INTERVIEW: Dana White Talks UFC Freedom 250, Relationship With Trump, WHCD Shooting, 'Power Slap,' Zuffa Boxing + More

Summary

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The Breakfast Club: Dana White Talks UFC Freedom 250, Friendship with Trump, Power Slap, Zuffa Boxing & More

Podcast: The Breakfast Club
Hosts: DJ Envy, Jess Hilarious, Charlamagne Tha God, La Rose
Guest: Dana White (President & CEO, UFC)
Date: May 8, 2026
Episode Theme:
A candid, wide-ranging interview with UFC President Dana White, covering the upcoming "Freedom 250" fight at the White House, his long-standing relationship with Donald Trump, fighter pay, health and safety in MMA, his controversial public moments, entry into boxing, and entrepreneurship with Power Slap.

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Main Themes and Purpose

• UFC at the White House: Dana White discusses the unprecedented UFC "Freedom 250" event scheduled for the White House lawn, coinciding with America’s 250th anniversary.
• Business and Personal Philosophy: White gives insight into his business practices, decision-making, and philosophy on loyalty, controversy, and sponsorship.
• Relationship with Donald Trump: In-depth conversation on his personal and professional association with Trump, and the business and public implications.
• Athlete Welfare & Criticisms: White addresses fighter pay, unionization, health and safety concerns, and public perceptions of UFC as a brutal sport.
• Handling Controversy: Open reflection on a viral video with his wife, media empathy, and his approach to accountability.
• Power Slap & Boxing Expansion: Introduction of the Power Slap franchise and the new Zuffa Boxing venture.
• Public Perception & Feedback: Tensions navigating public, political, and pressurizing industry dynamics.

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Key Discussions and Insights

Opening: UFC, Workload, and Origins

• Travel & Workload:
  • Dana reflects on constant travel and growing responsibilities:

    "I'm busier this year than I've ever been with all the other things I've taken on." (02:57)

• Origins in MMA:
  • Began training in Jiu Jitsu in 1997. Bought UFC passionate about the sport’s potential.
  • On fighting’s universal appeal:

    "No matter what color you are, what country you come from, what language you speak, we're all human beings, and fighting's in our DNA." (04:14)

Fighter Pay, Unions, and Criticisms

• Fighter Compensation:
  • Acknowledges ongoing criticism:

    "There's always going to be talk about fighter pay...there's always going to be criticism about something." (05:16)

• Unions and Collective Bargaining:
  • Denies active opposition to unionization:

    "If the fighters wanted to unionize, that's up to them, it's not up to me." (05:56)

• Addressing Brutality and Safety Concerns:
  • Emphasizes safety protocols:

    "In the 30-year history of the UFC, there's never been a death or serious injury, even after the craziest fight you've seen. Cheerleading—can't say that." (06:43, 07:09)

White House Correspondents' Dinner Shooting Scare (08:09)

• Dana's Experience:
  • Recounts surrealism and adrenaline:

    "All I heard was plate smashing and glasses...50 guys are coming through the room, and they got their guns out...and everybody's yelling, get the fuck on the ground. And I just was like, holy shit. This is incredible." (08:09-09:25)

UFC Fight at the White House: Process and Debate

• How the Event Came About:
  • Trump suggested the idea at a UFC event; White took action immediately (10:46).
• Tickets & Attendees:
  • 4,000+ tickets, majority for the military (11:24).
• Political Theater?
  • White's view:

    "Why would I not? If you're offered to do something at the White House, why would you not do it? Especially on America's 250th birthday?" (11:50)

• On Use of Resources:
  • UFC is covering all costs, not taxpayers (12:18).

Dana White on Trump: Friendship, Business, and Public Criticism

• Roots of the Relationship:
  • Trump supported UFC when others shunned the sport.

    "Every good thing that ever happened to me in my career after that, he was always the first guy to reach out." (13:36)

• Engagement with Criticism:
  • On Trump's policy failures and asking a friend to change:

    "You're never gonna have a President... that everybody approves 100%... Not everything is always gonna be perfect." (16:21)

• Public Influence and Responsibility:
  • Acknowledges that public association with Trump may influence young male voters (20:26).
• Leaning into Political Conversations:
  • Admits to encouraging Trump to embrace podcasts and social media, expanding campaign reach (21:21).
• Would Controversy Affect His Loyalty?
  • On if political ties hurt business:

    "I'd have to face it. It would have to happen for me to think of how to deal with it." (24:07)

  • On fan feedback:

    "I just went to the derby... everyone was coming up to me saying thank you for supporting the President...I never get the opposite." (25:57; 29:29)

Accountability, Business Ethics, and Sponsorships

• On Sponsor Pressure Over Political Support:
  • Willing to lose sponsorship over principles:

    "Don't ever fucking tell me personally who to vote for and who not to vote for...that sponsor's gone." (35:52-36:41)

• Handling Personal Scandal:
  • Viral video with his wife:

    "When you embarrass your children on a global level...that's one of the worst things that can ever happen." (39:38)

  • On facing media and public after allegations:

    "I learned a lot about a lot of people during that time. And mostly a positive way, not negative." (39:38-40:25)

Power Slap: The New Spectacle

• Origins & Business Model:
  • Inspired by viral Russian/Polish slap contests. Invested with Fertitta brothers.

    "Power Slap does a billion views a month, and it is a sponsorship machine." (44:40)

  • Regulated like combat sports, with judges, standing eight count, etc. (44:59)

Boxing: Zuffa’s Next Venture

• Why Enter Boxing?
  • To rebuild the sport’s middle class:

    "In boxing...you hear about the handful of guys that make all the money, and then there's tons of guys that starve...I want to build it again from the ground up." (56:32)

Memorable Quotes & Sharp Exchanges

On Human Nature and Fighting:

• "If a fight broke out in that room right now, we'd all run over to the glass and watch. It's just human nature." (04:14)

On Trump's Loyalty:

• "Every good thing that ever happened to me in my career after that, he was always the first guy to reach out." (13:36)

On Business Integrity:

• "But don't, don't, don't ever fucking tell me personally who to vote for and who not to vote for. As an American, it's your right." (35:52)

On Personal Downfall:

• "When you embarrass your children on a global level...that's one of the worst things that can ever happen." (39:38)
• "If you start to feel yourself in a position where something like that starts to escalate, get the hell out of there. Literally. Run, run, get out of There..." (48:01)

On Power Slap's Appeal:

• "Power Slap does a billion views a month, and it is a sponsorship machine. Kills it." (44:40)

On Criticism/Political Responsibility:

• Charlamagne: "Powerful men like yourself don't really see what's going on...you exist in a bubble." (54:39)
• Dana White: "No fans, and people that I interact with all the time, has ever come up to me and said, 'I'm hurting, man, the President isn’t doing this isn’t doing that.' It's never happened." (55:51)

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Timestamps for Notable Segments

• Dana's MMA Origin Story: 03:14–03:56
• Human Nature & Fighting: 04:14
• Fighter Pay & Union Talk: 05:00–06:04
• White House Correspondents' Dinner Shooting: 08:09–09:25
• How UFC Freedom 250 Came About: 10:46–11:24
• Political Theater Critique: 11:44–12:18
• Deep Dive on Friendship with Trump: 13:09–18:24
• Political Influence Allegations: 20:26–22:03
• Handling Allegations/Personal Scandal: 39:09–42:55
• Power Slap Origin & Model: 42:55–45:17
• Philosophy on Accountability, Consequences, and Redemption: 45:19–48:31
• Gambling Habits & Rumors: 48:31–53:33
• Favorite Fighters/Eras: 53:41–54:11
• Boxing: Zuffa's Vision: 56:28–57:40

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Notable Moments: Humor & Candor

• Charlamagne jokes about Dana never using a condom: (10:09)
• Recalling the chaotic White House experience and not hearing the gunshots—due to being deaf in the left ear: (08:09, 09:33)
• Playful banter about the “bubble” of fame and criticism: (54:39)
• Host and Dana share laughs over baccarat, big wins, and rumors about casino debts: (48:31–53:33)
• Lighthearted yet pointed discussion about fairness in UFC matchmaking: (35:35–36:30)

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Conclusion

This episode is a raw, unfiltered conversation with Dana White, mixing hard business realities, personal admissions, tense and comic exchanges, and thoughtful reflection on the intersection of sports, politics, and public scrutiny. Dana stands by his loyalty, brushes off critics, and insists he listens to his own gut, not public noise.

