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sabrina taverniseHey, it’s Sabrina. Before we get started, a few details about a major developing story that’s still being pieced together. According to investigators, in the early hours of Wednesday morning, an armed man driving a rented pickup truck deliberately plowed into a crowd celebrating New Year’s Eve in New Orleans, killing at least 15 people and injuring dozens more. In a short speech last night, President Biden said that the driver, a US Army veteran who died during the attack, had been inspired by the Islamic State and had expressed a clear desire to kill.
Investigators said that they are still trying to determine whether he had acted alone, or had any help from individuals or a group. These are the key facts we know for now. We’ll be following developments over the next few hours. And we’ll bring them to you as soon as we can. OK, here’s today’s show.
olivia nattThis is “Daily” producer, Olivia Natt. I am in Las Vegas, outside an arena where, tonight, there’s going to be a UFC Championship fight. I am notoriously squeamish. So I’m really excited to talk to people about why they like this sport, why they’re here tonight. And I’m going to go talk to some of them.
It is a microphone. Do you have a couple of minutes to answer some questions?
speaker 1Oh, hell, yeah!
speaker 2Yeah, let’s get some questions going. Let’s get some questions going.
olivia nattWhy are you guys here tonight? What do you like about watching fights?
speaker 1The combat is, ooh, I love it!
speaker 2You never know, it’s two men in a cage.
speaker 1It’s man versus man, beast versus beast!
speaker 3I really enjoy the special moments where people get knocked out.
speaker 1It’s live action. It lets you know who you are.
olivia nattI’ve never been to a fight before. What should I expect tonight?
speaker 1You’re going to go?
olivia nattUh-huh.
speaker 1Nice. Expect somebody’s going to get knocked out, choked out. Anything can happen in this octagon. You will enjoy this. I promise you.
olivia nattOK.
speaker 1You will enjoy this.
sabrina taverniseFrom “The New York Times,” I’m Sabrina Tavernise. And this is “The Daily.”
olivia nattAll right, I’m walking over to the octagon. And it sounds like the first fights have just kicked off.
speaker 4Kick it! Come on, baby! You can do it!
[MUSIC PLAYING]
sabrina taverniseOver the past five years, one sports league has gained popularity faster than any other, the Ultimate Fighting Championship, or UFC.
speaker 4Don’t stop!
sabrina taverniseToday, my colleague, Matt Flegenheimer, on the man behind the league and how his longtime friendship with Donald Trump has transformed what was once a fringe sport into a cultural and political powerhouse.
speaker 1Oh, shit!
sabrina taverniseIt’s Thursday, January 2nd.
speaker 4Let’s go!
[MUSIC PLAYING]
sabrina taverniseMatt Flegenheimer.
matt flegenheimerSabrina Tavernise.
sabrina taverniseWelcome to the show.
matt flegenheimerThank you so much for having me.
sabrina taverniseSo, Matt, we’re going to talk today about UFC. But I have something to admit to you.
matt flegenheimerBy all means.
sabrina taverniseI have actually never watched it. So let’s start with the basics, Matt. Tell us what the UFC is.
matt flegenheimerSure. UFC stands for Ultimate Fighting Championship. It’s the primary promotion associated with mixed martial arts. It is a cage fighting enterprise, which combines elements of kickboxing, wrestling, jiu-jitsu, into this kind of very painful medley of activities, in what they call the Octagon, this eight-sided cage where two fighters convene and beat each other up over a course of rounds.
sabrina taverniseOK, that probably explains why I’ve never heard of it. [LAUGHS]
matt flegenheimerIt also has been one of the fastest growing sports, a huge audience internationally, was acquired for $4 billion in 2016, has only grown since, not just in the sports world, but culturally and politically as well, and really has a kind of crowning moment in November.
sabrina taverniseAnd what happens in November?
matt flegenheimerSo, President-elect Trump, fresh off his election win, attends a fight at Madison Square Garden in New York City. Trump is sort of waiting in the wings with his entourage and walks out almost as if he is the fighter.
