By admin 
Do not mistake the massive mixed martial arts arena rising out of the White House lawn for a political statement, insists Ultimate Fighting Championship President Dana White. It is, he told CNN, simply part of the celebration for America’s 250th birthday.
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That distinction matters to White, who has repeatedly declared himself finished with politics despite spending years as one of President Donald Trump’s most visible allies — speaking at the last three Republican National Conventions and helping the GOP make inroads with the young male voters key to Trump’s return to the White House.
Many of those same voters appear just as eager as White to leave politics behind.
As final preparations are made for a slate of UFC fights on the White House South Lawn on June 14 – Flag Day and Trump’s 80th birthday – polls show Trump’s support is collapsing among the Americans most likely to watch the event: young men. About one-in-four men under the age of 29 approve of Trump’s job performance, well below the national average of all adults, according to the Institute of Politics at Harvard Kennedy School’s most recent survey of young adults, and just 15% of them think the country is headed in the right direction.
The erosion has left Republicans searching for ways to hold together a coalition that 18 months ago appeared to signal a broader political realignment. Some of the figures in the so-called manosphere who helped amplify Trump’s appeal are now openly criticizing him. Meanwhile, in another sign of his slipping cultural cache, most of the musical acts scheduled to participate in Trump’s Freedom 250 concert series have dropped out, threatening the festivities and injecting more controversy into the broader celebration.
White, however, has remained steadfast in support of his longtime friend. And he has designed this month’s event for maximum appeal at a time when Trump’s standing is deteriorating with UFC’s core audience. It features eight American fighters and two major title bouts. It will take place under a towering claw unlike anything constructed on the White House grounds, with about 85,000 people watching from the Ellipse, and it will be proceeded by a Zac Brown Band concert.
“I don’t care if you’re the furthest crazy left, or the furthest crazy right, or right down the middle,” White said in a wide-ranging interview with CNN’s Sara Sidner at the Las Vegas UFC Performance Institute, part of a documentary exploring the decadeslong partnership between the UFC president and President Trump. “If you are an American, you will enjoy this show.”
The documentary airs Sunday, June 7 at 8 p.m. ET on CNN’s “The Whole Story with Anderson Cooper.” It will be available on CNN All Access on Monday, June 8.
‘Everybody told me not to do it’
For Trump and White, the June 14 event marks the culmination of a partnership that has spanned a quarter century, beginning when White first acquired UFC and Trump agreed to host fights for the little-known mixed-martial arts league at one of his Atlantic City casinos.
“He got it early,” White said, “and then as we continued to grow, every time something big would happen, to the business and in my career, he would reach out and say, ‘That’s incredible. I always knew you guys were going to do this.’”
The friendship entered the political arena in 2016, when Trump asked White to speak at the Republican National Convention. At the time, many Republicans were distancing themselves from the reality star-turned-GOP nominee, and White said advisers warned him against accepting the invitation.
“Literally everybody told me not to do it,” he told CNN. “Don’t do it, don’t get into politics.”
But White said he felt compelled to stand by someone who had given UFC a chance when critics — including the late Sen. John McCain, who would also become a Trump antagonist — had derided the violent sport as a form of human cockfighting.
White remained in Trump’s orbit through his first term and the chaotic aftermath of the 2020 election. And as Trump plotted a political comeback from exile in Palm Beach, White encouraged him to rethink his media strategy and seek out audiences beyond traditional conservative outlets.
“I felt like that if the president stayed on Fox he wasn’t going to win,” White said. “What I do know is he can sit on a three-hour podcast and be relatable to a lot of people.”
Before Trump had formally launched another campaign, White introduced him to the Nelk Boys, a group of Canadian pranksters with a growing online following, according to Alex Bruesewitz, the Trump adviser who oversaw the campaign’s digital strategy. YouTube later removed their interview with Trump over election misinformation claims, but Bruesewitz said the controversy only expanded the Nelk Boys’ reach while boosting Trump credibility within an online ecosystem that catered to anti-establishment and non-conformist views.
White gave Trump advisers a list of other digital mavens whose audience might find the former president compelling. Over the next two years, Trump immersed himself in the digital world of podcasters, comedians, streamers and online figures increasingly influential with disengaged young men.