Listeners are left with behind-the-scenes insight into the UFC's monumental White House event, the businessman's guiding philosophy, and the costs—personal, political, and professional—of national influence and controversy.

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Transcript

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[DJ Envy]

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[Charlamagne Tha God]

Hold up. Every day I wake up.

[Joybox Narrator]

Wake your ass up.

[Charlamagne Tha God]

The Breakfast Club

[DJ Envy]

Morning everybody. It's DJ Envy. Just hilarious. Charlemagne the guy. We are the Breakfast Club. La Rose is here as well. We got a special guest in the building.

[La Rose]

Yes, sir.

[DJ Envy]

President and CEO of ufc, ladies and gentlemen, Dana White. Welcome.

[Dana White]

Good morning, gang. How are you?

[DJ Envy]

How are you feeling this morning?

[Dana White]

I'm good. I'm good. Yeah.

[DJ Envy]

You ever get tired of running around and going from city to city and doing. Handling fight to fight? Do you ever. Does it ever get tired?

[Dana White]

Yeah, it gets. I'm busier this year than I've ever been with all the other things that I've taken on. But, yeah, no, it's all good. Sometimes traveling gets, you know, starts to kick you in the ass a little bit, but especially as you get older. But it's all good.

[La Rose]

How long have you been around MMA?

[Dana White]

25 years. Well, I mean, I guess you say 28 years, but I've been doing this for 25. Started taking Jiu Jitsu in, like, 97 and fell in love with the sport, and that's how we ended up. Ended up buying the ufc.

[DJ Envy]

What made you jump into martial arts? Was it protection board?

[Dana White]

Well, you know, I was always involved in boxing, and then my old partner Frank Fertitta and I were out at the Hard Rock one night in Vegas, and we ran into a guy named John Lewis, who fought in the UFC at that time, and he had a jiu jitsu school in Vegas. Frank's like, I've always wanted to try jiu jitsu. So we went over to him, we talked to him, we set up a lesson on Monday, and that was the beginning of all of it.

[DJ Envy]

Did you see the UFC explode the way that it is? I was at a pizzeria the other day, yesterday actually, and he was so excited for the fight that's happening in Newark this week. He was like, I'm not the first row, but I'm the third row, so I can see, like, people are so hype about it. Did you ever see it exploding the way that it did?

[Dana White]

Yeah, I think that when we got involved in it, we became so passionate about it, and it was so different than boxing, the fighters were different than boxers, and we believed that it could be big and could work everywhere. I mean, I've always had this philosophy. No matter what color you are, what country you come from, what language you speak, we're all human beings, and fighting's in our DNA. We get it and we like it. I mean, even if you say you don't like fighting, if a fight broke out in that room right now, we'd all run over to the glass and watch the fight. It's just human nature.

[Charlamagne Tha God]

You don't know somebody got a gun, so you gotta stay. You gotta back away. We're not like you Dana at the White House correspondents. And they're like, oh, that was exhilarating hearing those gunshots.

[Dana White]

You're exactly like me. You would absolutely watch the fight over there.

[Charlamagne Tha God]

But people give you a lot of credit for building the UFC into a global empire. Right. But they also critique you and say you still underpay fighters compared to, like, boxing or, you know, NBA, NFL, even wwe. How do you justify being worth billions of dollars? But some fighters still need second job.

[Dana White]

Yeah, well, listen, I mean, I'm sure some, some basketball players and baseball players still need second jobs too, until they make it. What we do is we, we bring guys in and, and pay them. You know, guys make like 10 and 10 or 15 and 15 to come in and fight. You might last one fight, you might not be great. But as you start to prove yourself and you know, listen, there's always going to be talk about fighter pay. I'm in boxing now, and all these guys, all these boxers are signing with us now too. So I just think that's, there's always going to be. Oh, you're always going to be criticized about something.

[Charlamagne Tha God]

But how come when the fighters talk about unions and collective bargaining, the UFC acts like it's the enemy?

[Dana White]

Like, why we don't act like that's the enemy? I mean, if, if the, if the, if the fighters wanted to unionize, that's up to them. It's not up to me. Okay, yeah.

[Charlamagne Tha God]

Can you encourage it?

[Dana White]

Sure. I, I, listen, we, we always have to deal with somebody got. You could be a manager, an agent. You know, everybody's gotten into some of the, some, some of the biggest lawyers and, you know, in the world have gotten into this. Agents, Hollywood, I mean, everybody. We always have to deal with somebody. We have to negotiate with somebody.

[DJ Envy]

With UFC being so brutal at times, was there ever a concern with them not approving the fighting in certain states or certain places? Because I mean, like boxing, it seems like, you know, you can. It's round, right? There's a referee to stop it. Sometimes UFC is like they gonna beat the ish out of him until he actually dies.

[Dana White]

Cause you actually what?

[DJ Envy]

Until he actually dies? It seems like sometimes.

[Dana White]

Listen, some of these fights, believe me, there are fights that I sit there and watch. When it's over, I go, what do I do for a living? This is insane. But when you spend the right amount of money on health and safety, before they get in there. During and after. In the 30 year history of the UFC, there's never been a death or serious injury, even after the craziest fight you've seen. Cheerleading. Can't say that.

[DJ Envy]

You said cheerleading.

[Charlamagne Tha God]

Can't say that.

[Host]

Yeah.

[Dana White]

Cheerleading. Can't say that.

[Charlamagne Tha God]

Yeah. My daughter's a competitive cheerleader. They get hurt a lot.

[Dana White]

A lot.

[DJ Envy]

Yeah.

[Charlamagne Tha God]

Yeah. Fall on the head.

[Dana White]

My daughter in high school was part of the, you know, the hardcore competitive cheerleading, and she was so busted up in high school, it was crazy. Yeah. But 30 years, no death or serious injury in the UFC. Not many sports can say serious energy.

[La Rose]

I mean, no injury. Serious injury.

[Dana White]

Yeah.

[Ben]

Damn.

[La Rose]

They be beating the shit out of each other.

[Dana White]

Right? That's so true. So true.

[Charlamagne Tha God]

Now, we talked about the White House correspondence, then a little bit. You said it.

[Dana White]

Awesome.

[Charlamagne Tha God]

And a unique experience. And everybody was saying how you didn't get down when the gunshots, you know, went off.

[Dana White]

Why?

[Charlamagne Tha God]

Because you knew it was staged.

[Dana White]

I don't know. I mean, you don't know how you're going to react in those type of situations until you're in them. But, you know, being a guy, first of all, we're sitting there and they just set the whole thing up and they said, we're going to eat, and then this thing's going to start. And what?