archived recording 1Making his way to the world famous Octagon, flanked by UFC CEO, Dana White, 45, soon to be 47th, President-elect, Donald Trump.
matt flegenheimerPresident and CEO of the UFC, Dana White, is to his left. Elon Musk is with him. Mike Johnson is with him.
archived recording 1Robert Kennedy alongside.
matt flegenheimerVarious cabinet members to be, if he has his way.
archived recording 2It’s so loud in here.
archived recording 3It is so loud!
matt flegenheimerAnd the crowd just loses its mind.
archived recording 3It’s always loud when he comes here. But now that he’s won, now that he’s the President again, oh, my god.
matt flegenheimerAnd Trump is taking this all in. This is obviously a very friendly room for him. And he has chosen this as a major post-election victory lap space.
sabrina taverniseYeah.
matt flegenheimerAnd he got the reception that he wanted.
archived recording 1We’re going to lead the greatest comeback in American history under Donald Trump’s leadership.
matt flegenheimerSo they’re showing this video on the jumbo-tron above the Octagon, showing various triumphant moments for the President-elect.
archived recording (donald trump)God spared my life for a reason.
matt flegenheimerAnd as the video ends, you see the number 45 flash across the screen. And then it moves to 47, showing his presidency and his presidency to be
sabrina taverniseOK, so, this is an extraordinary scene. And I want you to tell me, Matt, how we got here. Like, how did Trump choose a UFC fight for his coming out party as President-elect?
matt flegenheimerI think it’s actually a pretty natural choice for Trump, if you think about the arc of Trump and the UFC across, really, 20-plus years at this point. And that arc begins with Dana White. White has been a close friend and ally of Trump’s. And they’ve kind of risen in parallel and have developed an understanding, not just as people who are in business, who are transactional.
But I think, beyond that, there’s a sort of visceral understanding, mutually, about what it means to succeed in this American moment without having establishment forces behind you every step of the way. I think White understands that about Trump. And I think Trump understands that about White.
sabrina taverniseOK, so, tell me about Dana White.
matt flegenheimerSo, he’s from Boston. He sort of bounces around in his youth. He’s kind of a serial scofflaw, by his own account. He’s a hotel bellman for a bit, trains to be a boxer, becomes a boxing trainer, winds up moving to Vegas, continues training, and eventually managing fighters, and really becomes sort of enthralled with the UFC. And this is the sort of mid to late-1990s. It’s a moment where the UFC is very much on the fringe. It is a young fledgling league with a quite bad reputation across a lot of the American mainstream.
archived recording 4We’re live from the Mile High City of Denver, Colorado. Eight of the deadliest fighters in the world will meet in a no-holds-barred combat.
matt flegenheimerAnd as a viewing experience, the production values were low. The venues were pretty grungy. This was not Saturday night at Madison Square Garden.
archived recording 4Be forewarned, there are no rules, no judges scores. And no —
matt flegenheimerThe UFC’s own tagline for a time was, there are no rules. That was sort of the pitch.
sabrina taverniseSo, really bloody.
matt flegenheimerBloody and lawless.
archived recording 4Eight street-tough warriors wage combat in a battle where anything can happen, and probably will.
matt flegenheimerJohn McCain calls it human cockfighting. States are banning it by the dozen. Venues don’t want to host fights. But despite all of that, Dana White really sees some potential in the UFC. And he sees a sort of appetite in the American audience and beyond for a level of violence through sports that, I think the expectation was, prior to that, maybe people didn’t quite have the stomach for.
sabrina taverniseOK, so he sees a path to it, despite the fact that people like John McCain say, it’s human cockfighting. And states are banning it.
matt flegenheimerYeah, I think, to White, this is an opportunity. So what he does is talks to a couple of high school buddies from a family of casino operators and convinces them to put up $2 million to buy the UFC at this moment, when it’s certainly not a premium property, and to put him in charge, and give him a stake, and really let him execute the vision that he has for what this sport can become.
sabrina taverniseSo what happens, given that no one really wants to host the thing?
