‘Maybe we’ll never take it down’: Trump compares White House UFC arena to Eiffel Tower, says it could be permanent
Construction continues on a venue for the upcoming UFC match on the South Lawn of the White House on June 1, 2026 in Washington, DC. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump is floating the possibility of keeping the UFC arena on the White House South Lawn — built for a series of fights on his birthday and Flag Day — permanently.
In a video posted to his official TikTok account Tuesday evening, Trump sat in the Oval Office and said that the Eiffel Tower in Paris was supposed to be a temporary structure, but that France kept it up — suggesting that the UFC arena is “quite attractive to a lot of people” so “maybe we’ll never ever take it down.”
“People don’t know that in Paris, France, the Eiffel Tower, 1889 it was built. It was supposed to be taken down immediately after the world’s fair, and then they said: ‘leave it up a little bit longer, and then they said, ‘let’s leave it up longer and longer and longer,'” Trump said in the video.
“Well, they never took it down, and you know we’re building something in front of the White House that’s quite attractive to a lot of people. Really, it’s going to have the big UFC fight on June 14, and I’m looking at it and maybe we’ll never ever take it down,” Trump added.
The Eiffel Tower was constructed for the 1889 World Exhibition, and was only meant to stay up for 20 years — until 1909, according to the Eiffel Tower’s website. Yet the tower’s architect Gustave Eiffel fought to keep the tower intact, according to the website.
The “UFC Freedom Fights 250” will take place on June 14 and feature a lightweight title matchup between undisputed champion Ilia Topuria and interim title holder Justin Gaethje alongside four other fights.
The arena is visible from the White House North Lawn, cresting over the historic West Wing and Executive Residence.
The White House South Lawn, where the arena is located, is a place often utilized by presidents.
Trump and past presidents depart and arrive on Marine One from the lawn ahead of any travel to Joint Base Andrews — an opportunity for members of the media to shout questions to the president as he moves from the White House to his helicopter. These arrivals and departures have been closed to the press since the week of May 20, when construction on the arena began.
Other events, including the White House Easter Egg Roll and the annual Congressional Picnic, which was just held in May, are traditionally hosted on the South Lawn, too.
ABC News’ Sarah Beth Hensley contributed to this report.
Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger delivers Democratic response to the 2026 State of the Union address by President Donald Trump, Feb. 24, 2026. (ABC News)
In her roughly 12-minute speech, delivered live in front of a crowd in colonial Williamsburg, Spanberger focused on affordability and made pointed remarks about Trump’s hardline immigration policies.
“Let me ask you, the American people watching at home, three questions,” Spanberger said. “Is the president working to make life more affordable for you and your family? Is the president working to keep Americans safe both at home and abroad? Is the president working for you?”
Spanberger, who was inaugurated in January after serving three terms in the House of Representatives, hit on key issues of affordability, including lowering the persistently high costs of housing, health care, energy and groceries despite the Trump administration’s insistence that some of these costs have come down.
“Democrats across the country are laser focused on affordability in our nation’s capital and in state capitols and communities across America,” Spanberger said.
The daughter of a law enforcement officer and a nurse, Spanberger focused relentlessly on affordability throughout her 2025 gubernatorial campaign. Despite the economy being the top issue Trump ran on in the 2024 election, it’s been one of the issues he’s struggled with the most during his second term, as Americans still haven’t felt the “Trump boom” they were promised.
In an ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos poll, 57% of Americans disapprove of how Trump’s handling the economy, and 64% disapproved of how he’s handling tariffs on imported goods.
Spanberger, a former CIA officer, also criticized the Trump for his role on the world stage, saying he is contributing to greater worldwide uncertainty, saying, “Our president has endangered the long and storied history of the United States of America, being a force for good.”
A former federal law enforcement officer who worked on narcotics and money-laundering cases for the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, Spanberger also addressed what critics call the chaos caused by the Trump administration, which continues its immigration enforcement efforts that Americans are seeing in their communities.
“Our president has sent poorly trained federal agents into our cities where they have arrested and detained American citizens and people who aspire to be Americans,” Spanberger said in her speech. She referred to mothers being taken away from their babies and children — including “a little boy in a blue bunny hat” –being sent to “far-off detention centers.”
She added: “Our broken immigration system is something to be fixed not an excuse for unaccountable agents to terrorize our communities.”
The governor gave her speech live from Colonial Williamsburg, the restored 18th century capital where Virginian representatives voted for its delegation to Congress to propose independence for all 13 colonies from Great Britain, and later adopted the Virginia Declaration of Rights — which influenced the Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights.
“In his speech tonight, the president did what he always does,” Spanberger said. He “lied, he scapegoated, and he distracted. And he offered no real solutions to our nation’s pressing challenges, so many of which he is actively making worse.”
