In a scene that might have seemed implausible even a few years ago, a federal judge on Saturday rejected a last-minute legal challenge to President Trump’s plan to host a UFC title fight on the White House South Lawn. The event, part of America’s 250th anniversary celebrations and coinciding with Trump’s 80th birthday on Sunday, features an octagon surrounded by thousands of seats beneath a 28-meter-tall, 600-ton steel structure nicknamed “The Claw.”
Trump had called it “a birthday party the likes of which you have never seen.” Opponents argued the event was an inappropriate use of the executive mansion, but the judge cited a lack of legal standing and the sheer scale of preparations already underway as reasons for declining to intervene. The show will go on.