matt flegenheimerThey find someone who does want to host the thing, or is at least willing.
archived recording 5Welcome to magnificent Atlantic City, New Jersey.
matt flegenheimerSomebody with a long history of hosting fights, at least boxing.
archived recording 5— the spectacular Trump Taj Mahal.
matt flegenheimerAnd that is the future President and President-elect, Donald Trump.
archived recording 5— gathered here in this building here tonight, some of the greatest Y2K gladiators in the world, set —
matt flegenheimerIn February 2001, at a moment when, as White would say later, nobody was taking them seriously, Donald Trump took them seriously.
sabrina taverniseSo, in this grand love story of Dana White and Donald Trump, this fight in Atlantic City is really the meet cute moment.
matt flegenheimerThis is the moment. And, obviously, White was grateful to be hosted by Trump, to have this sort of legitimacy that came with having a major fight night at a Trump venue at that time. With that said, this is not an overnight success, by any stretch. They’re losing money. It’s not taking off in any kind of rocket ship way.
But you can see some sort of early signs that Trump and White understand each other. Trump invites one of the fighters onto the “Celebrity Apprentice” for a season. And reality TV really plays a substantial role in the UFC’s arc.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
archived recording 6On this season of “The Ultimate Fighter —”
matt flegenheimerIn 2005, there was a reality show, “The Ultimate Fighter,” that debuts.
archived recording (dana white)Do you want to be a fighter? That’s the question.
archived recording 7That’s why I’m here.
archived recording (dana white)It’s not about living in a [BLEEP]: house. It’s about, do you want to be a fighter? And only you know that.
matt flegenheimerIt really helps drive interest and complete the picture of these fighters for viewers. They get attached to these sort of biographies, these compelling stories.
archived recording 8Now, apparently, Diego Sanchez is doing some kind of a yoga, bodybuilding pose-down, with baby oil all over his body.
archived recording 9You don’t want to face this in the ring!
archived recording 8That’s just not my style.
matt flegenheimerAnd it does really help the fights themselves get a sort of wider audience and gain more traction.
archived recording 10What a war between these two guys. So, you want to be an Ultimate Fighter? Five seconds.
[HORN]
Oh, what a finish!
matt flegenheimerTo such an extent, as the UFC grows, that Trump gets a little jealous.
sabrina tavernise[LAUGHS]: What does he do?
matt flegenheimerSo, in 2008, Trump announces, he’s investing in his own rival mixed martial arts enterprise. And he’s trying to harness some of the energy that the UFC is clearly channeling. But his group is not long for this world. And his operation collapses pretty quickly. But it’s really a testament to the Trump-White friendship.
The two of them are not necessarily the type to take kindly to business threats in their respective fields. And they stay on very good terms here. And, in 2011, the UFC signs a big TV contract. Trump sees an article about it, takes it, writes a message on it, and sends it to White, saying, congratulations. I always knew you were going to do it.
sabrina taverniseLike, he’s a proud mom or something.
matt flegenheimerAnd it’s both a compliment and self-regarding about his own instincts, that Trump — Trump saw it coming.
sabrina taverniseYeah, he spotted it, too.
matt flegenheimerThey spotted it together.
sabrina taverniseOK, so, clearly, these two have a lot in common. They’re businessmen. They both have this reality TV thing. They both see the potential in this very violent sport. What about their politics?
matt flegenheimerIn some ways, they approach politics from a similar vantage point, if you think about Trump before he was President. It’s very transactional, not ideological. Frankly, as the commissioner of a league that’s trying to appeal to as many people as possible, in general, those sorts of figures wouldn’t necessarily want to engage in partisan politics because the country is pretty evenly split. And you’re trying to cast a wide net.
sabrina taverniseYou would alienate half your audience.
matt flegenheimerSure, but then Trump runs for office in 2016. And he has a request when he becomes the Republican nominee, which is that Dana White speak at his convention that summer, which, obviously, would place him very much in the middle of partisan politics in a way that had not been a part of his profile previously. He has said, he was advised against doing it for all the reasons you would expect, that it would alienate potential sponsors. It would alienate fans.