[Charlamagne Tha God]

The shooting

[Dana White]

the show. You know, the show was going to start. They were going to serve dinner first, and literally they had just brought the salads out. And I was sitting there talking to Pete Hegseth, and I don't hear well, and my left ear. I'm 100% deaf in my left ear, so I didn't hear the shots. All I heard was plate smashing and glasses and these guys. I turn around and literally 50 guys are coming through the room, and they got their guns out. They get the president and the vice president and all the media people off the stage, and. And now the stage is filled with people with guns pointed at us with the lights on the end of them, and everybody's yelling, get the fuck on the ground. And I just was like, holy shit. This is incredible. If you think about, like, the greatest movie you've ever seen, and you watch the way that these Secret Service guys came into the room and how they were. I was just like this. And to be in a situation like that and nobody gets hurt. And then. And even think about this, the media that were in the room that night were mostly women. No screaming, no yelling. Everybody just got on the ground. And it was just such a crazy, unique, hopefully one of one experience that I.

[La Rose]

Not one woman screamed at all.

[Dana White]

At all.

[La Rose]

That's crazy.

[Dana White]

And then when it was, oh, no,

[Charlamagne Tha God]

he might have been on your left side.

[Dana White]

That's fucking brilliant. That is brilliant. Yeah, you might be right. I didn't hear any screaming from any women. Yeah, it was. And then after it was over, the other thing is, when this is happening, we don't know what's going on. Is there a shooter in there? Are bullets about to start flying? Is there a bomb? You know, we don't know what's going on. And it's just my adrenaline was. I mean, I don't even. I can't even explain it. For the next four hours, I was bouncing off the walls. It was just. Yeah, it was pretty badass.

[Charlamagne Tha God]

This is a thrill seeker. You said you used to fight, do ufc. You like that type of adrenaline. You probably never used a condom in your life. Jesus.

[Dana White]

I do. And I've obviously never been in any type of situation like that in my life. It was a really unique experience. You know, I know to a lot of people it sounded twisted, but let me tell you what, as a guy that's never been in something like that, it's just. It's. It's hard to explain, but it was pretty badass.

[DJ Envy]

Whose idea was it? I was gonna say, whose idea was it to have a UFC fight on the White House lawn? Like, how did that come about?

[Dana White]

So the President was at one of the fights. I can't remember if it was in New Jersey or Miami. And he leans over to me, he goes, you know what? We should do a fight at the White House. I said, yes. Yes, we should. I like it. He got his bullshitting. Literally how it started. No, he doesn't bullshit. So when he says he's gonna do something, he does it. Literally. Monday, people started calling and trying to set it up, and that was Saturday. And Monday, they called and started setting it up. Yeah, I'm not gonna say no to doing a fight at the White House.

[DJ Envy]

How does that work? Who gets invited? Do you have to go through protocol? How does that work as far as celebrities and people coming and some of the fighters.

[Dana White]

I have 200 tickets. Ari Emanuel has 200 tickets, and the president has 1,000 tickets. There's four. There'll be, like, a little over 4,000 people there. Most will be military. Every branch of the military will be there. And, you know, there's 1400 tickets between me, Ari, and the President.

[Charlamagne Tha God]

Do you understand why some people see that as sports history, while others see it as just like state sponsored political theater?

[Dana White]

Oh, yeah. People are, you know, everybody's going to have an opinion about something like this, but, you know, why would I not? If you're offered to do something at the White House, why would you not do it? Especially on America's 250th birthday? Pretty incredible. Great opportunity.

[Host]

Okay, I was just gonna say. Just. There's just so much going on right now that it just seems like, you know, the. The energy, the focus, the resources, the. Everything could just go somewhere else.

[Dana White]

Well, point just for the. So we're clear, the US Taxpayers aren't paying anything. We're flipping the whole bill for this thing.

[Charlamagne Tha God]

That's what they told us about the ballroom.

[Dana White]

Y. Well, this is a fact. I don't know about the ballroom. I'm not involved in that. We're paying for everything, literally everything. And we can't sell a hot dog, a T shirt, a ticket, nothing. We're flipping the bill for. For everything. And my thing is always. There's always something going on. There's always going to be something else, always something bad. Plus, we're a global business. You know, when the Ukraine, Russia war started, and people were saying, oh, my God, you can't have Russians fight. I have Russians under contract. They have to feed their families there. I have Palestinians, I have Jewish fighters. I have. You know, there's always going to be something bad going on in this world, and I run a global business.

[Charlamagne Tha God]

You know, you were on Katie Miller podcast and you said in regards to your relationship with Trump and has it cost the UFC business? You said, I don't give a shit. I don't know the answer to that question. I've gotten to a point in my life, especially after Covid and all that nutty shit that. That went on during that time, that I only wanna be in business with and talk to people that I'm aligned with.

[Dana White]

Well, I don't know about talk to people that I'm aligned, but I wanna do business with people that I'm aligned with, for sure.

[Charlamagne Tha God]

So you're aligned with Trump on what exactly?

[Dana White]

Well, Trump is a good friend of mine. I mean, I've been friends with him for 25 years. Friends. I mean, he just happened to become the President of the United States. And he and I have never had a. He had us at the. At the Trump Taj Mahal when we first bought this company. The stigma that was attached to this thing, you can imagine. Think about this. It wasn't allowed on pay per view. You, as a grown adult, didn't have the option to buy it on pay per view. Porn was on pay per view. The UFC was not allowed on. That was the uphill battle we had. So you can imagine venues didn't want us because, you know, these guys were like, what kind of people will show up to watch this kind of an event? And he had us at the Trump Taj Mahal for the first two fights, you know, 30 and 31. UFC 30 and 31. And then after we did those two fights first, he showed up for the first fight of the night and stayed till the end for both events. And you think the Trump brand then and the UFC brand, and every good thing that ever happened to me in my career after that, he was always the first guy to reach out. So then when he was running in 16, he called me and asked me, would you speak for me at the Republican Convention? And everybody told me not to do it, don't do it, this is going to be bad, and he's never going to win and all that kind of stuff. But this was a guy that was always good to me and always treated me well, and I did it.

[Charlamagne Tha God]

I can understand that. That's your friend. But when your friend has a disapproval rating of 62%. Right. Record high. People say they don't like his handling of the Iran war. The economy, shitty cost of living for people is fucked up. Why can't you tell your friend he's failing the people as a friend?

[Dana White]

Well, he's the President of the United States.

[Charlamagne Tha God]

Still your friend, though, and.

[Dana White]

Yeah, I know, but, you know, for me to get involved in, it's like if your friend had a. I'm sure people disagree with you that are friends with you, and everybody has friends that you. Just doesn't mean you're not friends with them anymore. It doesn't mean that you.

[Charlamagne Tha God]

Oh, no, I didn't say you shouldn't be friends with them. I just said, why can't you tell your friend he's failing the people? Because these are the same people who make UFC a success.

[Dana White]

Yeah, I don't know if I agree that he's failing the people. I think that when the President is done in three years, people will look back on and realize a lot of the good things. See, I'm closer to him, too, and I see all the good things that he does that a lot of people, you know, either don't see or don't want to see.

[Charlamagne Tha God]

But tariff inflation has increased the price of household goods, increased utility bills because household electricity costs have gone up 9%. The failure to extend the Affordable Care act has fucked up people's health care. Everyday working class people who support your

[Dana White]

sport, you're never gonna have a President that sits in the White House, that everybody approves 100% of everything they do. And not everything is always gonna be perfect. You're gonna have some things that work out great and a lot of things that don't. It's just. It's no different than running a business or any other thing. Nobody's ever going to be absolutely perfect.

[Charlamagne Tha God]

Oh, I agree.

[Dana White]

When they're the President of the United States.

[Charlamagne Tha God]

Can you tell your friend when he's.

[Dana White]

Yeah, we talk about a lot of things, but I don't try to get into you.

[Charlamagne Tha God]

Like, everything he's doing?