“He introduced me to people I never heard of, young kids,” Trump recently told TIME. “I mean, I was being interviewed by 20-year-old kids. I’m saying, ‘Where the hell did you meet these people?’ They’re called influencers. But I did a lot. I became friendly with some of them. They’re nice kids, and they do have a big audience, and everything helps.”
The strategy fueled the perception of a changing political order. If millennials helped define the resistance to Trump during his first term, Gen Z men in MAGA hats became an enduring image of his political comeback.
“When I was 22, I couldn’t even tell you who the governor was,” White said. “Now these 22-year-olds are crazy political.”
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The results were evident at the polls: Four years after losing men under 30 by double digits, Trump carried the demographic in 2024.
An anxious demographic
It didn’t take long for young men to begin slipping away from Trump.
By the middle of his first year back in office, polls showed growing frustration among young voters struggling with high living costs, an increasingly inaccessible housing market, Trump’s foreign policy decisions and how artificial intelligence was reshaping their job prospects.
John Della Volpe, director of polling at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Institute of Politics, said young men are becoming less ideological and more driven by their lived experiences — a dynamic that initially helped Trump but is now contributing to their disenchantment with him.
“They’re making decisions on whether their life feels stable, hopeful, affordable and in their control,” said Volpe, who has overseen the Harvard Youth Poll for more than 25 years. “That was the prism of why a significant number shifted to Republican support in 2024 and that’s the lens they’re carrying into the summer as we head toward midterms.”
The latest Harvard Youth Poll found that half of young men aren’t certain if they’ll vote in November, while roughly a quarter expressed overall cynicism with the political system. Just 10% identified themselves as MAGA and only 27% want to see Republicans control Congress.
Against this backdrop, Trump is facing mounting criticism from some of the figures who helped introduce him to new audiences during the 2024 campaign.
Joe Rogan, the podcaster and UFC commentator close to White who endorsed Trump in the final moments of the 2024 election, recently said the war with Iran has left Trump supporters feeling “betrayed.” Comedians Andrew Schulz and Theo Von, both of whom hosted Trump on their web shows during the election, have also increasingly criticized the administration.
A senior White House adviser acknowledged the challenge of maintaining support among younger men but downplayed the impact these figures will have in shaping the narrative of this election.
“There’s other ways to reach those audiences, and we will,” the adviser said, “And we will cobble a coalition together by hook or by crook.”
Democrats ‘failing to capitalize’
In the near term, that effort includes the upcoming UFC fight. Planning for the fight card started just days after Trump’s 2024 victory celebration, which included a triumphant victory speech from White. Trump has been closely involved in the planning with White, who visited the White House this week.
About one-in-four men under 35 consider themselves fans of mixed-martial arts, according to a survey about the fast-growing sport released last fall provided to CNN by Ipsos. Viewership data published earlier this year by the online sportsbook BetMGM found the age group most likely to regularly watch UFC fights is 25- to 35-year-olds, and 90% of viewers are males.
Trump has regularly promoted the event, hosting fighters at the White House and posting updates on the arena construction to social media. But it has also drawn critics, including Rogan, who plans to attend but has raised security concerns and called the fights “kind of a gimmick.”
Volpe said recreating the political and cultural energy of 2024 may prove difficult if young voters continue to feel financially and emotionally unsettled.
“The cultural part works, but it’s trumped by the experience,” he said.
Even so, White House officials remain optimistic that young men will not drift toward Democrats, whose approval rating among the demographic remains deeply under water.
Rob Flaherty, a veteran Democratic digital strategist, said his party was failing to capitalize on the opening. The recently released Democratic National Committee autopsy, for example, referenced young men just once, while “podcast” and “Rogan” went unmentioned.
Flaherty said Democrats could build a populist message around AI that can animate young people scared about their futures, but argued “the Democratic Party is chickensh*t and scared of Silicon Valley money and is missing out on the biggest opportunity in a generation to build a more fair and just society.”
White, meanwhile, believes many young men still feel alienated by Democrats — and sees UFC as both a cultural outlet and political signal. And he’s eager to bring his sport to a historic stage.
“We have a blast, we break records, and we put on great fights,” White said. “That’s what we do.”
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CNN’s Ariel Edwards-Levy contributed to this report.