Demonstrations took off in Washington and across US as Trump throws first private, for-profit sporting event ever held on White House grounds

Dozens of people stood across the entrance gates to the Ellipse, the park south of the White House, on Sunday afternoon, holding protest signs and chanting as the president prepared to host seven mixed martial arts fights on the lawn.

Thousands of fight fans streamed past the protesters into the sprawling public viewing area that the Trump administration and the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), which is hosting the fights, erected steps from the White House. The cage fights, marketed as a celebration of the country’s “fighting spirit” ahead of its 250th anniversary, are being held on Donald Trump’s 80th birthday.

In Idiocracy (2006), a savage satire that imagines life in the United States in 2505 after centuries of dysgenics and collective dumbing-down, the country’s president is a retired professional wrestler who mounts the floor of Congress to deliver the State of the Union address to pounding hard-rock music and ultimately presides over a sadistic, idiotic version of a fight in a Roman circus.

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JD Vance also dodged the question when he was asked by CNBC who would be at the signing of the agreement on Friday.

Without addressing who would be present for the US side, he said they “expect the negotiating team from the Iranian side is going to be the Speaker of the House [Mohammad Bagher] Ghalibaf, and also the foreign minister [Abbas] Araghchi, along with a number of security officials and people who represent the different constituencies within their country.”

I think it’s a great day for the American people … our expectation is that the strait is going to be opened in a toll-free way for the long term.

That’s the sort of thing that we’re going to figure out in these technical negotiations. There are a lot of very important details to figure out that we’re actually going to sit at the table and discuss together and figure out a path forward on these details.

And what we’ve said is, OK, let’s talk about how exactly we’re going to do that.

They want access to an unsanctioned economy. We’ve talked about, ‘OK, we’re open to that,’ but that would require a long-term commitment to the inspection and verification regime.

Some fighters will receive bonuses in ‘stablecoins’ issued by Trump family business World Liberty Financial

The Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) announced on Friday that it will pay bonuses to fighters in a form of cryptocurrency issued by Trump family business World Liberty Financial at the heavily publicized White House mixed martial arts event on Sunday.

The development connects the Trump family’s financial interests to the high-profile UFC competition being promoted on government property. The competition on the south White House lawn is scheduled for 14 June, Donald Trump’s birthday.

The image is unprecedented even by Washington standards. A massive four-pronged steel structure known as “The Claw” rises above the White House South Lawn as workers put the finishing touches on the venue that will host UFC Freedom 250. The mixed martial arts event, promoted by President Donald Trump and UFC CEO Dana White, is intended to commemorate the 250th anniversary of American independence.

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