The Mayor-elect of the City of New York, Zohran Mamdani, revealed that the strangest item he encountered in the Oval Office during his meeting with President Donald Trump last week was a dossier entitled “UFC in the White House”.
Appear on The Adam Friedland Show On Wednesday, Mamdani said he had entered the room and encountered “all these different coffee table books” strewn across the furniture.
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“One of them is ‘UFC in the White House,'” he continued, adding that he previously had “no idea” about the mixed martial arts event that the president is planning to stage on the South Lawn next June to celebrate America’s 250th anniversary.
New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani is interviewed by Adam Friedland on Wednesday November 25, 2025 (The Adam Friedland Show/YouTube)
“I’ve been flipping that,” Mamdani said, explaining when pressed for more details that it was essentially just a concept art file for what the octagon-shaped cage arena might look like once it’s erected at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue next summer.
Asked by Friedland if he intended to attend the fight, the mayor-elect laughed and replied, “No!”
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Trump for the first time after the sporting event in July during a speech at the Iowa State Fair, and is expected to take place on June 14, 2026, which also happens to be the president’s own 80th birthday, and includes a weigh-in for the warriors in front of the Lincoln Memorial.
He initially said 25,000 could watch the bout live, but UFC President and CEO Dana White put the capacity at just 5,000 when asked by Fox News in September.
White promised that big screens would be erected in a nearby park to broadcast the competition to a crowd of 85,000.
He also said Sports Business Journal in October that his company would pay $700,000 to restore the South Lawn after the event.
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There is no word yet on who the fighters will be taking part.
Former UFC champion Conor McGregor speaks in the White House Briefing Room on March 17 this year (EPA)
Trump has a long association with combat sports and is a longtime friend of White, who spoke at his Mar-a-Lago victory party after winning last year’s presidential election.
During that campaign, an interview with former fighter and podcaster Joe Rogan was credited with helping Trump reach a wider audience.
The president has attended UFC bouts in the past year in the company of Elon Musk and cabinet secretaries, including Robert F Kennedy Jr, while former Irish UFC champion Conor McGregor was hosted at the White House for St Patrick’s Day.
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Mamdani’s meeting with Trump on Friday was unexpectedly cordial, despite the president calling the democratic socialist a “100% Communist Lunatic” during his campaign and threatening to withdraw federal funding from New York City if he wins – a result that shocked his MAGA allies.