NEW YORK —
President-elect Donald Trump celebrated his election victory on Saturday evening by attending an Final Preventing Championship occasion with billionaire pal Elon Musk and cheering followers at a closely guarded Madison Sq. Backyard in New York Metropolis.
Recognized by some within the combined martial arts world because the “Combatant in Chief,” Trump counts UFC President Dana White as an in depth pal and considers followers of the game a part of his political base.
Trump sat between White and Musk for a lot of the evening and paid rapt consideration to the fights, typically chatting with the fighters after their matches.
He entered the sector to loud music and waved to the group, a lot of whom returned the gesture. He spent hours on the occasion, watching 5 matches till previous 1:30 a.m. on Sunday.
The headline occasion within the octagon at UFC 309 was a battle for the undisputed heavyweight championship of the world between Jon Jones and Stipe Miocic. After Jones gained, he thanked Trump in his victory speech and so they shook fingers.
Amongst these becoming a member of the president-elect had been Home of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson, Tesla CEO Musk, an in depth Trump adviser, singer Child Rock and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whom he plans to appoint for secretary of well being and human companies.
Trump intelligence chief choose Tulsi Gabbard and nation singer Jelly Roll had been additionally in his entourage.
Trump’s go to to the storied Manhattan area introduced him again to the scene of a controversial marketing campaign rally he held there on October 27, when a warm-up comic mocked Puerto Rico as a “floating island of rubbish.”
A handful of holiday makers in Madison Sq. Backyard, an area with a seating capability of almost 20,000, wore crimson “Make America Nice Once more” hats.
Considered one of them, Sean Allen, 22, traveled to the occasion from Monroe in upstate New York, the place he lives and works for a county division.
He stated he had voted for Trump and borrowed his MAGA hat from a pal after studying that the Republican president-elect, who gained a decisive victory on November 5 over Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris, would possibly come to the combat.
“I’d by no means voted earlier than. That was my first time voting,” Allen stated, including that he might have voted on the earlier election however didn’t care about politics.
“Once I awakened, I used to be like, OK, wow, Trump gained huge.”
Nicholas Defilippo, 39, one other customer in a MAGA hat, additionally put it on to precise his assist for Trump after voting for him. Defilippo lives in New Jersey and works in regulation enforcement.
“He’s essentially the most brave man on the planet,” he stated of Trump.
The president-elect’s self-styled “Trump Pressure One” airplane left Palm Seashore airport shortly after dusk for the two-hour flight. It was solely the second time Trump has left the Palm Seashore, Florida, space since successful the presidential election on November 5.
The 78-year-old Republican flew to Washington on Wednesday to satisfy with President Joe Biden on the White Home, and has in any other case been filling Cupboard positions for his incoming administration from his oceanfront Mar-a-Lago resort.
A heavy safety presence was in place round Madison Sq. Backyard.
