Picture: Luke Hales/Getty Photographs
Donald Trump loves dehumanizing migrants for political achieve. He additionally loves watching individuals beat the crap out of one another for cash. Now, he’s lastly discovered a approach to mix the 2.
In a pair of speeches on Saturday, together with one at a convention for Evangelical Christians, Trump stated that he had advised Final Preventing Championship president Dana White that he ought to arrange a “migrant league of fighters” in parallel to the UFC, and that there needs to be an annual struggle between the champions of each leagues. Trump, who ceaselessly attends UFC occasions and has had a protracted friendship with White, was not expressing admiration for the mixed-martial-arts skills of migrants or his love of underdogs; he advised the story to help his unfounded declare that the majority undocumented migrants are violent and harmful criminals, or “animals,” who’re destroying the nation.
Right here’s the model of the story he advised on the Religion & Freedom Coalition’s Highway to Majority convention in Washington, D.C., on Saturday afternoon:
Did anybody ever hear of Dana White? I stated, “Dana, I’ve an thought. Why don’t you arrange a migrant league of fighters and have your common league of fighters, after which you’ve got the champion of your league — these are the best fighters on the planet — struggle the champion of the migrants.” I believe the migrant man would possibly win, that’s how powerful they’re. He didn’t like that concept an excessive amount of. However really, it’s not the worst thought I’ve ever had. These are powerful individuals, these individuals are powerful, and so they’re nasty, imply.
The story prompted laughter from some within the Evangelical viewers:
Then, at a rally in Philadelphia on Saturday night, Trump repeated the story, including that he had advised White the concept would “make some huge cash.”
White later advised reporters Trump had made the suggestion as “a joke.”
Trump’s darkish political motives apart, he’s in all probability not somebody White ought to take moneymaking recommendation from. One among Trump’s many failed enterprise ventures previous to working for president was the MMA firm Affliction Leisure, which tried to problem UFC’s PPV dominance again in 2008. Michael Cohen was the COO. It ran out of cash and folded after internet hosting solely two occasions. Alternatively, Trump is now arguably probably the most well-known convicted prison who loves cage combating on the planet.
Joke or not, Trump including his migrant-fight-club thought to his stump speech is yet one more instance of him advocating violence as a approach to remedy what he perceives to be America’s issues, and by no means extra so than throughout his 2024 marketing campaign.