sabrina taverniseSo it was kind of high stakes for him, because, potentially, it could alienate half his audience.
matt flegenheimerSure. But he does speak at that convention.
archived recording (dana white)What’s up, GOP?
matt flegenheimerAnd White himself leaned into the idea that it was sort of strange that he was there.
archived recording (dana white)I’m sure most of you are wondering, what are you doing here?
matt flegenheimerYou’re probably wondering, what are you doing here? It was kind of his opening.
archived recording (dana white)And I wanted to show up and tell you about my friend, Donald Trump, the Donald Trump that I know.
matt flegenheimerAnd he talked about the chance that Trump took on him in the UFC in 2001, his loyalty, his fighter instincts. He was the sort of validating voice that Trump wanted to have in that moment.
archived recording (dana white)Let me tell you something. I’ve been in the fight business my whole life. I know fighters, ladies and gentlemen. Donald Trump is a fighter. And I know he will fight for this country!
[CHEERS]
sabrina taverniseSo what’s the effect of all of this? Like, does it actually have repercussions on his business?
matt flegenheimerThe sky doesn’t fall, right? And I think that’s an important lesson that he learns in that moment. He goes out on this limb. He’s advised against doing something, much in the way that he was, in his telling, advised against giving it all to the UFC at the beginning. In this case, Dana White gives the speech at the RNC. It goes fine. And, as a matter of fact, Trump’s elected President. And, now, he knows the President.
sabrina taverniseRight. So the lesson is, go with your gut.
matt flegenheimerTrust your gut. And I think the lesson was that Dana White believed then. And believes now. That he knows his audience better than anyone. And, to him, that audience respects somebody who will do what he believes in, or at least project that he is doing what he believes in. He has been somebody with an antenna for this stuff, and for knowing where his audience would be across the decades.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
archived recording 11And, now, this fight is on fire in the UFC Welterweight!
speaker 5You’re in Section 11. That’ll be on your left. Section 12 will be on your right.
olivia nattDo you follow Dana White at all?
speaker 6Oh, hell, yeah. I love Dana White.
olivia nattWhat do you love about him?
speaker 6The fact that the man took over the sport when everyone thought it was going to go downhill. Some people, rich, famous people, are just sort of level. They’re a higher class. They look down on people. He’s in it. So he knows what real people want.
speaker 7I feel like UFC really allows people to speak their minds. And I know Uncle Dana kind of allows that. He’s the GOAT!
[CHEERS]
olivia nattOK, end of round one, going into round two.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
sabrina taverniseWe’ll be right back.
OK, so, White backs Trump. And, as you said, the sky doesn’t fall. And, in fact, it boosts his status and his league status. What’s the next thing he does that really propels this league?
matt flegenheimerWell, it comes during a pretty dark time across the sports landscape and otherwise. And it’s COVID. Obviously, sports are sort of shut down across the board. People are thirsting for any kind of content of any sort.
sabrina taverniseRight, because, remember, it was COVID. Everything shut down.
matt flegenheimerEverything shut down.
sabrina taverniseNBA stopped playing.
matt flegenheimerNBA stopped playing. And there was this real appetite to get something fresh and live on the air. And Dana White sees an opportunity. He’s trying to find workarounds. And he finds it in Florida, an empty arena in Jacksonville. The UFC becomes the first major American pro sporting event in the COVID age to reopen.
And, certainly, the expert consensus and the medical consensus was that this was not necessarily a fantastic idea. He is sort of bulldozing through that concern. And it was a moment when, obviously, the sports landscape was barren. He had a pretty captive audience. And it was really a showcase opportunity for the UFC.
sabrina taverniseSo, in part, it catches on because nothing else is on.
matt flegenheimerThat’s a huge piece of it. But it’s interesting. White obviously, for years, despite the speech in 2016 at the convention, had kind of positioned the UFC as the apolitical sport, in contrast to what he, and I think a lot of UFC fans, saw as kind of an overt intrusion of politics and protests and social justice initiatives into the NBA, the NFL.
