On Saturday evening, as Vice President J.D. Vance took a podium in Pakistan and said no deal had been reached to end the war in Iran, President Donald Trump was in Miami watching an MMA fight.
Trump spent several hours orbited by Secretary of State Marco Rubio; a few of his children; some UFC officials; Sergio Gor, the US ambassador to India; recording artist Vanilla Ice; Dan Bongino, the former deputy director of the FBI; and manosphere shepherd Joe Rogan.
He was surrounded by people, but Trump was somehow an isolated figure. People mostly circulated around him, checking in with updates and then leaving again. For the most part, Trump sat and impassively watched blood and saliva sprayed out from the fighters beating each other silly in front of him.
It was unclear whether the president knew that negotiations had failed by the time he entered the arena for the UFC match to a Kid Rock song and thunderous applause. He wasn’t tapping away on his phone — he left that to Rubio, who at one point leaned over to show the president his screen — and he didn’t betray disappointment or anger. He offered tight smiles for the cameras instead, and a thumbs-up for the winners.
In fact, on his way to Florida, Trump had told reporters that it did not matter to him if a deal with Iran was reached or not: “We win, regardless,” he said. “We’ve defeated them militarily.” Which sounded a lot like everything he had said before negotiations began.
The political reality facing Trump is grim, just as the economic reality facing Americans appears to be getting worse. Inflation is rising. Gas prices are eating into American paychecks, a direct result of a war Trump ordered. The president has responded to the pressure by attacking his critics and threatening his adversaries.
There was a widespread outcry from Democrats and some of his longtime supporters over his threat to wipe out the entire civilization of Iran. Democrats in Congress, alarmed by Trump’s behavior, want to see him impeached and they are questioning his mental fitness for office. They want to see his physician give Trump a complete cognitive exam, and then they want to interview the physician.
All of that awaits Trump back in Washington. But on Saturday night, in his adopted home state, he spent his time in an arena where people treat him like one of the prizefighters when he walks into the room.
After a week spent largely out of sight but lashing out at his enemies on social media, Trump’s resurfacing at a match seemed designed to provide him with a soothing balm of male aggression, musky sweat and cheering supporters — not unlike one of his political rallies, just with shirtless fighters.
Round after round, fight after fight, Trump watched as pairs of competitors sparred in a cage covered in ads for Monster energy drinks, assorted crypto and betting sites, and Bud Light beer. The floor was stained with splotches of dried blood from the first match of the evening, when a fighter took a hard hit to the forehead.
At one point, the “Mortal Kombat” theme song played as Rubio and the president leaned in to speak to each other. At another, the arena crowd watched an advertisement for a UFC fight scheduled at the White House this summer. “History is made by revolutionary ideas” was one tagline from the commercial, which featured several exterior shots of the White House.
Trump’s eldest daughter, Ivanka, and younger daughter, Tiffany, kept close throughout the evening, as did Donald Trump Jr., the president’s eldest son, and his fiancee, Bettina Anderson. The Trumps stood and posed for photos with supporters who approached them, waved their fists, and at times threw back their heads in laughter. One family member missing was Ivanka Trump’s husband, Jared Kushner, who was in Pakistan with Vance and Trump’s peace envoy, Steve Witkoff.
At the moment Vance began briefing the news media in Pakistan, Trump was standing still at the side of the cage with his hands at his sides as a winning fighter cheered. He and Rubio were looking up toward a large screen and watching a video montage of the fighter’s greatest hits as Vance said, “the bad news is that we have not reached an agreement.”
In Pakistan, Vance did not say if the Strait of Hormuz would be open for oil traffic to pass through. White House officials did not answer questions about whether a shaky ceasefire with Tehran would hold. They all deferred to rump to decide what was next.
As the night grew late Saturday and the war once again seemed poised to spin out of Trump’s control, the vice president departed Pakistan without an agreement. The president stayed seated in Miami, his eyes trained on the men punching and kicking each other in a bloodstained cage.
The New York Times News Service