White House UFC Fight Violates Environmental Rules, Lawsuit Says

The mixed Ultimate Fighting Championship event on White House grounds planned for June 14 violates National Park Service environmental review regulations, two Virginia residents allege in a lawsuit challenging it.

The UFC Freedom 250 event also violates federal law because Congress did not approve the construction of the fight venue—dubbed “The Claw"— on the White House’s South Lawn despite it being on National Park Service land in Washington, the plaintiffs allege in their suit filed Saturday in the US District Court for the District of Columbia.

The plaintiffs are claiming a variety of injuries, including that the planned fighter weigh-in at the Lincoln Memorial will “disturb the tranquility of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial” and that The Claw causes “aesthetic injury.” They are seeking to enjoin the event’s organizers from using the South Lawn and the Lincoln Memorial.

A temporary rule allowing the NPS to avoid the traditional review process for events related to the nation’s 250th anniversary does not apply to the event, the complaint says, because it is “neither ‘for the celebration of the 250th anniversary of American Independence’ nor, crucially, being ‘planned, organized, and executed’ by the federal government.”

The National Park Service didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

The UFC will make money off the event and is substantially in control of the proceedings, and event sponsors “may also receive access to parts of the White House complex of buildings,” the complaint alleges.

Scheduled for President Donald Trump’s 80th birthday, the event is part of UFC head Dana White’s “intimate relationship” with Trump, the complaint says. While White “has stridently denied that UFC Freedom 250 is meant to be a birthday celebration for the President,” he has “admitted that the event was ‘Trump’s idea,’” the complaint says.

The Public Integrity Project represents the plaintiffs.

The case is Douglas v. Nat’l Park Serv., D.D.C., No. 26-cv-02016, complaint filed 6/6/26