The UFC was supposed to be sort of insulated from that. Of course, in this case, COVID became a great piece of the culture war. And by opening, reopening, at all, that’s a political stance, and certainly was aligned with where Trump was in that moment, as he was pushing for a broader reopening of the economy.
sabrina taverniseSo, suddenly, there starts to be some real overlap between the UFC and MAGA world.
matt flegenheimerAbsolutely. And it’s been building for some time. But this is the moment that really establishes White as a MAGA superstar of the highest order, in a way that even the convention speech didn’t. And you see the Trump orbit and the UFC orbit, the White orbit, kind of merge. And this cultural moment starts to form around disaffected men who feel slighted, who feel like the world has not been conspiring in their favor for some time.
sabrina taverniseThis is like the manosphere.
matt flegenheimerThe manosphere. And these sites become a gathering place for the leading lights of that intellectual space, this sort of amorphous, right wing, anti-woke, anti-establishment sentiment. And in this period of not being the President anymore, starting in 2021, Trump is kind of one of those figures. He becomes somebody who shows up at these fights, frankly, in moments of public turmoil for himself. One of the first public appearances he makes in his period of being a pariah after January 6th in 2021 is at a UFC fight.
sabrina taverniseInteresting.
matt flegenheimerAfter he’s indicted, he goes to a UFC fight. It becomes a sort of balm. And he’s walking in and getting a giant ovation among a lot of his supporters. And that obviously expanded over the course of these four years in between his terms.
sabrina taverniseSo, back to your larger point, this is more than a sports league.
matt flegenheimerAbsolutely. And White has accumulated a ton of cultural capital and political capital from being this grand figure in that space. And he knows when and how to use it. And I think the most interesting example of this in recent times is with Bud Light.
sabrina taverniseLike, the beer.
matt flegenheimerThe beer, Bud Light, the beer. Are you familiar with Bud Light as a brand?
sabrina tavernise[LAUGHS]: Matt, keep going.
archived recording 13Hi. Impressive carrying skills, right? I got some Bud Lights for us.
matt flegenheimerSo, in the spring of 2023, you see the beginnings of a huge backlash to Bud Light on the political right.
archived recording 13This month, I celebrated my day 365 of womanhood. And Bud Light sent me possibly the best gift ever, a can with my face on it.
matt flegenheimerOver a promotion they did, involving a transgender influencer.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
archived recording 14Let me say something to all of you, and be as clear and concise as possible. Fuck Bud Light. And fuck Anheuser-Busch.
matt flegenheimerSo, across conservative media, people are just hammering Bud Light.
archived recording (tucker carlson)Bud Light has just released a commemorative can, celebrating a man who dresses up like a woman.
archived recording 15This is another example of woke corporations and how they completely ignore everything that they really stand for, and the people that actually buy their product.
archived recording (dana white)I just don’t understand that as a marketing tool.
matt flegenheimerAnd Dana White is in the process of negotiating a beer sponsorship with Anheuser-Busch, Bud Light’s parent company. And he’s in a tough position, because he sort of stands accused of selling out for associating with Bud Light after this major backlash. But, obviously, the sponsorship is lucrative for the UFC.
archived recording 16Today’s guest is an entrepreneur. He’s a renegade. He’s a business mogul. And he is the head of the UFC.
matt flegenheimerSo what he does is, he sets about trying to un-cancel Bud Light.
archived recording (dana white)People are talking shit now, sell out, and all this shit. They’ll say — believe me, I’m the furthest fucking thing from a sellout.
matt flegenheimerAnd what White does is call himself as a character witness.
archived recording (dana white)Bud Light is the right move for me. They’re exactly who I want to be with right now. And we are very aligned as far as core values go.
matt flegenheimerHe goes on with Tucker Carlson, with Sean Hannity, with Charlie Kirk.
archived recording (dana white)If you consider yourself a patriot, you should be drinking fucking barrels of Bud Light.
matt flegenheimerThe message being, essentially, if Bud Light wants to do business with me, like, that tells you all you need to know. And, privately, he is back-channeling with a lot of these figures. Kid Rock, who had been a part of this effort to protest Bud Light, he is talking to the Anheuser-Busch CEO in White’s green room. And they’re sort of talking it out and finding a way forward.
