The UFC match plot: how a far-right group tried to assassinate Trump at his own event

Donald Trump attends UFC Freedom 250 on the South Lawn of the White House on 14 June 2026, in Washington. Photograph: Alex Brandon/AP Pool/AP View image in fullscreen Donald Trump attends UFC Freedom 250 on the South Lawn of the White House on 14 June 2026, in Washington. Photograph: Alex Brandon/AP Pool/AP Analysis The UFC match plot: how a far-right group tried to assassinate Trump at his own event J Oliver Conroy Court files show how men connected through TikTok and encrypted apps planned attack on White House UFC fight When Tycen Proper, 19, finished high school, his family gave him at least $3,000 of “graduation money”, according to court documents. Despite the generosity, he seemed content to just live at his parents’ home, in a tiny Ohio town near Amish country, and spend more and more time on the internet. But Proper did have ambition of a kind, an affidavit says . He quit his job to focus on a special project that he was planning with friends from the internet. His mother saw him studying maps of Washington DC. He also put his graduation money into investments that made his father uneasy: a rifle, a shotgun, body armor, ammunition. His parents eventually told police that they were scared of what their son was hatching. They were right to be. Almost two weeks ago, the US Department of Justice announced that it had foiled a plot by Proper and a number of co-conspirators to assassinate Donald Trump and other elected officials at the Ultimate Fighting Championship event recently held at the White House. As of Friday, eight people from around the country are in custody. All appear to be men in their 20s or early 30s. Yet at least 19 people were involved with the plot, investigators have said. Many in the group met through TikTok. After verifying each other’s identities and ideological commitment, they migrated to closed groups on the encrypted messaging apps Signal and SimpleX, where they sorted themselves into “tiers” of risk tolerance. Some met in person for tactical training. The plotters planned to stage a demonstration near the White House to distract law enforcement. As Trump and other officials cheered on the UFC’s gladiators of mixed martial arts, the plotters would bomb the event with drone-borne explosives, causing a panicked evacuation toward an area where waiting marksmen would pick off “high-value targets”. A “second wave” of attackers, according to court documents, would storm the White House. It was to be, one of the alleged conspirators told others, “a fucking bloodbath”. After the story broke, it was partly eclipsed by breaking news about the Iran war and the excitement of the World Cup. Yet the facts are shocking, and perhaps confusing: the plotters had far-right views, but hoped to kill Republican officials. They chose their targets with the help of a leftwing website that tracks politicians who receive donations from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac), the pro-Israel lobby group. And one of the plot’s all