UFC president Dana White turned heads when he became one of the first high-profile people to endorse Donald Trump’s bid for U.S. president.
White’s support was such that he spoke on Trump’s behalf at the Republican National Convention in the summer of 2016.
For White, this wasn’t just about politics. He has an old-school sense of Boston Irish loyalty, and Trump welcomed UFC events at his casinos long before most of North America opened doors to MMA.
“When we first bought the UFC, no venues wanted us,” White told The Boston Globe in an interview released Friday. “He actually reached out and said, ‘Come to the Taj (Mahal). We’d love to have you at the Taj.’ So our first two events were at the Taj Mahal. He showed up at the first fight, stayed until the last fight. Couldn’t have been nicer. Cut us a great deal.
” … Then, for the rest of my career, anything good that ever happened, the president was the first guy to pick up the phone and call me. He said, ‘Congratulations. I knew you were going to do this. I knew this thing was going to big. I knew this, I knew that.’”
But then Trump won the presidency over Hillary Clinton in a deeply polarizing election, and in its third year, his administration is mired in what seems to be a never-ending string of scandals. The House of Representatives has opened an impeachment inquiry, and a recent Gallup poll found that 52 percent of Americans support his impeachment and removal from office, including 55 percent of self-identified independents.
White, for his part, still stands by Trump. But he also said he doesn’t agree with everything the President does or says.
“Everybody thinks I’m a Republican, but I’m not a Republican,” White said. “I’m for the best man or woman for the job. I don’t agree with all of his politics. But it doesn’t matter what president is in there – I don’t agree with everything they say.
“There’s a little bit of me that’s Republican, and there’s a little bit of me that’s Democratic. I believe in taking care of people that don’t have, I believe in taking care of the planet – you know, all that type of stuff.”
On the other hand, White is a member of the small percentage of Americans in the uppermost income brackets who receive the bulk of benefits of the recent changes to the federal tax code under Trump’s watch, so there still remain things that he and the President see eye-to-eye on.
“Then there’s a conservative side to me, too,” White said. “I believe in less taxes, and so I don’t agree with all his policies. And I definitely don’t agree with all of his tweets and the things that he says. But there’s a lot of people that I’m friends with that I don’t agree with everything they believe in and everything they say. It’s not that perfect, and that black and white. … He’s been one of the most solid guys that I’ve ever come across.”
Dana White admits he doesn't agree with many Donald Trump tweets but still stands by him