And then, Trump himself, even months after that, is continuing to hammer Bud Light on social media. And White speaks to him on the phone. And after that phone call, Trump posts a follow-up, saying that the company deserves a second chance, going through a lot of talking points that echo White’s. And, lo and behold, about a year after boycotts began, and a few weeks after Trump has backed down, I attend a fight in Miami.
And the fighters are out there, bleeding all across the Bud Light logo on the canvas. So White gets what he wants. It’s hard to see another figure sitting at that intersection of culture and politics and sports who could have pulled off what White pulled off here.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
sabrina taverniseSo here you have Dana White, convincing Trump to backtrack. And it really just shows how much power White has in this relationship, which is kind of pretty surprising, based on everything we know about Trump.
matt flegenheimerAbsolutely. And they’re both well-positioned to do each other some good. And, certainly, Trump can call in White to help him in moments of political need as well. And we see that in this last campaign.
sabrina taverniseSo what happens in the campaign, exactly, with White?
matt flegenheimerA couple of things. I mean, again, he’s speaking at the convention. So that’s the sort of explicit, overt endorsement. And nobody was surprised he was there this time. But the sort of broader role he plays in this is as this kind of master of ceremonies, White, for this entire universe of people. The fights become gathering places.
And he can make connections between Trump and these figures in the manosphere, whether that’s Joe Rogan, whose podcast he ends up doing, the Nelk boys, these other podcasters, Theo Von. White is in the middle of all of that, the kind of chief ambassador moving between Trump and these worlds. And the Trump campaign, as part of its strategy, sees a lot of voters who don’t necessarily engage with politics, who are not following the news closely, a really target demographic for them.
They’re going after people who often skew younger and male, who are not necessarily ideological, who don’t fall on ideological lines on the issues in the way that you would expect, traditionally. And a lot of those people watch the UFC. And a lot of people in that world respect Dana White’s opinion. And so, Trump is appearing on a lot of these podcasts. He’s speaking to these audiences.
sabrina taverniseRight. And just to remind people, this was the Holy Grail demographic, right? Because, in part, it was so hard to reach the people who don’t ordinarily follow politics and really don’t necessarily vote that much.
matt flegenheimerYeah, and it’s been traditionally hard to break through to that demographic. And the Trump campaign had a lot of success.
archived recording (dana white)Welcome to “UFC Unfiltered.” Matt and I —
matt flegenheimerThe Trump campaign is really trying to meet them where they are. I mean, Trump did a UFC fan podcast and wasn’t talking about any kind of policy.
archived recording (dana white)Are you good at making picks? No matter how many fights I watch, I’m terrible at making picks. I’m always wrong.
archived recording (donald trump)Well, this sport is interesting. Like, I watched Usman. I think he’s a terrific guy, by the way, terrific person.
matt flegenheimerThis was a guy talking about fights and having, actually, the really interesting level of recall about specific fights and the history of it, the intricacies of the UFC.
archived recording (donald trump)I look at UFC, or boxing, or any of these things, even sports, generally. It’s sort of a microcosm of life.
matt flegenheimerIt’s actually about as close to contemplative as I’ve heard him get. He gives this answer talking about fights, that it’s sort of a microcosm of life. It’s this sort of binary thing. There are winners and losers. And you can see how that maps onto his political worldview.
archived recording (donald trump)It’s so interesting. But the nice part, it’s over in a period of a half an hour, 45 minutes. It’s all over. And you see a decision. But it’s a little bit like life, when you think about it.
matt flegenheimerAnd, obviously, Trump wins the election in November. And he and his team are well aware of how integral that strategy was and White’s role in it. And on Election Night, after midnight, as he’s giving his victory speech —
archived recording (donald trump)We also have a man, Dana White, who has done some job.
matt flegenheimerAnd who does he pull up on stage to the microphone to give some remarks, but Mr Dana White?
