Dana White on Trump, masculinity and bringing UFC to the White House

It's an inevitable 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. John McCain called it human cock fighting once upon a time. Yeah, that's where we were then, and now we're on the south lawn of the White House. This is Newsmakers. NPR's biggest interviews, I'm Steve Inskeep. We question some of the most influential people of our time. Make sure to follow on Spotify or subscribe to the NPR YouTube channel so you get the latest episode as soon as it's available. 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 multi-billion 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. We were just watching your press conference here in Newark, New Jersey where you introduce 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 paper view. Venues didn't want us and many other negative things. Stigma that was attached to the sport. John McCain called it "human cock fighting" once a play time. Perfect, there you go. Yeah, that's what 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, it's, yeah, which there's two things I hate. I hate stadiums and I hate even worse out of stadiums 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 lots of things 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 Derek Lewis not on the card?" We called Derek Lewis and now Derek Lewis is on the card. This is a fan, this is a fighter that he likes. He's a fan, obviously. Derek, 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 New York, New Jersey. Ilya Tapuria, who is your lightweight champion and Justin Gagey is 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 Ilya lives in Spain. He is literally, it's either him or Islam Magachev 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. He has unbelievable grappling and he has even crazier knockout power. Uh-huh. He's beat some of the best fighters in the history of the sport. And he's going up against Justin Gagey, who is the human highlight reel. He's another one. Unbelievable power. Unbelievable knockout highlight reels. Uh-huh. 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. Tapuria, the champion, I believe, comes from a refugee family. Yes. And the challenger used to work in a copper mine. 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? 100% like most, you know, most sports, whether it's soccer, football, boxing, you know, obviously combat sports. You know, people that are this tough come from some tough backgrounds. Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. You were a boxer once, weren't you? I was. What I like about when we get when me and my partners, the Fatita brothers, you know, got into the UFC. What we started to like was some of these stories of these guys. You know, at the time, Chuck LaDelle, I don't know if you know who he is. Mohawk, Chinese rating on the side of his head. Fumantu, mustache, appeared. You know, it looks like a serial killer, but he was actually a 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 is their first language. Right or not? Well, one of the things that I believed about the UFC in the early days was, no matter what country you come from, what color you are, what language you speak, what 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? 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. Exactly. Who are you and where do you come from? That's what I sell every Saturday night. 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. 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 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 gave you a big break as I understand. Yeah, so what happened was we first bought this thing, you know, 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 on to free TV and everybody thought it was impossible. So you can imagine venues. Venues were like, you know, 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 we, uh, 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 can seem like there's no rules, even though there are rules. 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? 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. Blood on the face. I don't know if that's not necessarily true. Tell me what I think that he comes off that way. I've never, ever had anybody. Including the two latest Bill Mar and Ilya Toporia 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. 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. There's a lot of people waiting in line to get green cards in this country. The borders have been open for the last four 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 people from other countries. 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 there's one a kid that retired uh from here who hit me up uh last week and he had a problem with his wife um but he said you know it was 110 percent our fault and how they sent it up happening but can you help and I don't think I can't help no you didn't all of the president say hey no the president has done some great things for instance um I don't know how long ago it was now my time is a blur to me I've been I've been so busy this year but I found there was a girl who was a 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 and in the middle of the night and arrested her wow they had found that she had donated 15 dollars to um Ukraine and the arrested her had her in a Russian prison in 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 yeah I want to ask about another aspect of your of your business uh 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 press that press conference and their health yeah it's a uh it's an inevitable uh 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 um you know we talked about this briefly a couple minutes ago I did it and at that time in my life you know um I wouldn't take back one punch now or one second of any of that is 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 with them 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'm known a lot of guys that have 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 on made a better choice 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 going to be rocky 100% yeah so you might it wasn't a fear of injury permanently hurting yourself no you weren't realizing your ambitions right it's it's the the realization when you wake up one day it's like no different than triple a baseball players or yeah guys that are trying to get into the NFL