Donald Trump Is Ready for Fight Night. So Are Donors

唐纳德·特朗普已为“格斗之夜”做好准备，捐赠者们亦是如此

President Donald Trump is enthralled with the Ultimate Fighting Championship staging an event at the White House on his birthday this weekend—in effect his present to himself, since he came up with the idea. We have the details on both the fighting and the anticipated lobbying. 唐纳德·特朗普总统对终极格斗冠军赛（UFC）本周末在其生日当天于白宫举办赛事感到非常兴奋——这实际上是他送给自己的礼物，因为这个主意正是他想出来的。我们掌握了关于这场格斗赛事以及预期中游说活动的详细信息。

Lobbying by the Octagon

八角笼边的游说

While the White House does not yet know exactly which celebrities might show up for the UFC on Sunday because they have not accepted their Ticketmaster email invitations, Trump’s aides tell Inner Loop that they are expecting a parade of donors to attend. 虽然白宫目前还不确定周日会有哪些名人出席UFC赛事，因为他们尚未接受Ticketmaster的电子邮件邀请，但特朗普的助手告诉《Inner Loop》，他们预计会有大批捐赠者到场。

The tickets have been free—and there is no resale—because the UFC is footing the approximately $60 million cost to stage the event, but the UFC has also offered sponsor packages for upwards of $1 million that come with ringside seats. 门票是免费的，且禁止转售，因为UFC承担了举办此次活动约6000万美元的费用。不过，UFC也提供了价值超过100万美元的赞助套餐，其中包含场边座位。

With limited avenues for executives and companies to get close to Trump these days, political consulting firms in Washington have been advising clients to buy the packages, and Trump’s aides say they have been inundated with requests. 由于如今高管和企业接近特朗普的渠道有限，华盛顿的政治咨询公司一直在建议客户购买这些套餐，特朗普的助手表示，他们已经收到了海量的请求。

The sponsorship requests have come on top of a stream of queries by administration officials and members of Congress trying to get into the UFC White House event, which is oversubscribed because Trump has personal control over the majority of seats and is deciding who he wants and he doesn’t, the aides say. 助手们表示，除了这些赞助请求外，还有大量政府官员和国会议员询问如何进入白宫UFC活动现场。由于特朗普个人掌控着大部分座位，并亲自决定邀请名单，该活动的门票供不应求。

The most sought-after seats are under the Claw, a giant 92-foot-tall arch structure that holds lights and sound equipment above the Octagon. The structure is actually called a “beta tent” by its supplier Stageco, but it was renamed by the White House, ESPN reported. 最抢手的座位位于“爪子”（Claw）下方，这是一个巨大的92英尺高的拱形结构，用于在八角笼上方悬挂灯光和音响设备。据ESPN报道，该结构实际上被供应商Stageco称为“测试帐篷”（beta tent），但被白宫重新命名了。

UFC president Dana White has said that he and Ari Emanuel, the chair of the UFC’s parent company, will control 700 seats between them, while Trump will control about 1,200. UFC总裁达纳·怀特（Dana White）表示，他和UFC母公司的董事长阿里·伊曼纽尔（Ari Emanuel）将共同掌控700个座位，而特朗普将掌控约1200个座位。

The most well known method to get direct face time with Trump during his second term in office has been to buy a $1 million seat at the so-called candlelight dinners hosted by Trump super PAC MAGA Inc. Trump would go from person to person and talk with them directly, according to one political consultant with close ties to Trump’s fundraising operation. 在特朗普第二个任期内，获得与其直接会面机会的最知名方式，是购买由特朗普超级政治行动委员会“MAGA Inc.”举办的所谓“烛光晚宴”的100万美元席位。据一位与特朗普筹款运作关系密切的政治顾问称，特朗普会逐一与宾客进行直接交谈。

But the candlelight dinners don’t happen with regular frequency—sometimes months go by without a dinner, the consultant said—and so, companies that missed out on donating to fund Trump’s ballroom have been advised to consider sponsoring. 但该顾问表示，烛光晚宴并非定期举行，有时几个月都没有一次。因此，那些错过了为特朗普宴会厅捐款机会的公司，被建议考虑进行赞助。

A White House official tells Inner Loop that they have not been involved in any sponsorship discussions and any cost information could be found with UFC. At least some of the UFC’s regular Octagon sponsors, including Meta, have ongoing business interests before the federal government. 一位白宫官员告诉《Inner Loop》，他们没有参与任何赞助讨论，任何成本信息都可以向UFC查询。UFC的一些常规八角笼赞助商（包括Meta）在联邦政府面前都有持续的商业利益。

In a statement, White House spokesperson David Ingle disputed the notion of lobbying at the event. “The Fake News’ continued attempts to fabricate conflicts of interest are irresponsible and reinforce the public’s distrust in what they read,” he said. “There are no conflicts of interest.” 白宫发言人大卫·英格尔（David Ingle）在一份声明中反驳了活动中存在游说的说法。“‘假新闻’不断试图捏造利益冲突，这是不负责任的行为，只会加深公众对所读内容的不信任，”他说，“这里不存在任何利益冲突。”

