Adam Schiff torched Donald Trump as cranes towered over the White House lawn assembling the president’s bizarre UFC birthday spectacle.
“Trump is building a golden ballroom and for his birthday party — arranging a UFC fight on the White House grounds — while you’re fighting to pay this month’s bills. Could he be more out of touch?” the Democratic California senator wrote on X.
Schiff’s swipe came as construction crews began erecting a temporary UFC arena on White House grounds. While billed as part of America’s 250th anniversary celebrations, the June 14 spectacle also conveniently doubles as the president’s 80th birthday party.
The spectacle lands as Americans remain deeply pessimistic about the economy amid rising cost-of-living pressures. A University of Michigan survey released this month found consumer sentiment had fallen to an all-time low, with high prices and fuel costs continuing to erode household finances.
The grim economic mood has coincided with collapsing approval numbers for the president.
A recent RealClearPolitics polling average found the president’s disapproval rating had climbed higher than at any point in either term, including after the Jan. 6 Capitol riots in 2021.
Trump has repeatedly hyped the White House spectacle as “the greatest show on Earth,” and used his close relationship with UFC president Dana White to turn the White House lawn into a made-for-TV fight night.
White said 4,300 spectators—mostly members of the military—will watch the fights from the White House, while another 85,000 free tickets will be distributed for public viewing at nearby Ellipse Park.
“The taxpayers aren’t paying anything,” White said in an interview on CBS Mornings.
“We’re paying the bill for this whole fight. And I can’t sell a hot dog, a T-shirt or a ticket. Nothing can be sold on federal land.”
But the White House UFC circus became even murkier after reports emerged that wealthy insiders were quietly being offered exclusive $1.5 million VIP access packages.
Mixed martial arts journalist Ariel Helwani revealed that “high rollers” were being pitched exclusive access to the administration’s event, despite Trump publicly branding it as a free patriotic celebration.
“It’s a deck being sent out to a lot of influential people, high rollers,” Helwani said on his eponymous podcast.
His co-host, Conner Burks ,openly mocked the cost and argued that the real product being sold was access to Trump’s inner orbit.
“That’s like a $1.45 million seat to the White House… all that other stuff is at most $50,000," Burks said.
The increasingly extravagant UFC rollout is unfolding alongside Trump’s other massive White House vanity project: a $400 million “golden ballroom.”
Renderings of the ballroom project have fueled accusations that Trump is transforming the White House into a gold-plated personal resort.
Trump has been enraged by efforts to slow the ballroom’s construction, repeatedly lashing out at judges, lawmakers, and preservation advocates while increasingly framing the project as a national security necessity following recent shootings near the White House.
“This event is one month removed from the White House Correspondent’ Dinner shooting, and goes to show how important it is, for all future Presidents, to get, what will be, the most safe and secure space of its kind ever built in Washington, D.C.,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
“The National Security of our Country demands it!”
The ballroom project has triggered lawsuits and court battles, with Federal Judge Richard Leon criticizing the administration’s financing structure as a “Rube Goldberg” arrangement apparently designed to sidestep congressional oversight.
The Daily Beast has contacted the White House for comment on Schiff’s post.
Schiff’s criticism comes as he prepares legislation targeting Trump’s $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization fund,” a controversial pool of money the senator claims could become a slush fund for Trump’s political allies.
Schiff called the fund “the most brazen act of self-dealing corruption we’ve ever seen.”
“We need to shut it down before he uses it to pay cop beaters, cronies and other criminals,” he said in a statement to Semafor.