[Dana White]

Well, like I just said, you're never going to agree with everything. But, you know, as a friend, I'm not going out there. And he and I have never. Other than the first two UFC events, nothing with us is transactional. I'm not trying. He doesn't call me. And, like, I'll give you an example. The White House fight, other than Derrick Lewis, the black Beast, other than him. He didn't tell me, hey, put this guy do this. We're sitting at the fight in Miami a couple weeks ago, and he says, why is the black Beast, Eric Lewis, not on the white.

[Charlamagne Tha God]

Did you make sure that's his nickname? I don't want to

[Dana White]

know. He's the president. The president's favorite fighters, okay? So he says to me, why is he not on the card? I literally got up and walked over to my matchmaker, Mick. I said, get. Get Derek on the phone. Called Derek, and I said, hey, the President wants to know why you're not on the White House card. He said, politics. That's the why I'm not. Derrick Lewis is incredible. And I said, he wants you on the card. You want to fight on the card? He said, tell him thank you. I'd love to. We get him on. We put him on the card. Now we got to find him opponent. This crazy fight plays out that night between Curtis Blades and Hokut, and it was an incredible fight. They're literally putting Hokut in the ambulance. And Mick goes back and says, you want to fight Derek Lewis on the White House guard? And he said, yeah, the fight was literally made that night during the fight. But my point in the story was, you know, he doesn't. It's just. We don't have. We don't do that.

[Charlamagne Tha God]

So your relationship with Trump is bigger than business. It's actually personal?

[Dana White]

Yeah, absolutely. We have a real friendship, not some type of. You know, he has lots of friends, especially now that he's the President. We don't have that. We've had a 25 year real friendship and real relationship.

[Charlamagne Tha God]

Don't be a Glazer though, Dana.

[Dana White]

Don't be what?

[Charlamagne Tha God]

A Glazer. Like just somebody that just tells him he's great. A yes man, basically.

[Dana White]

Yeah, you gotta tell him what he's. I don't think anybody's ever accused me of being a yes man. And I think that's, that's part of. But listen, I'm not an overly political person either. You know what I mean? And, and so are you part of

[Charlamagne Tha God]

the MAGA movement culturally?

[Dana White]

What do you mean culturally?

[Charlamagne Tha God]

Are you part of the MAGA movement culturally? Do you align with their ideologies and their values?

[Dana White]

You know, I, I consider myself right down the middle or leaning a little liberal, to be honest with you. Everybody thinks I'm some far right guy because of our relationship. You know, I'm, I'm more about common sense. I'm a common sense guy and if it makes sense to me, then I'm probably in.

[Charlamagne Tha God]

So when you see the Joe Rogans, the Theo Vaughn's, the Andrew Schultzes, actually, you know, calling out Trump and what they don't like, what do you, what do you think of that?

[Dana White]

I think that everybody's entitled to their own opinions and, you know. Yeah. If there's things that you see that you don't like and you want to be political, call them out.

[Charlamagne Tha God]

Yeah. Because it's interesting, most CEOs try to stay politically neutral to protect the brand. You almost seem kind of like proud to be.

[Dana White]

Proud to be political.

[Charlamagne Tha God]

I guess.

[Dana White]

Not proud to be political. I mean, I'm just saying that this guy is my friend and nothing is perfect. And you know, whoever is the next president, right or left, isn't going to be perfect either. I just think that I don't base my relationship with him on politics.

[Host]

Well, what about when people say that you're the reason why a lot of young male voters because of, you know, you have seen everything that you have voted for Trump and that was something that like even if you didn't mean to do, it was widely talked about and you still leaned into helping his popularity in the space.

[Dana White]

Yeah, I'm okay with that.

[Host]

But that gets political then.

[Charlamagne Tha God]

Yeah, I guess so. You're responsible for the high tariffs and the high inflation costs and I guess so.

[Dana White]

I guess if that's the way you want to look at it.

[Charlamagne Tha God]

It's all my responsible for people's healthcare getting cut. I'm just saying, like that's what you're Essentially saying, okay, Jesus.

[Dana White]

I mean, I don't. That's not the way I look at it, but I guess I could see why you would look at it that way, and you could, you know, frame it like that.

[Host]

Yeah, I've even seen people go as far as, like. Because I know we. People say that, like, Baron put Trump onto, like, a lot of the podcasts, but I've seen people say that you and your relationships also were the reason why he sat down with certain people during the campaign, which was really successful.

[Dana White]

That's definitely true. I told him, if you stay on Fox, you're never going to win. You know, most of the people that are on Fox are already voting for you, and every other network says you're, you know, a fascist and a racist and a, you know, all these other horrible things. And, yeah, I definitely was the one that leaned him into doing podcasts and things like that. And the other thing that I knew is that you can put Trump on a five hour podcast and he will do just fine. You know, he's. He's good. Kamala could not. Could not do a five hour podcast.

[DJ Envy]

Did you ask what else did you tell him to do or not to do? Did you say, hey, Trump, you should stay away from this, or maybe you should do this more? What would.

[Dana White]

None of that. So. So what originally happened was he was picking me up in Vegas, and we were flying to a rally down in Arizona, and this one, he was still the president. And I called Jared Kushner and I said, hey, there's this group of kids called the Nelk Boys. They're influencers. I want to bring them with us to Arizona on the plane. And Jared goes, yeah, you're asking them that. I'm not. So I called him, and he said, yeah, yeah, whatever you want to do. And so we flew down there, and we were in the back. There's a conference room in the back of Air Force One. And then he called us up to his office, and we went in there, you know, I don't know if you guys know who the Milk Boys are, if you've ever seen them, but. And we're in there taking pictures and stuff, and. And, you know, at some point, it gives me this look I like, you got to be kidding me right now. And we get to the rally, he does his rally, and again, you know, to his brilliance, he sees Steve will do it out in the crowd. He calls Steve up on stage when he's walking out, leaving, you know, doing the YMCA thing. And the whole crowd erupted when Steve Got up on stage with him and he felt it, and he did their podcast right after that. I was, you know, and that was when it did, like, 8 million views in two or three hours. And then YouTube pulled it down. And then that started, that whole social media thing that started to happen with them pulling him off social media.

[Charlamagne Tha God]

Would you feel the same way if, like, if your political allegiance started costing fighters, like, opportunities internationally are impacted the business of the ufc?

[Dana White]

I'm sorry, I said again, would you

[Charlamagne Tha God]

feel the same way about, you know, your friendship? If that political allegiance started to cost fighters opportunities internationally are impacted the business of the usc?

[Dana White]

And in what way? How would it cost fighters opportunities?

[Charlamagne Tha God]

Like, I don't know. If people just was like, you know, I, I, I don't want y' all over here because y' all are affiliated with the ufc.

[Dana White]

Yeah.

[Charlamagne Tha God]

And Dana White.

[Dana White]

I don't know. I don't know. I guess I'd have to, I'd have to, I'd have to face it. It would have to happen for me to think of how to deal with it and what would be the, what would be the reasons? And, yeah, I don't know.

[Charlamagne Tha God]

I guess when you just look around at everything that's going on in society and you notice working class people that support the ufc and Trump is your friend, you got a direct line to him some points. You got to tell him a lot of the stuff that he's doing wrong that's hurting working class people.

[Dana White]

Well, I'm, I'm, I'm not involved in, in. I'm not part of his cabinet. I'm just one of his friends.

[Charlamagne Tha God]

It's better.

[Dana White]

But I don't, but I don't necessarily agree politically that, you know, all these bad things are happening. I mean, and I'm not inside enough to sit down and get political with them and talk about this stuff. It'd be like, you know, if you had a buddy that ran a business and, you know, you go in and you're giving him a bunch of advice how to run his business and think he's doing this wrong or that wrong. It's just, I, I'm just not that guy. You know what I do? I have my little world and my bubble that I deal with, my employees that I have to take care of. Like, during COVID you know, we were looking at a position where we might have to lay people off. People that have been with me 15, 20 years. Me as the leader of what I do, I have to take care of my people, my family, my friends, and my Own little world, my own little bubble. I'm not flying out to Washington to sit down with the president and, you know, walk through all the things that I think are right and wrong with the country.

