Dana White wants out.
After nearly a decade of trying to help his friend Donald Trump occupy the Oval Office, the UFC boss told The New Yorker he “wants nothing to do with politics.”
“I’m never f—ing doing this again,” he told the magazine. “I want nothing to do with this s–t. It’s gross. It’s disgusting.”
His remarks came as Trump took a victory lap at last Saturday’s UFC fight with an entourage that included Elon Musk, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Tulsi Gabbard, and musician Kid Rock.
White himself also joined their group after endorsing Trump at this year’s Republican National Convention and stumping for him on the campaign trail.
The promoter has been loyal to Trump for years, after Trump agreed to host UFC fights at his since-bankrupt Taj Mahal casino in Atlantic City back in 2001, when most venues considered cage fighting too violent.
Originally marketed as a blood sport with no gloves and hardly any rules, mixed martial arts was nearly regulated out of existence by the time White took over, The New Yorker reported.
Trump told the crowd at his election-night party his friend’s love of MMA was contagious—before handing White, 55, the mic.
“Nobody deserves this more than him, and nobody deserves this more than his family does,” White told the crowd. “He’s the most resilient, hardworking man I’ve ever met in my life.”
White was also responsible for setting up the president-elect with appearances on right-leaning podcasts, helping Trump bring his message to millions of young listeners—particularly young men.
In 2016, he told the Republican National Convention he would “always be grateful—so grateful—to him for standing with us in those early days. So tonight, I stand with Donald Trump.”
In 2018, he visited Trump at the White House and urged the then-president to attend a UFC event. Two years later, during the 2020 election, he donated $1 million to a pro-Trump super PAC and appeared at his political rallies.
That’s nearly a decade of service to Team Trump. But now that Trump is entering his second and presumably final term in office in January, suddenly White is ready to be done with politics.
