Earlier this month, United States President Donald Trump hosted a UFC event on the South Lawn of the White House on his 80th birthday in celebration of the 250th anniversary of the country. It was a massive spectacle attended by thousands of guests, with millions more watching on television, but it was not without controversy.
Trump has faced heavy criticism for using the public space of the White House to hold such an event, and UFC fighter Josh Hokit went viral for all the wrong reasons during the event when he used it as a platform to peddle a baseless right-wing conspiracy about Michelle Obama.
This week, another high-profile individual spoke out against the event as Larry David blasted the event, saying that he was “embarrassed to be an American” after what he saw that night.
Larry David Speaks Out
David is celebrating the 250th birthday of the United States in his own way, with his new HBO show, Life, Larry and the Pursuit of Unhappiness: An Almost History of America. Obviously, he and Trump are taking very different approaches to celebrating the 250th anniversary of the country’s foundation, and it’s safe to say that David was not a fan of Trump’s spectacle.
During a recent interview with Variety, David did not hold back as he called the event a “travesty” and “embarrassing.”
“It was a travesty,” David told Variety. “What else can you say about it? It was embarrassing. I was embarrassed to be an American.”
Joe Rogan Defended the Event
While David was clearly not a fan of the event, influential podcaster and longtime UFC commentator Joe Rogan defended it, calling it “the wildest experience” he’s ever had in all of his years of commentating UFC.
“It was insane. Just the magnitude of it was insane,” Rogan said on his podcast. “That was the wildest experience that I’ve ever had in my 20-whatever years of calling combat sports. There’s nothing even close. Nothing even close. It was the greatest night of fights of all time. And it was the only night in the history of the sport where every single fight ended by knockout.”
Rogan even said he convinced some people to go who were planning to skip the event, including popular comedian Shane Gillis.
“I talked a bunch of people into going that didn’t want to,” Rogan said. “Like Shane Gillis was thinking about not going. I’m like, ‘Bro, you got to go. It’s going to be epic. It’s going to be a once ever thing. Not a once-in-a-lifetime. Once in anybody’s lifetime. It’s never happened before. It’s probably never going to happen again.'”
Rogan specifically called out those who have been criticizing the people who chose to attend the historic event.
“So many people are trying to make it a partisan thing. Like they’re mad at people for being there. Like, ‘Oh, you support Trump.’ Like, it’s a [freaking] fight at the White House. Doesn’t mean you endorse foreign policy. Like, shut the [expletive] up. Just please. Just please stop,” Rogan said.
“And again, it’s this thing, the ego thing where people are just — they just want so badly—and on both sides for sure,” Rogan continued. “You know, the right celebrates this as a win for masculinity and patriotism and all these different things. Like, okay, settle down. Everybody settle down. You should all be together.”
About Dave Kelsey
Contributing author to The Comeback.