[Charlamagne Tha God]

Sure. But you got to get out that bubble and look at the people who support ufc. Yeah, those are the working class people that are hurting. Like, that's who I'm talking about. Like, you got to be concerned about them. Right.

[Dana White]

I can tell you this. No UFC fans have ever come to me and said, hey, listen, we're hurting. We need you to talk to the president. You know, nobody's ever. It's the complete opposite. I mean, I just went to the derby on Saturday, and literally everybody was coming up to me saying, thank you for supporting the president and thank you for. You know, I never get the opposite. Never, Never. Not one.

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[DJ Envy]

Yo, what up, y'?

[La Rose]

All?

[DJ Envy]

It's TJ Envy from the Breakfast Club. Now check this out. The first phone call that ever happened happened over 150 years ago. 150 years. That's before any of this. Before radio, before social media, before all the ways we stay connected. Today, that one call really started everything. And fast forward to now. It's springtime, the weather's breaking, people outside vibes are right again. Thank God. And it got me thinking, who haven't you talked to in a minute? And, you know, through all these years and all these conversations, AT&T has been there, connecting people in meaningful ways. This is more than a story of technological innovation. It's really a story about human connection. Real people, real moments, and real relationships. So we celebrate over 150 years of connection. Let this be your reminder. Don't wait. Make that call. Send that text. Pull up on somebody you care about. Because at the End of the day, those connections, that's what really matters.

[Ben]

Connecting changes everything. At and t a lot of you ask how I actually run my business behind the scenes and honestly, Shopify is the reason it exists. For me, Shopify is the place where I took this little idea I had and turned it into a real business. It's the platform where I own everything. My store, my customers, my community. When I started my storefront, Shopify made it just so easy. With just a few clicks, I was ready to share my vision with the world. And the best part, Shopify literally gets my products everywhere. People Shop, Google, YouTube, TikTok, the Shop app, even ChatGPT. I still remember the first ever sale I made for my fashion brand embellished. That little notification cha ching, cha ching, cha ching is music to my ears and Shopify made it all possible. I'm so pumped that Shopify is going to show up at our Black Effect podcast festival this year in a big way. For all of our small black owned businesses that partner with us plus shop pay, the purple button is a game changer. Fast one click checkout. If I don't see it when I'm shopping, I'm stressed. So I love knowing my customers get that same trusted experience. Build your store, own your audience and create something that lasts. Start [e-mail] Ben Most Mother's Day gifts

[Joybox Narrator]

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[Dana White]

on my children's life has somebody come up to me and said, you know, your buddy's blowing it, he's doing this. You, you know, you need to do this or that. I've never ever had deaf on one side.

[Charlamagne Tha God]

I'm just saying I think if you stay to one side, you probably only hear one.

[Dana White]

It's never happened. It's never happened. If it did happen, I'd say it. I wouldn't, I wouldn't lie about it. I'd say, listen, I get, you know, some people come up and say that it's never happened to me ever.

[Charlamagne Tha God]

And I would say the irony of you being deaf on the left side, but it's not just the left. There's a lot of.

[Dana White]

That's fucking brilliant, too. It's a lot of everybody, you know, that's fucking great.

[DJ Envy]

People, I guess, criticize you guys and say that a lot of times you pick fights based off popularity and not necessarily the fighter's experience or his. The fact that the fight is that great, is there any reason for that? Is that true?

[Dana White]

It's definitely not true. That's definitely not true. Plus, my job is to put on the fights that people want to see. Like your buddy that you were talking to that can't wait. And he's in the second or third row, whatever. This fight this weekend, there's a ton of bad blood between these guys. A lot of shit talking going back and forth. And, you know, this is a fight that people want to see. That's my job.

[DJ Envy]

What's your relationship with Ronda Rousey?

[Dana White]

Love her.

[DJ Envy]

She has some harsh words for the UFC at one time.

[Dana White]

Yep. Yep.

[DJ Envy]

What's your thoughts on her words of what she said, not paying the fight?

[Dana White]

Again? I think that everybody is entitled to their opinion, including Rhonda. Ronda is one of the greatest athletes that I've ever worked with in my entire career, and her rise and run was one of the most. The most fun I've had in my career.

[DJ Envy]

What's the craziest thing a fighter has asked you for? Besides money? Is there anything on the side that a fighter said, this is weird or this is strange?

[Charlamagne Tha God]

Cocaine.

[Dana White]

No, nobody's ever asked me for cocaine.

[DJ Envy]

He heard that one laughing.

[Dana White]

Shit. I don't know. I mean, a lot of it. Well, to go with Charlamagne here, I got a fighter right now who's. Who's. Whose wife got grabbed by ice. Yeah.

[Charlamagne Tha God]

You see what I'm saying?

[DJ Envy]

So did you reach out to Trump and did you reach out to.

[Dana White]

Well, you're afraid. Admitted. He also admitted that it was their fault that, that this happened, too. You know, it wasn't. You know, ICE just popped up and grabbed his wife. They, they, they made a lot of mistakes leading up to that happening and asked me to help with that.

[DJ Envy]

Did you?

[Dana White]

I don't think. I don't know what I can do to help with that.

[Charlamagne Tha God]

You talk to your friend right now.

[Dana White]

Well, he's fighting. Listen, there's policies. There are policies. If you are not an American citizen, and especially if you've done something illegal, you're. You're probably going to be.

[Charlamagne Tha God]

Did she do something illegal?

[Dana White]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you're probably going to be in trouble. They Admitted they did a lot of things wrong leading up to, you know, this happening. But, I mean, that's right up there with.

[DJ Envy]

Did you reach. Did you at least ask him, like, hey, bro, I got a fighter. Did you reach. That's a bro.

[La Rose]

They don't call each other bro.

[Charlamagne Tha God]

How.

[DJ Envy]

You know, ask him what you call

[Dana White]

Trump Mr. President now?

[La Rose]

Yeah.

[DJ Envy]

Did you reach out to Mr. President and even ask him about it? Or you said, you gonna fall back on that one.

[Dana White]

Well, he's not the one that you would ask. There are other people in the Cabinet,

[La Rose]

other chains of command that could help with that.

[DJ Envy]

Yeah, but he's the one that can fix it ultimately.

[Dana White]

Well, when you say he. It's his administration, too. I mean, the people that are around him.

[La Rose]

How bad can her husband fight?

[Dana White]

How bad.

[La Rose]

I mean, like, how great can.

[Charlamagne Tha God]

How good is he?

[Dana White]

Well, he's retired now.

[Charlamagne Tha God]

He's.

[Dana White]

He's retired.

[La Rose]

I don't care about that.

[Dana White]

But he's a great kid. He's a great kid. I like him.

[Charlamagne Tha God]

So, yeah, if. If. If. Let's just say hypothetically, Kamala Harris was president, right? Or even Barack Obama and they wanted a UFC card on the White House lawn, would your audience embrace it the same way?

[Dana White]

Yeah, here's my thing. It's like that whole, you know, biden is not my president. Trump is not my president. I got some bad news for you. If you are American, that is your president, and that's how I am. Whoever the president of the United States is, I am an American citizen, and that is my president. And, you know, yeah, I would definitely. If. And it's the 250th anniversary of America, and the President of the United States calls me and asked me to do anything, let alone an event at the White House.

[Charlamagne Tha God]

So what if Kamala wasn't president and just wanted to do it, just wanted to have an event, a UFC event somewhere, would you still do it?

