WATCH LIVE: UFC Freedom 250 holds news conference ahead of White House fight on Trump's birthday

By — Will Weissert, Associated Press Will Weissert, Associated Press Leave your feedback Share Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/watch-live-ufc-freedom-250-holds-news-conference-ahead-of-white-house-fight-on-trumps-birthday Email Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Tumblr Share on Facebook Share on Twitter WATCH LIVE: UFC Freedom 250 holds news conference ahead of White House fight on Trump's birthday Politics Jun 12, 2026 4:13 PM EDT WASHINGTON (AP) — It looks from afar more UFO than UFC. UFC Freedom 250 holds a news conference at 8:30 p.m. EDT at the Lincoln Memorial. Watch live in the video player above. Maybe it's the kind of contraption that has carried space aliens to the White House to force a meeting with America's leader. WATCH: A sneak peak of UFC's Octagon at the White House But come closer and you'll see the contours of the eight-sided cage, 30 feet (9 meters) in diameter and shaped, with careful precision, like the MMA league's signature Octagon. Educate your inbox Subscribe to Here’s the Deal, our politics newsletter for analysis you won’t find anywhere else. That is, a STOP! sign flipped on its edge, with wire-mesh sides and padded corners fitted with different sponsors' logos: Morgan & Morgan, Bud Light, Dodge Ram, Corona Extra and Polymarket, which identifies itself as the world's largest prediction market. Overhead looms The Claw, a four-sided mass that arcs more than 90 feet (27 meters) into the air and features lights, speakers, thick snakes of wiring and four large screens so fans not seated right next to the Octagon can follow the cage fighting below. Think more of the four-sided, metal grabby thing that tries to grasp stuffed animals at a video arcade rather than what house cats have — hence the extraterrestrial vibes. And surrounding all that are risers filled with gray folding chairs forming a temporary arena expected to seat 4,000-plus people for the seven UFC fights being staged on Sunday to celebrate the 80th birthday of President Donald Trump and the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence's signing. 'Quite attractive to a lot of people' For non-UFC fans, all of this might be disorienting under any circumstances. But the temporary arena is covering nearly the entirety of the White House's South Lawn, where Marine One usually lands to ferry the president to out-of-town trips and gobs of kids scramble in the grass during the Easter Egg Roll every spring. More than $60 million and tens of thousands of hours of labor have been poured into building the arena, according to a court filing from the National Park Service, which oversees the South Lawn and contested a lawsuit meant to block the event. READ MORE: Lawsuit aims to block UFC fight on White House South Lawn for Trump's birthday The White House says the UFC is covering the costs, though the filing states that seven agencies — including the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Aviation Administration — have "allocated significant r