UFC president Dana White made an appearance at the Republican National Convention on Thursday night, where he delivered a speech in support of Donald Trump. Due to complications resulting from the ongoing pandemic, White wasn’t able to be at the convention. But he did deliver a speech that was prerecorded and broadcasted as a video for the entire convention.
This was not the first time that White had publicly campaigned in favor of Donald Trump. The UFC president was present at one of Trump’s campaign rally in 2016. He has a storied relationship with the now US President dating back to the very beginnings of the UFC. White has been very open about Trump’s role in keeping the company afloat when they were in financial troubles. He even allowed the UFC to hold multiple events in his Atlantic City casinos. Their relationship seems to hold up to this day, the President was even present at UFC 244 in New York’s Madison Square Garden. White has also visited the white house in the company of former Interim welterweight champion Colby Covington.
In his speech last night, White made a number of claims regarding President Trump’s handling of the Covid-19 pandemic.
“Let’s talk about COVID-19 and let’s be honest about it.” White said. “No one person and no one place could’ve anticipated the challenges that COVID would bring.”
White added ” He (Trump) immediately put protective measures in place, and he reached out to the best and the brightest leading American businesses across all industries to discuss what he and his administration could do to get the economy back up and running safely.”
A slew of political analysts and fact-checkers quickly scrutinized the speech and pointed out a few key errors from Dana White.
At the Republican National Convention, Dana White just said that no one could have anticipated the Covid pandemic. https://t.co/81maKf2UMD
— Nicholas Kristof (@NickKristof) August 28, 2020
Well, here we are.
On @MSNBC, @maddow invites a pulmonologist with degrees from Princeton University, Columbia University, the University of Cambridge, and Harvard University to fact-check Ultimate Fighting Championship President Dana White.
— David Gura (@davidgura) August 28, 2020
Dana White's lies about Trump's coronavirus response are outrageous. Trump claimed at least 31 times that the virus would just 'go away.' More than 180,000 people have died in the U.S. Dana White's RNC speech was just filled with lies.
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) August 28, 2020
Of course, this is laughably and provably false:
"President Trump may be the only president in modern times who has done EVERYTHING he said would do during his campaign." – Dana White#RNCConvention
— S.E. Cupp (@secupp) August 28, 2020
Dana White is praising Trump for his sports COVID task force. Mark Cuban, who was on the group, told me he was only aware of it meeting once
— Allan Smith (@akarl_smith) August 28, 2020