[Dana White]

Well, it would depend on. I mean, it would depend on a lot of things. You know, this event on the White House lawn, I'm paying for everything, you know, and again, it's aligned with America's 250th anniversary. So I don't know. It would depend. But, yeah, so I was at the inauguration, and my seats were right behind all the ex presidents. And while it was playing out live, people were posting, look at Dana, Mad Dog and Obama and all this, you know, crazy shit that people say on the Internet, when in reality, Obama was the only one that turned around to me, shook my hand and said, Congratulations on all your success. I'm really happy for you. And I said, thank you, Mr. President. And. Yeah.

[DJ Envy]

Nobody else.

[Dana White]

That was our interaction, you know, it was nothing negative, nothing, you know, none of that shit.

[DJ Envy]

No other president spoke to you at all? Didn't even look at you? Look at your way?

[Dana White]

No. Well, I mean, they looked and whatever, but. No. The only one that acknowledged you. Yeah. Was President Obama.

[Charlamagne Tha God]

So when you, when you say you only want to do business with people you're aligned with, are you talking about values, politics?

[Dana White]

I'm talking about loyalty. I'm talking about sponsorship. I had some fucking crazy shit go on with some sponsors during COVID and when I was supporting Trump, you know, for election. And my thing is, I get it, you're spending, but don't, don't, don't ever fucking tell me personally who to vote for and who not to vote for. As an American, it's your right to vote for whoever you want to vote for. And I'm not going to be, you know, you know, put in a position where I got some sponsor calling me, telling me who I can and can't vote for and who I can and can't support. Yeah. Oh, yeah, it happened.

[Charlamagne Tha God]

Yeah, but that's what I mean when I say political alignment impacting your business. But you don't care.

[Dana White]

No.

[Charlamagne Tha God]

You said you don't give a.

[Dana White]

No.

[Charlamagne Tha God]

So what if all your sponsors pulled out?

[Dana White]

That sponsor's gone.

[Charlamagne Tha God]

Oh, wow.

[Dana White]

Yeah. Yeah. But what if all of them, they don't have enough money to do business with me. Gone.

[La Rose]

Damn.

[Charlamagne Tha God]

Damn. All of them pulled out. Would you then tell your friend that he got to change some things?

[Dana White]

Well, you. If, if you look at how you are in the way that you think and imagine somebody coming in because they, they sponsor your show and start telling you who to be and how to act and who to vote for and who to. Yeah.

[Charlamagne Tha God]

No, I can't do.

[DJ Envy]

It wouldn't happen.

[Dana White]

Exactly.

[Charlamagne Tha God]

I can't do that.

[Dana White]

Exactly.

[Charlamagne Tha God]

That's not the question. I said it.

[Dana White]

But, but what if it impacts your business and what if it impacts you as a.

[Charlamagne Tha God]

That's what I got to think about.

[Dana White]

100.

[Charlamagne Tha God]

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Dana White]

There's not much to think about. You either want to be that person or you're not that person. I don't think you're that person. But, you know, somebody starts. There are, There are lots of sponsors out there. Right. When you get somebody that comes in and starts trying to do that to you. Yeah.

[Host]

Was there a conversation.

[Dana White]

You gotta go.

[Host]

Was there a conversation with your sponsors or anybody on the business side when that video went viral of you and your wife in the club.

[Dana White]

Yeah.

[Host]

And with the slapping. You slapping her or her slapping you.

[Dana White]

Yeah, yeah.

[Host]

When they reached out to you, what did they like, how did that conversation go?

[Dana White]

I didn't. We didn't have any sponsor problems during that. I think that, you know, my wife and I jumped on that immediately. And again, that was more of a. We had to deal with our kids with that one. When you embarrass your children on a global level, you know, that's. That's one of the worst things that can ever happen to you. I didn't have any sponsorship problems with that.

[Host]

I was at TMZ at the time when that video went up and like, the whole debacle and like, you know, whatever. And one thing I will say is your relationships have afforded you a lot of, like, empathy and grace. Like the way that they handled that situation with you and allowing you to speak out for yourself. Like, as it was published, I had never seen that in my time being in the newsroom.

[Charlamagne Tha God]

Oh, that's interesting.

[Host]

That was like a. That was my first time ever realizing, like, relationships can change a narrative 100%. And they reported it honestly, but they allowed you to. At the same time that the video is going up, you're speaking for yourself and apologizing. And I, I was just like, wow. I always told myself, if I ever got a chance to meet you, I would really want to talk to you about that, because I'd never seen that before.

[Dana White]

Interesting. Yeah. And we were apologizing to our children, my wife and I, when that happened, I think that a lot of the people that I've been in business with and that I'm friends with know me really well. And yeah, it's just one of those, you know, it was bad and

[DJ Envy]

we

[Dana White]

jumped right on it and dealt with it. I don't think that when I got back from Mexico, it was like, it was 64 days of just, you know, people getting hammered. Yeah. I mean, and I had to. I live in Vegas, so I was waking up at like three in the morning every morning because the east coast is cracking off at 6 o' clock with all the, you know, talk shows and sports shows and, you know, I had, I had to make the rounds and, and, and do all the interviews. And, you know, I say this all the time. You find out who's who and what's what when the hits the fan. And I learned a lot about a lot of people during that time. And Mostly a positive way, not negative.

[Charlamagne Tha God]

If a UFC fighter was caught on camera, it's happened.

[Dana White]

Oh, it's happened.

[Host]

And that's why you.

[Charlamagne Tha God]

I wonder, would they have been treated the same way?

[Dana White]

You know what's funny is that it's not funny, but I used to say that you don't recover from those. Those are. Those are. Those are ones you don't recover from.

[Charlamagne Tha God]

But you did.

[Dana White]

I did.

[Charlamagne Tha God]

Do you think being the boss protected you from consequences? That employees are athletes?

[Dana White]

No, definitely not.

[Charlamagne Tha God]

No, definitely. Dana, come on.

[Dana White]

Definitely not.

[Charlamagne Tha God]

Yeah.

[Host]

You made the choice publicly not to excuse yourself from the brand you chose publicly to not what, to excuse yourself or give yourself a hundred percent.

[Dana White]

Well, listen, there's a board of directors. There's, you know, there's other people that. That are involved that. That could have pushed for that, but, yeah, I think that. And I. Obviously, they think, too, it would have. It would have hurt the company more if I. If I did step away.

[Charlamagne Tha God]

And you've disciplined fighters for public behavior that was unbecoming to the company before. Right?

[Dana White]

Well, I mean, I'm. I. I'm probably the most lenient, you know, the most lenient guy in sports when it comes to. To dealing with, you know, whether it's free speech or bad things that happen. And, you know, I'm in the fight business. It's not like I run Microsoft. You know what I mean?

[Charlamagne Tha God]

So what standard did you hold yourself to in that moment?

[Dana White]

Yeah, listen, obviously, that's not. That's not what it was. Yeah. I mean, it's as bad as it could get. I mean, I hold myself to. I would never in a million years think that that was going to happen. And I say this all the time. Nobody knows you better than your kids do. And, you know, your kids, whoever you really are, your kids see it. They hear everything that goes on at home. And, you know, how did they react to that incident? Because my oldest son didn't talk to us for, like, four days. We had to, you know.

[Host]

And how old was he at the time?

[Dana White]

Huh?

[Host]

How old was your oldest son at the time?

[Dana White]

He was. He was in college, so, you know, he was 19, probably. Yeah.

[La Rose]

Wow.

[Dana White]

19, 20. And, you know, we. We. The first thing that. That her and I did was handle the situation with the kids, and then obviously, I had to handle the business side of the. Of the whole thing. But, yeah, we. We handled the kids first.

