WASHINGTON – First Lady Melania Trump is set to accompany President Trump at a UFC event on the South Lawn this Sunday night. Joining them will be several of the president’s adult children and a gathering of 5,000 special guests, including Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt.
Donald Trump Jr. and his new wife, Bettina, are expected to make their first public appearance as a married couple, according to sources familiar with the family. Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, along with Eric and Lara Trump, are also slated to be present at the event.
The occasion marks a temporary return to the White House for Karoline Leavitt, who is currently on maternity leave following the birth of her second child. She will be attending alongside her husband, Nicholas Riccio.
This UFC event will see a rare appearance by the First Lady at the fights. Although she has attended such events previously, she often opts to sit them out. During a UFC fight in Miami back in April, Ivanka Trump accompanied the president.
Sunday’s event coincides with President Trump’s 80th birthday. As the president and his family enjoy the action from ringside, additional seating is being arranged around the octagonal ring to accommodate the president’s special guests and members of the military.
And about 85,000 people will be on the other side of the fence on the National Mall’s Ellipse, where they will watch the bouts on massive screens.
The excitement is building along with the mounds of infrastructure necessary to run the high-profile event.
The White House is getting spruced up ahead of the match: columns at the North entrance are receiving a fresh coat of white paint, new plants are being installed on the lawn, and a massive fight ring has been built on the South Lawn, complete with an overhead lighting system known as “the claw” and rows of bleachers.
The UFC is taking over 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue on Sunday, using all parts of the campus to run the event.
Craig Borsari, the UFC official in charge of executing the event, told ESPN the scale of the project, including the number of government agencies involved, was enormous.
“In order to get a project approved, there’s so many groups you need to go through and vet,” he said, naming off the Secret Service, White House operations, the Department of Homeland Security, the National Park Service and even the Pentagon.
While the South Lawn will host the fight itself and 5,000 guests, the North Lawn will serve as the staging area for fighters.
Some fighters may walk to the Octagon from the Oval Office, UFC CEO Dana White has said previously.
But most of the fighters will prepare in makeshift locker rooms in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. Several rooms, including the ornate Indian Treaty Room, in that building are being utilized by the organization.
Fighters will be escorted around the campus by Secret Service and UFC personnel.
Weigh-ins will happen in public at the Lincoln Memorial, which is currently closed off to the public as temporary staging is being erected.
The seven-bout card will feature a lightweight title bout between champion Ilia Topuria and interim champion Justin Gaethje. Other fighters, including international ones, will take their place in the octagon.
“The fight card is going to be going to be really good at the White House,” a senior administration official said. “I mean, you have some pretty good up and comers on the fight card, you have champions on the fight card.”
The UFC is paying for the event. The $60 million budget covered building the giant portable arena, the bleacher seating, concessions, and bathrooms for guests.
Contingency plans are in place for bad weather. And the UFC will also pay for the cleanup, budgeting $700,000 to $1 million to repair the South Lawn alone.
Unless the ring stays, something President Trump has publicly mulled.
He noted in a video on the White House TikTok account that the Eiffel Tower in Paris was built to be a temporary structure for the 1889 World’s Fair but then: “They never took it down.”
“You know, we’re building something in front of the White House that’s quite attractive to a lot of people,” Trump said. “And I’m looking at it, and maybe we’ll never, ever take it down.”