at some point you go you know what I gotta I gotta pull the rip cord 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 uh 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 I've had a lot of those not just guys that probably aren't going to be talented enough to stay here but guys who are staying here too long past their prime too have had to have all those types of conversations I'm thinking about there was a lawsuit that you settled recently uh 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 uh you're right that a lot of sports have this problem the military also has this problem yeah 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 ones? Absolutely everything uh that we do in this business every day nothing is more important in health and safety does think about this 30 year history of the UFC never a death or serious injury in 30 years cheerleading can't say that okay I got you but there are guys like this guy with CTE who did have a long term condition yeah well later on in life you're gonna you're gonna you know when you are in a combat sport where you get hit and head this isn't like the NFL where you know they believe for years that helmets would protect your yeah there's none of that here we we you know exactly what you're getting into you're getting hit when you get into this sport 100% and there's never been a six to seven 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 study with the Cleveland Clinic yeah 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 are backed away as approval rating is very low among among among young men why do you think that would be well I don't know if that's true uh is the heart rate surveys 28% approved they also said he wasn't gonna win the election uh all these studies are or polls that they did both times so I don't I don't really uh believe much in polls he wasn't supposed to win the first election 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 you know the during the COVID craziness and all the stuff that went on during that time a lot of young men felt displaced and and you know a lot of negative things were being said about young men and you know obviously this sport speaks to young men a lot of the guys in this sport speak to young men you know not personally but yeah and you know we support a 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 um setting goals for yourself believing in yourself um those type of things doesn't say something about the need to confront people to be aggressive to be in combat no I don't I don't think you need this sport says to be aggressive it's the exact opposite really what this sport has is as a martial arts history and in martial arts more about controlling yourself but being able to defend yourself I want to ask another question uh you said after speaking for Trump at the convention in 2024 and speaking upon its victory uh you were quoted as saying you were done with politics yeah you said you were done with a to be exact yeah that's exactly why uh listen I I don't know how anybody could could stay involved in and politics you know as a career politician or um yeah it's just I I don't like it I don't like it I think it's dirty especially after seeing what happened to him you know uh going into that second election um 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 we all have to hear it if you're on social media but I'm I'm the I'm in the fight business my whole life and I think 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 it's the 250th birthday of America is it's coming up yeah I got true it's flag coming up that's what we're celebrating okay gotcha gotcha yeah 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 uh I want to underline that for people who don't follow this like the old time WWF was you know there's the iron shake and people could hate the foreigner and you're saying you didn't want to do that what wasn't 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 4th of July it's 250th birthday of America an American versus you know a foreigner where hopefully all Americans when an America feels you know no we did the exact opposite we are global sport and you know I always have to the deal with something bad going on in the world when you're a global sport. When the Russian Ukraine war started, you know, I had people going, "Yeah, we're going to have Russians fight." We have Russians under contract. This is how, you know, my guys feed their family. So you weren't going to be like the Olympics and say, "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. He says horrible things about lots of different people and, 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. You're a Democrat. What is that? Could you explain that word? For our left, as you could possibly yet. Yeah. How's that work? I mean, how do you. It works great, actually. We are. We've built an incredible team in the new business that we 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 the greatest agent of all time. And, you know, he adds a lot to this 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. You know, if they find out that I'm friends with the president, I'm a mega piece of ****, 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 two weeks ago at the office, and it was awesome. It was a great interview. I 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 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 lean's left. If you lean. If you lean a little left, is there a political issue the president is wrong about? From your perspective. I don't know. I don't really. Every four 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. That's my ride. The president has three more years. 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 three more years when his term is up. I'll see how he did in a four-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. Thanks for coming out. Okay. Have a good flight. You know, the news does not keep a schedule. And neither do we. New episodes of Newsmakers publish as soon as they are available any day of the week. So make sure to follow and subscribe to this show wherever you listen or watch. So, you get the latest episode right away. Newsmakers relies on supporters who value independent journalism and a free press. You can join NPR Plus today to support our work and get perks from the podcasts you trust. Just go to plus.npr.org. I'm Steve Inskeep. Thanks for listening to NPR's Newsmakers.