[DJ Envy]

How did power slaps get started?

[Charlamagne Tha God]

That's a terrible segue. I don't know if that was a terrible segment or a great segue But I'm conflicted right now. I think it was great, though. I think it was great. I think it was great.

[Host]

Power Slaps is in the ring, but I'm like, yo, not. Y' all just be out here power slapping.

[Charlamagne Tha God]

I think that was good. I. Wow.

[Dana White]

Well, let me tell you. So in 1718, I was on Instagram, I saw these guys slapping, and it was coming out of Russia and Poland, and I was like, holy, this is crazy. But what fascinated me is that I would stay till the end to see who won. And I started to get into it, and I called my old partners, the Fertitta brothers, and I said, have you seen this slapping stuff? I'm into it. I think I could do this and think this could be big. And literally, they said, how much money you need? I said, I need a million bucks from both of you. So all three of us put in a million dollars, and here we are.

[DJ Envy]

We kind of started that. This was about 30, I'd say, 25 years ago. We used to do this thing called Slap Festival, and people would slap each other for tickets.

[La Rose]

Damn.

[DJ Envy]

And we did it for, like, a good year.

[La Rose]

Tickets to where?

[DJ Envy]

A concert. Like, so you would stand there and we'd slap. But there was no referees. It was just us doing it, and it was huge. And then we got a letter from, I guess, what, fcc.

[Dana White]

One of the sponsors.

[DJ Envy]

Yeah, for the sponsors. You can't have. Like, this is like battling, fighting with no refs. But it was huge. So when I seen it, I was like, wow.

[La Rose]

Damn.

[DJ Envy]

People get hurt with that, though.

[Dana White]

Yeah. Oh, yeah. People get knocked out.

[DJ Envy]

They get knocked that fast.

[Dana White]

It does a billion views a month. Power Slap does a billion views a month, and it is a sponsorship machine. Kills it. We're doing. We're doing our first fight in Serbia this summer. We'll be doing Power Slap.

[DJ Envy]

So how does that work? You slap each other, Somebody gets knocked out?

[Dana White]

Well, you go back and forth. It's three rounds. Title fights are five rounds, and there's judges just like. And the fights, they have a standing eight count. If you. If you get dropped and. And the ref determines whether you can. It's regulated just like boxing in the ufc, by the athletic commissions.

[La Rose]

Damn.

[Charlamagne Tha God]

I just got a couple questions, because I don't want. I do want to go back to the slap thing. What responsibility do you feel, knowing that you're a person who a lot of young men idolize as a leader? And for the young men that saw that footage, what responsibility do you feel?

[Dana White]

Yeah, a lot. No, it's bad and, you know, not my finest moment. And I, I don't want to blame anything other than the fact that it happened. I did it. And, you know, now from. Probably the worst thing that, that can happen to you is somebody, oh, this guy's a wife beater, you know, but that's, that's, that's the, the, the kind of things that I have to hear, you know, for the rest of my life and my kids have to hear that. So, yes, it's, it's a big deal to me and I take it very serious that that video exists and that young men see that happening. Yeah.

[Charlamagne Tha God]

And a lot of men only truly face accountability when there are financial consequences. Like men in your position. Rather so. So since there really weren't any major financial consequences for you, do you feel like you truly experience again?

[Dana White]

I don't, I don't know if, if financial consequences are, I mean, how does that, how does that affect me in any way, shape or form financially, if, you know, how it affects me is

[Charlamagne Tha God]

that I, if you lose sponsorships.

[Dana White]

Yeah, I don't care about that kind of, that, I don't care about that stuff. That literally means nothing to me.

[Charlamagne Tha God]

Am you rich?

[Dana White]

It's not even that. I, I, I, I've been broken, I've had money, I've done it all. Life is, there's so much more to life than just that. Oh, you know, the money or the finances or the sponsors or the this or that. The fact that, you know, I embarrassed my kids and that, that hangs on my name and on my head forever. It just, you know, if you are a young, a young man, you don't ever want to do that. You don't, you just don't want to do that to yourself. And you get in these positions where I would tell you before that happened, I would have told you there's never, that would never happen to me. And there will never be a scenario that could ever play out where I would be a part of that. It would just never happen. And it did. And you have to. I mean, if that's who you are and that's what you do and that's what you've done and that's normal to

[Charlamagne Tha God]

you,

[Dana White]

then you don't feel the way that I feel about it. I'm trying to explain this to you in the best way possible. So as a young man or an older man, if you start to feel yourself in a position where something like that starts to escalate, get the hell out of there. Literally. Run, run, get out of There and take yourself out of that situation immediately.

[DJ Envy]

I wanted to ask, you know, another thing that's been in the news when it came to Dana White, is how much you're in the casino and how much you're gambling. People go into your gambling. Is that a problem for you, gambling? Do you still go to the casino? Heavy.

[Dana White]

Cause you. I do, I do, I do, Yeah. I love to gamble. I gamble multiple nights a week in Vegas and yeah, I love it.

[Ben]

What's your game?

[Dana White]

It's baccarat. Now, I was a blackjack guy for a long time. I don't sports bet. I hate sports betting. But I love baccarat is my thing now. So baccarat is a very Chinese game. So every night at Caesar's palace at 7 o', clock, you go to the high limit room and all the Chinese come in and start playing. They play till 10 o' clock in the morning. So when I first started to learn, I always thought baccarat was boring and stupid. I submerged myself with the Chinese. They took me in and let me play with them. And I learned more from the women, actually, because the women have more patience than the men do. And to watch them play was fascinating. And now I'm a bot guy.

[DJ Envy]

Is it true that they said that you sometimes pay your friends to come gamble with you because you gamble all the time by yourself? Is that true?

[Dana White]

No, my friends are with me 24 7. Yeah.

[La Rose]

So look, that's crazy because that's how I learned how to play Bak2 from a bunch of the Chinese women. Because the guys, they get upset and they move from table to table. Like you said, they're very patient. The women are more patient. Like, that is my game right there.

[Dana White]

So you do you play?

[La Rose]

I do. I play baccarat. I don't know, like high limit.

[DJ Envy]

But you know, what's the most you ever won?

[Dana White]

Well, you have to understand that I live in Vegas, so I play every night. You know, some people come in, like, where do you play? You play in, like the Indian reservation?

[DJ Envy]

Baltimore.

[La Rose]

Yeah, I'm from Baltimore. So I play like the Horseshoe or like if I'm traveling anywhere. Like, I played baccarat in Vegas as well. But I'm a traveling stand up comedian, so I play wherever I go.

[Dana White]

Okay, so you know, you'll have a board, right? And instead of just sitting there for, you know, eight hours, I'll come in and clip my. So my. This is my game how. Let me bet as much as I can possibly bet, right? And I'll clip you for two hands and I'll go home, right? I play 400,000 a hand. They just gave me a million.

[La Rose]

Come on.

[Dana White]

They just gave me a million bucks.

[DJ Envy]

I thought a casino said you were you in debt, you owe the money still. Is that true or no?

[Dana White]

Don't believe any of the shit that you hear. First of all, no casino ever came out and said that I'm in debt and I owe them money ever, ever, ever, ever.

[Host]

The Hollywood Reporter did like a deep dive.

[Dana White]

Yeah, that's some bullshit thing that came out. They do the same thing to Bruno, Bruno Mars, you know.

[Charlamagne Tha God]

But they said you owe 25 million any.

[Dana White]

Huh?

[Charlamagne Tha God]

They said you owe 25 million.

[Dana White]

50 million.

[Host]

25 to 50.

[State Farm Narrator]

It was 50.

[Dana White]

50 million.

[La Rose]

Damn.

