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The UFC White House event is set to take place next Sunday, but a Vietnam veteran is trying to stop it from happening.
On Sunday, Vietnam War veteran Paul Romano of Springfield, Virginia, and civic activist Susan Douglas of Alexandria, Virginia, filed a joint federal lawsuit in an attempt to stop the UFC event at the White House.
“I served in Vietnam. I’ve been to the Wall and seen the names of my childhood friends who stood the watch and gave their all,” said Paul Romano. “The Lincoln Memorial is sacred ground, and it honors everyone who has ever worn this country’s uniform. Using it as a backdrop for a for-profit cage fight so the President and his friends can make money is a desecration.”
“The President arranged to hand two of America’s most cherished monuments to a private corporation so he and his allies could profit from them. That is corruption,” said Susan Douglas. “These monuments belong to all of us Americans, not to Dana White, not to advertisers like Crypto.com, and not to Donald Trump. We’re asking the court to enforce the law because the administration refuses to.”
The complaint says the UFC’s White House event violates three grounds on which “the administration’s authorization of the event is unlawful.”
Violation of NPS regulations. The White House South Lawn and Lincoln Memorial are federal parklands administered by the National Park Service, where sports events are flatly prohibited under longstanding regulations. The only regulatory exception, the “America250 Rule,” applies solely to events “planned, organized, and executed by executive departments and agencies or the Semiquincentennial Commission.” The UFC, whose CEO Dana White is a close personal ally of President Trump, is itself planning, organizing, and executing the event. Reporting published June 4 confirms that neither entity competing for the role of official semiquincentennial commission has any organizational responsibility for UFC Freedom 250.
No congressional authorization for “the Claw.” Under 40 U.S.C. § 8106, no structure may be erected on federal parklands in the District of Columbia without express congressional authorization. No such authorization exists for the UFC’s 92-foot, 600-ton steel structure, which the UFC calls “the Claw,” that has been under construction on the South Lawn since May 26.
Cost to taxpayers. Dana White has estimated that repairing the South Lawn alone will cost $700,000. Under the National Environmental Policy Act, major federal actions with significant environmental effects require a public environmental assessment or impact statement before proceeding. No such review has been conducted or made public. The lawsuit comes as the administration is simultaneously overseeing the illegal demolition of the White House East Wing, leaving taxpayers to foot the bill for the damage to two of the nation’s most iconic structures.
According to veteran MMA reporter Luke Thomas, it seems like a longshot that the event will be canceled at this point.
Spoke to several attorneys, one of whom has experience in federal court. Their consensus was fairly unanimous. Standing was debatably an issue, but not really. Also, plaintiffs arguments about Trump admin breaking statutes is, they all agree, strong. The big weakness is proving… https://t.co/YElt2UEKIC
— Luke Thomas Gets Political (LTGP) (@LTGetsPolitical) June 7, 2026