Fight Night

格斗之夜

Meanwhile, Trump’s team acknowledges that the UFC White House event won’t be featuring the biggest names; they were unable to get the likes of former UFC heavyweight champion Jon Jones and former UFC lightweight champion Conor McGregor. 与此同时，特朗普的团队承认，白宫UFC活动不会有最大牌的明星出席；他们未能邀请到前UFC重量级冠军乔恩·琼斯（Jon Jones）和前UFC轻量级冠军康纳·麦格雷戈（Conor McGregor）等人。

There were conversations behind the scenes by White and his contract negotiator Hunter Campbell to book them both, but those talks fell through, people familiar with the matter tell Inner Loop. 知情人士告诉《Inner Loop》，怀特及其合同谈判代表亨特·坎贝尔（Hunter Campbell）曾在幕后进行过沟通，试图预订这两位选手，但谈判最终破裂。

It would have been a big deal for the White House to have landed McGregor, the biggest box office attraction in the sport’s history, for his comeback fight, after his last appearance in the Octagon in 2021 against Dustin Poirier ended with a broken leg. 如果白宫能邀请到麦格雷戈参加他的复出之战，那将是一件大事。他是该运动历史上最具票房号召力的选手，他上一次在八角笼中亮相是在2021年对阵达斯汀·普瓦里耶（Dustin Poirier），那场比赛以他断腿告终。

But the issue with McGregor to the White House’s knowledge, one of the people said, was that he had not been in an anti-doping testing pool long enough to be eligible for a White House fight—something that has in the past not always prevented the UFC from booking a match—and Trump did not want to be seen pulling favors for specific fighters. 但其中一人表示，据白宫所知，麦格雷戈的问题在于他进入反兴奋剂检测池的时间不够长，不足以获得白宫比赛的资格——这种情况在过去并不总是能阻止UFC安排比赛——而且特朗普不希望被视为在为特定选手开后门。

McGregor was found liable in a civil case in 2024 for sexual assault and lost an appeal last year. During a visit to the White House press briefing room in March, McGregor made controversial anti-immigration remarks, claiming Ireland was being overrun by illegal immigrants. 麦格雷戈在2024年的一起民事案件中被裁定性侵罪名成立，并于去年上诉失败。今年3月，麦格雷戈在访问白宫新闻简报室时发表了有争议的反移民言论，声称爱尔兰正被非法移民淹没。

View From the Oval

椭圆形办公室的视角

Trump has loved having the Claw on the South Lawn and has been telling reporters in recent weeks that he might keep the structure there even after the UFC White House event is done after the weekend. 特朗普很喜欢在南草坪上放置“爪子”结构，并告诉记者，即使周末的白宫UFC活动结束后，他也可能将其保留在那里。

But a White House official tells Inner Loop that the realities of being president have upended that idea, and that the Claw is likely to be coming down without playing host to other events later in the summer. 但一位白宫官员告诉《Inner Loop》，总统工作的现实情况推翻了这个想法，“爪子”很可能会被拆除，而不会在今年夏天晚些时候举办其他活动。

One problem with the Claw is that it has been constructed on the top part of the South Lawn, where Marine One usually touches down to transport the president to and from Joint Base Andrews. With the Claw sitting on the landing zone, Marine One has been unable to fly for weeks, and Trump instead has gone by motorcade. “爪子”的一个问题是，它建在南草坪的上部，那是“海军陆战队一号”（Marine One）通常降落以接送总统往返安德鲁斯联合基地的地方。由于“爪子”占据了着陆区，“海军陆战队一号”已经几周无法飞行，特朗普只能改乘车队出行。

But Trump may not mind too much, given that he’s soon expected to get a new toy: the White House source tells us that the former Qatari royal family plane turned new Air Force One is expected to enter service in the first week of July. 但特朗普可能并不太介意，因为他很快就会得到一个新玩具：白宫消息人士告诉我们，那架由前卡塔尔王室飞机改装而成的新“空军一号”预计将于7月的第一周投入使用。

Over the weekend, plane spotters in the Washington area posted on X that they had caught the retrofitted jumbo jet in Trump’s new navy-red-gold colors arriving and departing Joint Base Andrews under the cover of darkness. 周末，华盛顿地区的飞机观察员在X上发帖称，他们捕捉到了这架改装后的巨型喷气式飞机，它采用了特朗普新的海军蓝、红色和金色涂装，在夜幕掩护下抵达并离开了安德鲁斯联合基地。

This is an edition of Hugo Lowell’s Inner Loop newsletter. Read previous newsletters here. 这是雨果·洛厄尔（Hugo Lowell）的《Inner Loop》通讯。点击此处阅读往期通讯。