Chicago – June 23, 2024
Former President Donald Trump expanded his portrayal of migrants as violent by suggesting they could be used in fights for entertainment. He mentioned this idea during a speech to Christian conservatives on Saturday afternoon and repeated it at a rally in Philadelphia that evening. Trump claimed he told his friend Dana White, president of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, to start a spinoff competition featuring migrants as part of his comments on restricting immigration.
“Did anyone ever hear of Dana White?” Trump asked during his speech at the Faith and Freedom Coalition’s “Road to Majority” conference in Washington. “ … I said, ‘Dana, I have an idea. Why don’t you set up a migrant league of fighters and have your regular league of fighters, and then you have the champion of your league — these are the greatest fighters in the world — fight the champion of the migrants.’ I think the migrant guy might win, that’s how tough they are. He didn’t like that idea too much.”
Later that day, White confirmed at a news conference in Saudi Arabia that Trump made the comments but said they were “a joke.”
Trump’s remarks are part of his broader pattern of using harsh language when talking about immigrants. This election cycle, he has portrayed migrants as violent criminals and claimed they are “poisoning the blood of our country.”
