MMA commentator and journalist Luke Thomas delivered an extended and pointed commentary on the UFC’s White House event in a recent video.
Thomas began by addressing a question from a reporter who asked UFC CEO Dana White whether politics and sports should be kept separate. Thomas found the question baffling.
“You’re asking the guy who is the most, inarguably, political actor, maybe in the history of North American sports,” Thomas said. “She’s like, ‘Should they be kept separate?’ Lady, have you not noticed they don’t do that there?”
Thomas argued that the UFC’s political entanglement with the Trump administration has been a deliberate and sustained effort going back nearly a decade.
“This has been going on, on one level or another, 10 years,” he said. “They elected to lean into this the way that they did.”
His central argument was that the UFC actively worked to rehabilitate Donald Trump’s public image following January 6, 2021, when Trump’s polling was at historic lows.
“They tried to rehabilitate a guy who tried to steal an election,” Thomas said. “Then full-on marshal forces for a political candidate who was not holding office at that time, who walked in here with the most extr eme agenda of my life.”
Thomas tied this political investment directly to tangible policy benefits the UFC received in return.
“They do this to get a benefit on the back end,” he said, specifically citing the Ali Act signing, the White House card, and what he described as a lack of regulatory scrutiny around the UFC’s monopolization across combat sports.
The most pointed criticism came when Thomas addressed the UFC Freedom 250 partner package, which carried a price tag of $1.5 million.
“That is the most influence peddling, corrupt thing I’ve ever seen in my life,” he said. “Who do you think is paying a million five? It’ll be some celebrities, but it’s going to be people that want to affect the Trump government, for whatever reason. Foreign actors, I don’t know, whoever.”
When challenged by viewers about why he had shifted toward political commentary, Thomas was direct. He said, “I have to sit here and watch the UFC rehabilitate a guy who tried to steal a presidential election with a fake elector scheme, verifiably. Then I have the temerity to even observe reality and someone says, ‘Why are you making it political?’ Are you out of your mind?”