[Host]

But has the casino come out and said that you don't owe them that? Yeah, it's Red Rock, right?

[Charlamagne Tha God]

Of course.

[Dana White]

Yeah, Red Rock. Those are my partners.

[La Rose]

Dang.

[Dana White]

Those are the guys I grew up with and own the UFC with and. Yeah. So anyway, the answer to your story is I'll come in and clip you for two hands, and then I leave and go home, right? And that's anywhere from 800 to a million. And then I'll come back and play the same board and play the whole board out, you know, over a month.

[La Rose]

The most I've ever won, Dana, is $13,000.

[Dana White]

Incredible.

[La Rose]

Whatever.

[Charlamagne Tha God]

No, that's incredible.

[La Rose]

Thank you.

[Dana White]

Playing Bach.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[La Rose]

Playing Bach, rock. I bought 20. I came in with 2500. Got down, came up, you know, because I bet like the side. Do the side bets, too. I don't just do play or a banker. I do the side bets. Caught a dragon, you know what I mean? And I. I got out. But 13,000 is the most. You talking about 800,000 millions. And I ain't there yet. I ain't there yet.

[Charlamagne Tha God]

And I will say, to be fair, an anonymous Source did tell casino.org that.

[Dana White]

Exactly.

[Host]

In Hollywood.

[Dana White]

Exactly.

[Host]

That's right. Yeah.

[Dana White]

Yeah. Real quick, an anonymous source. First of all, when I play, I play in private rooms. At the Bellagio, at Caesars, and. And at the Venetian. Those are the only three that will really take my action. And, you know, we play in private rooms. And. Same thing with Bruno Mars. Bruno.

[Charlamagne Tha God]

Bruno just got out of that, though. He did. He just.

[DJ Envy]

He. Well, he said that. Yeah.

[Charlamagne Tha God]

He literally just got. He. That was. That was true, if I'm not mistaken.

[La Rose]

Right?

[Charlamagne Tha God]

He just got out of debt.

[DJ Envy]

Yeah. I think last week he was performing, but he could have been joking. He said he just got out of debt, though.

[Charlamagne Tha God]

Okay.

[DJ Envy]

I'm Singing the song and said he just.

[Dana White]

He's totally joking. He's totally joking. I see him all the time in Vegas, and so sometimes when I'm playing a Bellagio, I'll be in the room here and Bruno's in the room over here, and we're friends. Nobody goes in fucking his room while he's playing. I don't go in his room when he's playing. You know what I mean? So any of that.

[Charlamagne Tha God]

I don't think you helped the room was just now.

[Dana White]

But any of that stuff you hear coming out of Vegas is bullshit.

[Charlamagne Tha God]

Yeah.

[Dana White]

Just like Vegas is dying right now and. And all the casinos are empty and ghost towns and all that bullshit. All bullshit.

[La Rose]

Which fighters excite you today? Top five. Give me top five.

[Dana White]

Top five. Pereira, who's fighting on the White House. Ilya Toporia, who's fighting in the White House. And this weekend, Hamza Chamayev and. And Strickland. That's why everybody's so fired up about this. Tons of bad blood between these guys. Sugar. Sean o' Malley is. Is a fun fighter to watch. Yeah.

[La Rose]

What's your favorite era of ufc? Is it the Connor era? Like, what era?

[Dana White]

It would have to. Yeah, great, great, great question. It would have to be the Connor era. Yeah. I mean, the Mayweather McGregor world tour that we went on was so much fun. And, you know, both of those guys were hilarious. And every stop we did was different. It was the same guys, but everyone was different. And it was. It was a really special time in my career. Yeah, it was awesome.

[DJ Envy]

Well, the fight goes down this weekend.

[Charlamagne Tha God]

Yeah. And I just want to say, Dana, it was a great conversation. I do believe, though, that powerful men like yourself don't really see what's going on in this country, especially with your own fan base of usc. And I'm realizing there's a bubble that, like, you know, you all exist in. And I want you to come out of that bubble sometimes and see the pain that your. Your own people are going through. That's why. That's why when you look at. When I look at all of the things that have happened, attack the tariff inflation and the SNAP benefits being cut and Affordable Care act not being extended, the tax inequality that exists in this country. You think about all the federal workers that, you know got fired because of Dolech. That's why Trump got booed in Miami when y' all walked out.

[Dana White]

He didn't get booed in Miami.

[Charlamagne Tha God]

Yes, he did.

[Host]

There's a debate about that.

[Dana White]

He did not get booed in Miami.

[Host]

It might have happened on your other side.

[Charlamagne Tha God]

Was that AI, too? What happened?

[Dana White]

He did not get booed in Miami.

[Charlamagne Tha God]

UFC327.

[Dana White]

Yeah. Yeah. The place erupted in Miami.

[Host]

No.

[Dana White]

What was the first.

[Charlamagne Tha God]

I saw a video of him getting booed. Maybe it was AI. I don't know.

[Dana White]

Yeah, he definitely didn't get booed.

[Charlamagne Tha God]

Next time you walk out and you walk out on your right side, if you hear any boos, just know the reason he's getting booed. Booed is because of what's happening in this country. And you're his friend. So I just want you to be aware of that. So you could maybe tell him, like, hey, man, maybe you need to listen to your constituents.

[Dana White]

If. If I had the, you know, my fan base, I'm pretty dialed in with my fan base when you say that I live in my bubble. I live in my UFC bubble, but nobody, no fans, and. And people that I interact with all the time has ever come up to me and said, I'm hurting, man. You know, the President isn't doing this or isn't doing that. It's never happened to me.

[Charlamagne Tha God]

I think that's going to change. And when it does, remember we had this conversation.

[Dana White]

Absolutely. I would. And I'll tell you this, if it does happen, I'll get with Lenae, we'll reach out, and I'll tell you this is what happened.

[Charlamagne Tha God]

Absolutely.

[DJ Envy]

You know, lastly, before we get up out of here, you guys signed Edgar Balanga. Now Zufa Boxing, Right? Zuffa Boxing.

[Dana White]

Yeah.

[DJ Envy]

Explain to people what Zephyr boxing is and why you jump into the boxing ring.

[Dana White]

Yeah. So, you know, I've been talking about boxing for a long time. It's where I came from. I wouldn't be here today if it wasn't for boxing. And timing is everything in life. And it all sort of came together last year, and I decided to pull the trigger. We got involved, and basically, like we were saying earlier, my job is to put on the fights that people want to see. And I feel like boxing hasn't had a middle class in a very long time. You know, you hear about the handful of guys that make all the money, and then there's tons of guys that starve. So what I want to do is try to build it again from the ground up, create new up and coming young stars, give everybody the opportunity to fight. But the best fight, the best. The one thing that's happened in boxing has become everybody's undefeated because nobody fights anybody until they, you know, get to a world title. We're going to, you know, we're putting on Boachuk versus Mosley junior Fight this, this Sunday on on Paramount.

[Charlamagne Tha God]

Plus, that's dope. You know who else don't have a middle class? America. Okay? So you need to start having some conversations with your friends.

[Host]

One thing you don't need to do

[Dana White]

is put Charlemagne very clear. Oh, my goodness. All right.

[DJ Envy]

Well, thank you for joining us this weekend. You can check out the fight in Newark this weekend. There's a fight in Vegas this weekend. Appreciate you for joining us.

[Dana White]

Thanks for having me. Congrats on all your success, guys. I would love to come back.

[Host]

Okay.

[Dana White]

If you'll at me, I'll come back. Okay.

[DJ Envy]

Ms. Dana White, it's the Breakfast Club. Good morning.

[Dana White]

Hold up.

[Charlamagne Tha God]

Every day I wake up, wake your ass up. The Breakfast Club.

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[Host]

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