It was pretty badass and pretty impressive.
David Remnick: Wait, you weren't scared at all?
Dana White: Never.
David Remnick: Not even for Trump's sake?
Dana White: No, they had-
David Remnick: You thought that was under control?
Dana White: -them out of there pretty quick.
David Remnick: What did you think Trump was going to say that night about the press?
Dana White: Well, he tried to come back. He wanted to finish it. He wanted to do the event, and Secret Service wouldn't let him. I'm sure there were a lot of far-left women in there that probably don't like me or think that I, you know.
David Remnick: What counts as far-left for you, what do you mean?
Dana White: 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-
David Remnick: Buzz.
Dana White: -"Holy shit, what we just went through" kind of thing. 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.
David Remnick: Have you talked to President Trump since then?
Dana White: I was with him last night. I had dinner with him last night.
David Remnick: How'd that dinner go, what'd you talk about?
Dana White: 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
David Remnick: What do you talk about?
Dana White: 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've been. He looked great. He looks like he's in good shape right now.
David Remnick: You don't buy the business of-- He is 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?
Dana White: His health is far from lousy.
David Remnick: Tell me about that.
Dana White: Far from lousy. This isn't the Biden, buddies of his backing him up saying he's whatever. He looks like he's in better shape than the last time I saw him. He was on point last night.
David Remnick: 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?
Dana White: I think that-- He's got three more years left. Again,--
David Remnick: Two and a half, but who's counting?
Dana White: 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. I think there's a lot of things that he's obviously never going to get credit for because if you don't like him, you don't like him.
David Remnick: What do you give him credit for as president?
Dana White: Securing our borders. 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.
David Remnick: You're referring to the Abraham Accords?
Dana White: Yes, of course.
David Remnick: And now?
Dana White: The Middle East is a tricky place to navigate. I think he does a better job than most.
David Remnick: I get the sense, Dana, that to some degree, you'll be glad not to have to answer questions about Donald Trump when he is out of office.
Dana White: No, I think--
David Remnick: That you want to be a loyal friend.
Dana White: No, no, no.
David Remnick: When it comes to the specifics of his politics, you'd rather-- I get it.
Dana White: No. No, not at all.
David Remnick: Am I wrong? Go ahead.
Dana White: 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. Yes, I don't want to talk about politics, whether they're his, Obama's, this guy, that guy, none of them.
David Remnick: You made a huge deal with the UFC. A huge deal.
Dana White: Yes. Right.
David Remnick: How much did you come away with?
Dana White: $7.7 billion.
David Remnick: You personally?
Dana White: Oh, no, no, no. The company, yes.
David Remnick: How about you?
Dana White: I do really well.
[laughter]
Dana White: I do really well.
David Remnick: Are you a billionaire now?
Dana White: No, no.
David Remnick: You're close?
Dana White: [laughs]
David Remnick: You recently--
Dana White: I spend too much money. I'll never be a billionaire.
David Remnick: 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.
Dana White: Right.
David Remnick: Are you out of your mind?
Dana White: Yes.
David Remnick: You're married, right?
Dana White: Yes.
David Remnick: How does your wife feel about these bets?
Dana White: My wife's doing okay too. We don't have a lot to complain about.
David Remnick: No, but you know that in the end, the house wins, right?
Dana White: Yes, yes, yes, and in the end, you only live once. I just went to the Kentucky Derby for the first time with my wife and kids.
David Remnick: Did you put down a bet?
Dana White: I did, yes.
David Remnick: How'd you do?
Dana White: I didn't do well. I don't sports-bet.
David Remnick: How much did you put down?
Dana White: I put down $70,000.
David Remnick: Now, how big is gambling in your line of business with UFC?
Dana White: It's big, yes. I mean, betting on fights, sports betting period is massive right now.
David Remnick: Now, how do you ensure--
Dana White: I do not sports-bet though.
David Remnick: But how do you ensure-- how do you keep it clean? How do you keep it on the up and up?
Dana White: Yes, we've had those problems too. Not with the mob or any of that kind of stuff, but we've had-
David Remnick: New versions of it.
Dana White: -a couple of betting issues, yes. We have a company called U.S. Integrity that watches this type of stuff.
David Remnick: That's a private company that--
Dana White: Yes, they let us know whenever--
David Remnick: The state doesn't get involved?
Dana White: No. We had an issue where we saw some irregular betting going on, and we called the FBI. That's what we do.
David Remnick: Tell me the story. What does "irregular betting" mean in this context?
Dana White: It means when you have a fight that isn't like the main event and the line starts to move a lot.
David Remnick: But that's the indicator in fighting, that the line moves, so there's the suspicion that somebody's about to throw a fight.
Dana White: 100%. There's something fishy going on when an undercard fight and a line starts moving.
David Remnick: Particularly the undercard, not the headliners.
Dana White: Yes, because the headliners are very high profile and lots of people are betting on it. It can happen there too, but it's a lot more noticeable when it happens on a prelim fight.
David Remnick: Now, you're also in the boxing business. You've just recently launched a new boxing company called Zuffa.
Dana White: Zuffa, yes.
David Remnick: What does Zuffa mean, by the way?
Dana White: To fight, in Italian.
David Remnick: Oh, okay. My impression has been that with some exceptions in recent years, boxing is certainly not what it was in the '50s and '60s and '70s and--
Dana White: '80s or '90s.
David Remnick: '80s or '90s. Is boxing declining? If so, why are you getting into it?
Dana White: Yes, I think that boxing has been broken for a long time for a lot of different reasons. I love the sport, and I've always talked about jumping in and trying to sort of put my spin on boxing and try to see what I could do with it. Everything in life is about timing, and the timing just worked out in the last year. 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 five year.
David Remnick: Got it. All right, I hope you come back. This was fun.
Dana White: I'd love to. Thanks for having me.
[music]
David Remnick: Dana White, the president and CEO of the Ultimate Fighting Championship.
[music]
Copyright © 2026 New York Public Radio. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use at www.wnyc.org for further information.
New York Public Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline, often by contractors. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of New York Public Radio’s programming is the audio record.
