NYC Concert Counters Trump's White House UFC Birthday
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- Donald Trump is hosting a UFC event on the White House South Lawn for his birthday, estimated to cost upwards of $60 million in taxpayer resources, in a sequel to last year's sparsely attended military parade on the National Mall.
- Jane Fonda will headline the "Rise Up Sing Out" benefit concert on June 14 at New York City's Town Hall — a 1,500-seat auditorium founded by suffragists in the 1920s — with Bette Midler, Patti Smith, Rufus Wainwright, and Joy Reid, raising funds for the Committee for the First Amendment she revived last year.
- The White House UFC event breaks with longstanding ethics norms by featuring corporate sponsorships from Crypto.com, Dodge Ram, Bud Light, and Polymarket, a departure from the traditional avoidance of the appearance that corporations can buy presidential access.
- Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has set strict physical fitness requirements that military members must meet to attend the event, among a guest list that includes the Trump family, Jared and Ivanka Kushner, cabinet members, and right-wing celebrities.
- Ezra Levin, co-founder of Indivisible and organizer of the No Kings movement, told Rolling Stone the counter-concert aims to redirect public attention toward "something with a pro-democracy bent" given that the UFC event will be effectively closed to the public.
- An unidentified organization has filed a lawsuit in a last-ditch attempt to shut down the UFC event before fights take place, though wet and muggy Washington D.C. weather is also expected.
Why it matters: A $60 million taxpayer-funded birthday UFC event on the South Lawn — sponsored by major corporations and attended by military members who must clear fitness hurdles set by the Defense Secretary — collapses the traditional wall between the presidency, corporate donors, and the armed forces, while a celebrity-led counter-concert revives McCarthy-era organizing infrastructure to frame Trump's presidency as a fascist norm-breaking crisis rather than a normal administration.
