A Taste for the Vulgar
“He’s pissed, and people are not recognizing the level of pissed that he is.”
This startling statement — who would ever think our leader was “pissed”? — came from a MAGA operative close to the White House who can sense such things.1 The operative continued ominously: “He does not like being put in a box. When you put him in a box, then Trump’s going to blow the box up.”2
So how about a cage?
Just what the doctor ordered. And Trump has had a cage erected for his UFC Freedom 250 event taking place on the White House south lawn starting June 14, his 80th birthday. Its sinewy mesh is built to withstand the force of even a pissed-off Donald Trump in his sparring shorts. And the speculation rippling through the country: Will No-Holds-Barred Donny fight? Trump shouldn’t begrudge a nation wanting to see gore, his gore. He got them accustomed to Trump-style corruption. Now, he’s whetted their appetite for violence, and naturally the cry is for Trump to floor some tattooed, overly muscled hyper-killer with a spot-on headbutt. He should be pleased.
As for corruption, the event hasn’t missed a beat. Within weeks and with no advice, permission, review, guidance, or approval from anyone, Trump turned the White House into a national marketing venue, reserved the Lincoln Memorial for the UFC barbarian face-offs, and effortlessly skimmed $103 million that Congress had appropriated for the actual national holiday for his own birthday party. Aware of potential hitches, Donald also took care to categorize the event as an official act of his presidency, removing it from legal scrutiny. To top it off, Donald is presenting his UFC cage fight carnage as a highly desirable substitute for the near-hallow commemoration of our great union’s 250th birthday.
Besides corruption, which he delivered in accustomed surfeit, Trump has promised a glut of vulgarity. Seven UFC Freedom 250 fights have been scheduled to take place within the serene eaves of the White House. In seven separate matches, UFC champions will square off, then zero in to slam, squeeze, smear, and squelch each other to a stain on the Octagon canvas. A blood spurt now and again would be great. Maybe a tooth or two scudding out into the crowd for souvenir seekers. Sweat, of course, will be everywhere.
But those filthy scuffles are to serve merely as prolog to the real confrontation. After the screams of contenders have died away and the clots of blood, shreds of scalp, and effluences from bruised bodies are mopped away, Donald Trump will be hoisted up to take his rightful place in the epicenter as the master of world combat, shining and immaculate in his special UFC fighting suit, a gold helmet fitted neatly on his head, little golden wings at each temple, his punching gloves carefully fitted with gold knuckles, which Trump knows work as well as brass ones.
This is the event for which Trump sold a thousand million-dollar tickets. This is the event for which corporations, the wealthy, and those who count bought his million-dollar tickets.
Commodus charged the Roman treasury up to 1 million sesterces for each of his Colosseum performances. Trump has not yet worked out how to charge the Treasury directly for his labors.
When Roman Emperor Lucius Aelius Aurelius Commodus strode in gladiatorial garb into the Colosseum arena to battle true gladiators, the crowds in 190 AD averaged 65,000. Trump announced his crowd will be 100,000, gathered at the 52-acre Ellipse park eager to watch his cage fights on jumbotrons. Commodus charged the Roman treasury up to 1 million sesterces for each of his Colosseum performances.3 Trump has not yet worked out how to charge the Treasury directly for his labors without the fuss of a tacky $10 billion lawsuit. But Trump invented something Commodus never dreamed of: partner investment packages. Trump scarfed over a thousand free UFC tickets and turned them into personal favors only high-net-worth individuals and wealthy corporations could afford. For $1 million, maybe $1.5 million, those high-account entities get access to the biggest marketing venue in the world. As the New York Times described:4
The cage itself was an eight-sided feat of marketeering, its every angle prominently displaying the name of some sponsor who’d paid big bucks to have their brands juxtaposed against the ultimate backdrop: Live Trade on Polymarket … Bud Light … Pit Boss Grills … Total Wireless … Dial #Law Morgan & Morgan … Toyo Tires. The words “crypto.com” were carved into each little metal step leading into the ring.
Commodus never made out so well.
Yet, the well-worn saying hasn’t changed: those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it. Donald vigorously embraces the first part of that adage. He knows nothing of history and doesn’t need to. Everything he needs to know about running a country, kidnapping Latin American dictators, restraining Israeli prime ministers, blowing up drug traffickers, or starting Middle East wars he knows. Why should history be of interest to him? The repeat part of that adage — of which Trump is also ignorant — bears an edge. Despite knowing everything he needs to know, Trump does not know that Commodus was strangled in his bath by what today would be his UFC trainer.
But Trump needn’t worry in any case. He won’t be repeating history. He’s not going to let himself be heaved up onto the UFC Octagon. His fans will be rewarded many times over by the glimpse they will get on the jumbotron of their leader wedged in his seat in his bulletproof box — the one his MAGA operative thought he would bust out of — arrayed in his fighting splendor, snoozing away.
- https://www.politico.com/newsletters/playbook/2026/06/11/knives-are-out-inside-the-white-house-00958341?template_id=OT5J0E7B7DD7&is_login_link=true ↩︎
- So what happens when Trump puts his own self in a box? He does that a lot. ↩︎
- About $10 million in today’s currency. ↩︎
- https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/11/us/politics/trump-ufc-claw-white-house.html ↩︎