Add The New York Post on Google WASHINGTON – First lady Melania Trump will join President Trump at the UFC fight on the South Lawn Sunday night, as will several of his adult children and 5,000 special guests, including press secretary Karoline Leavitt.
Don Jr and Bettina Trump, fresh off their honeymoon, will make their first official appearance as a married couple, sources close to the family told The Post. Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner will be ringside, as will Eric and Lara Trump.
Leavitt, who’s on maternity leave after the birth of her second child, is returning to the White House for the occasion along with her husband Nicholas Riccio.
It’s a rare ringside appearance for the first lady, who has attended fights in the past but usually skips them. When the president attended a UFC fight in Miami in April, daughter Ivanka was at his side.
Sunday also marks the president’s 80th birthday. While he and his family will be ringside, rows of bleachers are being built around the eight-sided octagon for special guests of the president 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.”
