06/12/26 12:37:00
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06/12 12:35 CDT Judge rules Trump can stage UFC fights on White House's South
Lawn this weekend
Judge rules Trump can stage UFC fights on White House's South Lawn this weekend
By MICHAEL KUNZELMAN
Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) --- A federal judge refused on Friday to stop the White House
from staging a UFC show this weekend in an elaborate ring already built on the
South Lawn to celebrate the nation's 250th anniversary --- on President Donald
Trump's 80th birthday.
U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta's ruling allows organizers to use the White
House lawn as the venue for Sunday's planned UFC mixed martial arts event.
Mehta concluded that the plaintiffs likely don't have legal standing to
challenge the event and have failed to prove that they would suffer irreparable
harm by the event going forward as planned. The judge also cited the
plaintiffs' "unreasonable delay" in suing to challenge an event that's been in
the works for months.
"In the context of an emergency application --- and coupled with the fact that
the UFC fight date was long ago known --- it is fair to say Plaintiffs
unreasonably delayed bringing suit, undercutting their claims of irreparable
harm," Mehta wrote.
Attorneys from the nonprofit Public Integrity Project sued to challenge Trump's
"UFC Freedom 250" event on behalf of an activist and a Vietnam War veteran. The
two plaintiffs also asked the court to block organizers from building anything
for the event on White House grounds, including a 92-foot-tall, 600-ton steel
structure called The Claw.
The plaintiffs' alleged "aesthetic harms," the judge noted, are temporary since
The Claw will be disassembled starting Monday morning and staging equipment at
the Lincoln Memorial must be removed before then. "The President's musings
about permanency of the Claw does not move the dial in the face of a White
House official's clear representation," the judge wrote.
The White House called the lawsuit is a baseless attempt to prevent Trump from
hosting an event that's no different from many others routinely hosted at
public forums in the nation's capital.
Trump's administration can't issue permits for sporting events on the South
Lawn or at the Lincoln Memorial, where UFC fighters planned to hold a press
conference in front of fans on Friday, according to plaintiffs' attorneys. They
noted that the event is a privately organized, for-profit business venture,
with VIP packages costing millions of dollars.
"The President's administration is granting the UFC an extraordinary business
opportunity it may not lawfully grant, and in exchange the UFC is throwing an
event at which its leadership, fighters, advertisers, and various celebrities
will all pay tribute to the President on his birthday," plaintiffs' attorneys
wrote.
The National Park Service and the Interior Department are named as defendants
in the lawsuit.
In 2019, during his first term in office, Trump became the first sitting
president to attend a UFC show. Trump, a Republican, is a friend of UFC
president and CEO Dana White.
Mehta was nominated to the bench by President Barack Obama, a Democrat. Mehta
has presided over other Trump-related cases, including civil litigation
accusing Trump of inciting a mob of his supporters to attack the U.S. Capitol
on Jan. 6, 2021, after he lost the 2020 presidential election to Joe Biden, a
Democrat.
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