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The UFC fight President Donald Trump is hosting at the White House has caused no shortage of controversy and chaos, and on Thursday, it added a new headache to the affair: travel disruption, specifically for a bipartisan congressional delegation.
According to reporting from Politico on Friday morning, “A delegation of prominent Republicans and Democrats from Michigan and the Midwest were delayed for more than an hour on a Delta flight from Washington to Detroit.” These included Representatives Debbie Dingell (D-MI), Lisa McClain (R-MI), Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), Bob Latta (R-OH), and Shri Thanedar (D-MI).
The reason the pilot gave for the delay: no flights were being allowed to depart from the DC airport due to rehearsals for an airshow linked to the upcoming UFC fight. When asked about the situation, a White House spokesperson told Politico, “There were planned, temporary airspace holds put in place while crews performed a rehearsal in relation to Sunday’s historic UFC Freedom 250 event.”
The pilot told the passengers that if they wanted to register a complaint, they should call their congressperson.
Trump’s decision to hold a UFC fight on the South Lawn to mark America’s 250th and his 80th birthdays has inspired wide-ranging disruption and criticism. Extensive road closures in the D.C. region surrounding the White House are expected to cause “traffic mayhem” over the weekend, while Secret Service agents face a “summer of stress” as what one official described as a “violent Easter Egg Roll” complicates the agency’s already packed schedule.
While Trump and UFC officials have assured the public that the fighting organization would cover the costs, the event has required immense governmental resources. Not only has it so far cost at least $60 million, requiring engagement with seven agencies and hundreds of workers on a daily basis, but construction of the fighting ring has destroyed the White House grounds. Trump has suggested that he will “never take it down.”
The event has proven wildly unpopular with Americans. As the latest polls show, just 16 percent of voters think it’s “appropriate” for Trump to host the fight at the White House. On Saturday, a lawsuit was filed that seeks to end the event, arguing, "This is fundamentally a private, commercial, corrupt use of our most sacred national monuments for private gain.” In response to the lawsuit, DOJ lawyers declared that no one was holding the plaintiffs in a “jiu jitsu lock” forcing them to watch the fight, and that its preparation had taken too much time and money to stop it now.
Even many mixed martial arts fans are bothered by the fight. “A bunch of the core fanbase is struggling right now,” said Kyle Green, a sociologist who focuses on the intersection of sports and politics. “And the central question we’re asking them is, what does this do to your fandom? For some of them, they’re like, ‘I can’t watch this anymore.’”