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On Sunday night, the White House South Lawn will host a series of UFC fights as part of America's 250th anniversary celebrations. Sunday also happens to be President Trump's 80th birthday. The event is another in a series of passion projects taking up the president's attention while the war with Iran continues. NPR's Danielle Kurtzleben reports.
DANIELLE KURTZLEBEN, BYLINE: Trump announced the fights at a rally in Des Moines almost a year ago.
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PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: We're going to have a UFC fight - think of this - on the grounds of the White House.
KURTZLEBEN: So now there is a UFC arena at the White House. And tied to the anniversary, other planned events include a rally on the National Mall and an Indy car race in the streets of D.C. And then there are the building projects. At official events, whether it's bill signings or announcements, Trump has taken to going on tangents about the reflecting pool and a pedestrian bridge he wants to build near the Lincoln Memorial. At a farmer round table in Wisconsin, he told the machine shed full of attendees about fountains.
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TRUMP: None of the fountains, not one fountain in Washington worked out of the 22 fountains. They're all looking beautiful, just like the one I showed you.
KURTZLEBEN: Plus, he has knocked down the White House East Wing to build a ballroom and an underground military complex, and he's planning a massive arch near Arlington National Cemetery. The White House has defended many of these actions by pointing to past presidents' projects. And that's true to an extent, says Princeton professor of history Julian Zelizer.
JULIAN ZELIZER: You can find bits and pieces of what President Trump has done that are done very differently and with different purposes.
KURTZLEBEN: He points to boxing matches held by President Theodore Roosevelt and Truman's heavy White House renovations when the White House needed structural repairs. But all of Trump's side projects happen as the U.S. is at war with Iran, inflation has passed 4% and his approval has sunk. Russia's war in Ukraine, which Trump once vowed to end, rages on. And he has mostly stopped talking about a healthcare overhaul, all of which cast this weekend's fights in a different light.
ZELIZER: In addition to just how big it is and how much space it's literally and symbolically taking in his presidency at a moment the nation's in the middle of a war, it also raises all these conflict of interest questions, which are also different than having a boxing match in the White House.
KURTZLEBEN: A watchdog group has filed a lawsuit attempting to halt the fight, noting the money that UFC stands to make off the event and that Trump owns up to $50,000 of stock in the company that owns UFC. The DOJ has responded saying, in part, it would be too disruptive to halt an event a year in the making and noting past presidents' White House events. White House spokesperson Davis Ingle insisted to NPR there are no conflicts of interest and added that Trump's assets are in a trust managed by his children. Speaking to NPR recently, the UFC CEO Dana White, who introduced Trump at the 2024 Republican National Convention, insisted Sunday's event is purely about America's birthday, not Trump's birthday. He added, though, that UFC fights do reflect Trump's personality.
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DANA WHITE: 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.
KURTZLEBEN: Second-term presidents think about their legacies, and there is a sense in all of this that Trump is thinking about his. In the case of Sunday's fights, he will be doing so with an organization he has a long history with. And Trump knows the sport. In 2023, he did an extended interview on the "UFC Unfiltered" podcast, where he riffed on what happens as fighters age.
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TRUMP: As you get older, it's not that you can't do it. I think you're physically the same. Maybe in some ways, you're stronger and better, but you don't have that same motivation to do it.
KURTZLEBEN: Trump supporters have long said they see him as a fighter. And on the cusp of his 80th birthday, as he navigates the end of his presidency, he may also be showing what does and doesn't motivate him.
Danielle Kurtzleben, NPR News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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