White House UFC plan draws historian’s fierce rebuke

UFC fight – A leading White House historian says the Ultimate Fighting Championship event scheduled for June 14 on the White House South Lawn would have “repulsed” the Founding Fathers—arguing the staged violence “sullies” the image of the presidency, even as the White Ho

By May 30, workers were already building the cage for a UFC fight on the White House South Lawn, towering in photos above the residence that sits at the center of U.S. power.

The event is slated for June 14—the same day President Donald Trump turns 80—and is being pitched as part of America’s 250th anniversary celebrations. Trump has suggested a temporary arena erected within the grounds could hold 4. 000 people. while as many as 100. 000 could watch the spectacle from the nearby 52-acre public park known as the White House Ellipse.

Edward Lengel, chief historian of the White House Historical Association during Trump’s first term, said the idea itself would have been unacceptable to the men who shaped the presidency.

Hosting what he called “a vicious and violent sport” at the White House, Lengel told HuffPost, “transcends the bounds of tastelessness.” He argued the fight night would “sully the image of this country, and what the White House should represent.”

Lengel said he was not “outraged” because the event is temporary. But he described it as “another episode of tastelessness” inflicted on the White House by the Trump administration—an assessment he framed against what he believes the building is supposed to stand for.

He pointed to his own family background—his grandfather was a professional wrestling referee and his father was a boxer—but still said he believes UFC is “a very bloody sport.” Then he sharpened the comparison to the Founding Fathers.

“I’m a historian of the founders, on George Washington, and I know what Washington intended for the White House. I know what Thomas Jefferson intended,” Lengel said. “Washington definitely believed that entertainment should take place at the White House. but he was very specific that that entertainment needed to be carefully managed. it needed to have an air of gravitas and ceremony and control. and it needed to lift up rather than drag down the public image of the presidency and of the nation. I think Washington was very careful to try to lift up the image of the president and the presidential office.”.

Lengel acknowledged that “strange things” have long happened at the White House. But he insisted this moment crosses a line.

“Is this the first time that a president has dragged down that image? No, of course not. But it’s doing it in a new way that I think would have repulsed the founders,” he said.

Even Jefferson, Lengel added, would have objected. He argued a UFC fight “smacks of ‘Imperial Rome,’” and that the spectacle at the People’s House would be the kind of pageantry the early republic did not imagine.

His argument also turns to a darker side of White House history—showing that violence was never absent. but that the tradition he sees here is different in its intent. Lengel cited the notoriously chaotic inauguration of Andrew Jackson in 1829. when more than 20. 000 ordinary Americans from across the nation descended on the capital as Jackson—who ran on being a tribune of the people—was forced to flee the chaos. Jackson, Lengel noted, also hosted a feeding frenzy that included the public invited to eat a 1,400-pound block of cheese.

Jackson, Lengel said, was among America’s most violent national leaders. As a general in the First Seminole War, Native American villages were destroyed and Spanish-controlled Florida was essentially seized for the United States.

Still, Lengel believes even Jackson would not have taken it to this kind of extreme.

“Jackson did have a genuine background as a backcountry woodsman. He actually did come from the common people, which is not true of the current president,” the historian said. “Violence ‘was there but [Jackson] kept it to the side. He didn’t celebrate it at the White House. He was a violent president. but he didn’t embrace it in a way. like ‘let’s show people beating each other to a pulp in front of the White House.’ I can’t imagine him endorsing that. ” he added.

Whether this is a new kind of spectacle—or just another chapter in a long-running tradition of attention-grabbing events at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue—will now be tested in public view on June 14. with a temporary arena under construction on the South Lawn and the promise of a massive crowd spilling into the Ellipse.

HuffPost reached out to the White House and UFC for comment. A White House press office staffer described the inquiry as “ridiculous” while forwarding the request.

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