Judge clears UFC Freedom 250 to proceed at White House

A federal judge cleared the way for UFC Freedom 250 to proceed on the White House South Lawn on Friday.

U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta denied the emergency injunction, which argued that the event violated National Park Service rules prohibiting special events on the South Lawn without congressional authorization and an environmental review.

The plaintiffs contended that UFC Freedom 250 is, in the suit’s own words, “not in any material sense a celebration of the 250th anniversary of American Independence” but rather a commercial enterprise organized by the UFC, its broadcast partners, and its advertisers under the cover of a bipartisan Semiquincentennial Commission exemption that was never designed to protect a private, for-profit sporting event.

The suit also flagged President Trump’s purchase of stock in UFC parent company TKO earlier this year, raising the question of whether a president with a financial stake in the promotion should be the one authorizing it to occupy the South Lawn.

Mehta was unmoved, ruling that the plaintiffs failed to establish standing or irreparable harm, noted their unreasonable delay in filing, and pointed to the UFC’s $60 million investment as evidence that a court-ordered stoppage would inflict substantial harm of its own.

The card airs exclusively on Paramount+ tonight — coinciding with Trump’s 80th birthday and headlined by Ilia Topuria vs. Justin Gaethje and Alex Pereira vs. Ciryl Gane — beneath a 92-foot-tall, 600-ton steel structure called The Claw that the UFC erected on the South Lawn. Dana White, who said last week he was expecting “Super Bowl-type numbers” for the event despite its streaming exclusivity, will have to make good on that prediction without any help from CBS, which had initially been expected to simulcast at least some portion of the card on linear television before ultimately opting out