Donald Trump’s wild week as he limbers up for enormous White House struggle
Blood will be spilled on the grounds of the White House for …well, I guess for the first time since we left in 1812. And all in celebration of Trump’s 80th birthday. Let’s take a look at how he’s been preparing for the big day
Like many of us, Donald Trump has spent a lot of this week waiting for the weekend. It’s his birthday, you see, and it’s a big one. The big 8-oh. And there’s quite a lot going on to mark it, including a savage punch-up on his front lawn. There’s also some football on, and hopefully his mate Gianni [Infantino, boss of Fifa] has managed to get rid of anyone who might boo him. If not, at least that Somali referee has been sent home. But like that irritating bit of work you can’t get done by close of play Friday, and just hangs over you all weekend, he’s still trying to get an Iran deal over the line. It would really put a downer on his birthday party if he had to order a bombing raid in the Middle East.
Here’s what Trump has been up to this week.
Donald Trump’s UFC birthday party has faced some unexpected obstacles
This weekend, thousands of Trump cronies, MAGA faithful and UFC enthusiasts are set to gather on the grounds of the White House to watch one of the weirdest events in the history of Washington DC – a cage fight on the South Lawn to celebrate Donald Trump’s birthday. But with just days to go before the first professional, for-profit sporting event ever to take place on that hallowed ground, it was still at risk of cancellation for two different reasons
The first reason which still exists – and it’s something they really should have thought of ahead of time. It’s an open-air event, with a huge spider-shaped metal scaffolding lighting rig – and it’s Washington DC in June. As well as famously warm and humid weather, DC suffers from thunderstorms at this time of year – with a few already forecast for this very weekend.
The second was less expected. Two residents of Virginia brought a lawsuit against the National Park Service (NPS), which oversees the South Lawn. The suit, filed last Saturday evening, argues the Trump administration bypassed federal rules and regulations to host the privately-run event on government property. NPS rules, they say, generally prohibit sporting events on federal parkland. They also complained that no congressional approval had been sought for the building of the colossal, 7,000-seater arena on the South Lawn, and neither had an environmental review been conducted before construction began. The plaintiffs attorneys called it a “commercial, corrupt use of our most sacred national monuments for private gain,” The Justice Department said the lawsuit was “obstructionist, baseless, and dilatory”.
Trump hasn’t had the best luck with judges this weekend, but this one turned out well for him. US District Judge Amit Mehta wrote: “In the context of an emergency application – and coupled with the fact that the UFC fight date was long ago known – it is fair to say Plaintiffs unreasonably delayed bringing suit, undercutting their claims of irreparable harm.” And there are about 60 million reasons the event will probably still go ahead, even if the spider gets struck by lightning. In arguing the lawsuit has come too late, and that it would be unreasonable to block the event at this stage, the Justice Department revealed a few of the financials about the weekend’s UFC festivities. According to the legal filing, UFC and sponsors (though, it insists, not the US taxpayer) have spent $60 million on the event – with hundreds of staff working on it and seven different government agencies having input.
An early reminder of why holding a World Cup in Trump’s America was risky
The World Cup kicks off this week in the US, Mexico and Canada. And for a long time people have been getting nervous about how fans, players and officials from around the world will be treated by the Trump administration.
And we almost immediately got an early signal of what can be expected when Omar Abdulkadir Artan, a world-class referee was denied entry to the United States. He would have been one of seven African referees chosen for the tournament, and the first Somali to referee a World Cup game. But those hopes were dashed. He was interviewed by border officials for 11 hours, detained for several more and then put back on a flight home despite having a fiplomatic passport and a valid visa. US Customs and Border Protection said he had been “determined to be inadmissible due to vetting concerns”.
Trump has repeatedly launched into racist rants about Somalia, calling Somali immigrants “garbage”, and saying their home was “not even a country.”
But surely FIFA stepped in to put things right… right? Nah. Course not.
Hey I tell you who’s going to be watching this really closely? The international Olympic organising committee, who are hosting the games in LA next year.
Iran peace ‘closer than ever’ – but we’ve heard that before…
At the time of writing, Trump’s position is that the Iran deal is on, and will be signed in Europe over the weekend. Which is quite the turnaround from earlier in the day.
This morning Trump called into Fox News, clearly trying to sell viewers on the idea of boots on the ground in Iran. He kept insisting Iran is still “desperate to make a deal.” He said: “They want to make a deal so badly. We dropped $250 million of bombs on them last night. They’re really in submission. They just don’t know it yet.” And he relayed a bizarre and clearly invented conversation with Iran’s leadership, who expressed surprise at the “good press” they’re getting in the States. “Behind the scenes I must tell you Iran can’t believe the press they get,” Trump claimed. “They can’t even believe it. And they told me. They said, ‘It’s amazing how well we’re doing in the papers. We’re not doing so well-‘ They’re negotiating with us to make a deal.”
But then there was a turnaround, with the text of a deal tentatively agreed. Pakistan’s prime minister said on Friday that the US and Iran have agreed to wording of an agreement aimed at ending their war in the Middle East and that mediators were working with both sides to finalise a deal. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said the US and Iran have reached a “final, agreed upon text.” He said Pakistan, which has taken the lead in mediation efforts, was working with the warring countries on next steps. “Peace has never been this close as it is now,” Sharif said in a post on X. The apparent breakthrough in negotiations comes after Iran exchanged fire with the US and Israel over three days this week, threatening to return the Middle East to full-scale war.
Is any of this actually real? There’s nothing to suggest this will be any different from the 30 or so previous times. But at least nobody’s dropping bombs on anybody right this second.
Boo-urns
In perhaps the most predictable, yet still humiliating news of the week, New Yorkers responded to Donald Trump’s trek to attend Game 3 of the NBA Finals series in his home town with gusto.
Maybe it was the fact that the attendance of the President at Madison Square Garden meant fans had to arrive two hours early for the $8,000 a ticket game. Perhaps it was the cancellation of ‘fan-zone’ style big screen parties outside the arena for supporters of the New York Knicks who couldn’t afford the eye-watering ticket price. Or maybe it’s because even when he won the popular vote in 2024, he only got 17% of the vote in New York City.
Either way, the boos that greeted Trump when the jumbotron found him in his box have today been described as “lusty” and “thunderous”.
And the fact that the Knicks lost to rivals the San Antonio Spurs, breaking a THIRTEEN GAME winning streak, probably means he won’t be welcome back at the Garden any time soon.
But when Trump was asked about it later that night, he seemed much more positive
Perhaps they were shouting “trooooo ump”
Sorry, Mr President. Not even Smithers could get away with that one