[chanting "dana"]matt flegenheimerAnd White proceeds to give a speech that is not surprising to anybody who’s listened to him or Trump talk about these recent years. It’s heavy on the expert consensus being wrong.
archived recording (dana white)This is what happens when the machine comes after you. What you’ve seen —
matt flegenheimerAnd he shouts out these figures.
archived recording (dana white)I want to thank some people real quick. I want to thank the Nelk boys, Aidan Ross —
matt flegenheimerFrom this universe he sort of presides over, in some ways.
archived recording (dana white)And last but not least, the mighty and powerful Joe Rogan!
[CHEERS]
sabrina taverniseSo, once again, these two men are validated in their instincts to buck the system, like, to go with their gut, really in the most extraordinary way, and in the end, kind of shocked the establishment.
matt flegenheimerAbsolutely. I think both of them have learned that lesson time and again in their public lives, that expert consensus is often nonsense, that their instincts are to be trusted. And what you’ve seen, I think, from both of them, is a sort of recognition that they can be their purest, bassist selves, and that that would be rewarded.
sabrina taverniseSo these two have learned all the same lessons up to this point. But I guess, Matt, looking forward, if politics, as we know, is downstream from culture, and Trump is clearly identifying the UFC as a very valuable part of culture to him, politically, then what can we learn about where we’re headed, looking at where the UFC is now? What does it tell us about the future?
matt flegenheimerI think White and Trump both saw around the corner here, about what the UFC could become and the cultural and political space that it has become. And there’s no reason to think now that it will be any less important. It’ll probably be even more important. And the way that the two of them see the world mean that their worldview will matter quite a bit. And White has really articulated his worldview quite clearly.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
To quote him, America has become so soft. If you have even this much savage in you, everything out there right now is for the taking.
sabrina taverniseWow. And that sounds like Trump.
matt flegenheimerThere’s a reason they’re friends. [MUSIC PLAYING]
sabrina taverniseMatt, thank you.
matt flegenheimerThank you, Sabrina. [MUSIC PLAYING]
olivia nattWhy do you think the violence appeals to you?
speaker 5I just like how brutal it is. It’s different than boxing.
speaker 6It’s very relaxing to me because of the violence of it. I could watch it every day.
olivia nattWhy do you think this is a thing that men are so into?
speaker 7I feel like it’s just embedded in every guy. Like, every guy’s DNA is —
speaker 8It’s like an instinctual type shit, right?
speaker 7I mean, this is what we used to do hundreds of years ago. We were gladiators. It’s just part of us.
olivia nattI’ve never seen a head do that before.
speaker 9I like the fact that a man can be a man. And he can put his hands on another man and not go to jail.
olivia nattDo you feel like it’s an outlet for something you don’t get to express in other areas of your life?
speaker 9Hell, yes, yes. You can let the rage out and not get in trouble. So, 100 percent.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
sabrina taverniseWe’ll be right back.
Here’s what else you should know today. Ukraine’s leader has followed through on his threat to shut down the last major pipeline that carried natural gas from Russia to Europe. By closing the pipeline, Ukraine hopes to undermine Russia’s ability to fund its war against Ukraine and use energy as a weapon against Europe. Before it stopped operating on Wednesday, the pipeline had brought Russia more than $6 billion in revenue a year. Ukraine’s Energy Minister called the closure a, quote, “historical” event.
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Today’s episode was produced by Nina Feldman, Olivia Natt, Sydney Harper, and Clare Toeniskoetter, with help from Shannon Lin, Rachelle Bonja, and Asthaa Chaturvedi. It was edited by Lexie Diao, with help from Michael Benoist, contains original music by Dan Powell and Marion Lozano, and was engineered by Chris Wood. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsverk of Wonderly. Special thanks to Joseph Bernstein.
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That’s it for “The Daily.” I’m Sabrina Tavernise. See you tomorrow.
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