There were at least two major counter events that several Democrats planned to attend, including MoveOn’s People’s State of the Union, which is promoting the participation of more than 20 members of Congress; and the “State of the Swamp” event by Defiance.org that features a handful of celebrities appearing by video or in person, such as Robert De Niro.
Spanberger prepared for her remarks by watching speeches other Democrats have delivered in response to Trump’s previous addresses to Congress.
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks with reporters while aboard Air Force One en route to Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin on June 5, 2026. President Trump is traveling to an event at Custer Farms in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin. (Photo by Samuel Corum/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — Soon after President Donald Trump said in the Oval Office on Wednesday that the United States has been secretly ferrying “millions of barrels” of oil through the Strait of Hormuz, Trump announced on social media that “more than 100 MILLION Barrels of Oil” and “more than 200 Commercial Ships” have successfully traveled through the strait.
“Last month, I directed our Great U.S. Military to execute a secret mission to support Oil Tankers and other Commercial Ships through the Strait of Hormuz,” Trump wrote on his social media platform.
“Today, I am pleased to announce that this effort has resulted in more than 100 MILLION Barrels of Oil making its way through the Straight, and into the Open Market. More than 200 Commercial Ships have safely traveled through the Strait.”
The president referred to it as a “secret mission” that he says was conducted last month amid the ongoing war with Iran, which has led the strait to be closed to regular commercial shipping.
ABC News could not immediately verify the accuracy of Trump’s claims and the numbers of oil barrels and ships that he claims have passed through the Strait of Hormuz.
Earlier Wednesday, in the Oval Office, Trump alluded to apparent U.S. operations to stimulate shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, with Trump claiming that the U.S. recently “took” 22 ships, amounting to millions of barrels of oil, through the strait.
“Do you know, we’ve been taking out millions of barrels of oil? Nobody knows it. You know who doesn’t know about it? Iran, until right now. We took out the other night 22 ships late at night with no lights, because they don’t have any radar, because we blasted the crap out of it,” Trump said.
In his post Wednesday afternoon, Trump referred to the alleged operation as a “wildly successful effort” that is due to the U.S. blockade on the Strait of Hormuz.
“This wildly successful effort is because the UNITED STATES of AMERICA CONTROLS the Strait of Hormuz — NOT Iran,” Trump wrote.
Since last month, there have been reports of the U.S. Navy helping ships navigate through the Strait of Hormuz — though U.S. officials have said that the efforts have not been a revival of Project Freedom, the short-lived U.S. military initiative to escort commercial vessels through the Strait of Hormuz. Trump announced Project Freedom in early May — pausing the effort just two days later.
Rather, this most recent effort was a coordination effort where shippers could contact U.S. Central Command and in turn, receive information about where to transit through the Strait of Hormuz, according to a U.S. official.
ABC News confirmed the Times’ report that, as of late last month, approximately 70 commercial ships had been guided through the strait. In addition to the U.S. coordinating safe passageways, the Times reported that many of the vessels traveling through the strait had turned off their transponders to “avoid detection.”
During the Oval Office event earlier Wednesday afternoon, Trump had also indicated that he was choosing to reveal this “secret” mission now because the Iranians had “figured it out.”
“But now I’m going to tell you, because they just figured it out. So now that they figured it out, I can tell you it was very hard for me. I wanted to say it so bad, but it was. I didn’t want to ruin it, but it was very hard,” Trump said.
he U.S. Supreme Court is seen on March 04, 2026 in Washington, DC. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump attacked the U.S. court system in two posts on social media over the weekend, including disparaging a Supreme Court ruling over his use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to implement tariffs.
He also took aim at a ruling by a U.S. District Judge James Boasberg on Friday that blocked the Justice Department’s subpoenas as part of their criminal investigation into Fed Chair Jerome Powell.
“The decision that mattered most to me was TARIFFS! The Court knew where I stood,” Trump said on Sunday night.
The Supreme Court last month delivered a major blow to Trump by invalidating most of his global tariffs, a cornerstone of his economic policy in his second term. In a 6-3 decision, written by Chief Justice John Roberts, the court concluded that IEEPA did not give Trump the power to unilaterally impose tariffs because the Constitution gives Congress the sole authority to raise revenue from Americans.
Trump on Sunday night derided the high court’s decision, claiming that the “Democrats on the Court always ‘stick together,’ no matter how strong a case is put before them.”
Trump also took a dig at Justices Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett, both of whom the president appointed during his first term to the nation’s highest court, accusing them of going “out of their way, with bad and wrongful rulings and intentions, to prove how ‘honest,’ ‘independent,’ and ‘legitimate’ they are.”
Notwithstanding the criticism, Gorsuch and Barrett have been reliable conservative votes on the court, consistently voting in favor of positions backed by the Trump administration. Last year, Barrett authored the landmark 6-3 decision restricting the ability of lower court judges from issuing nationwide injunctions against Trump policies.
Trump claimed the court’s decision on tariffs meant the U.S. “was unnecessarily RANSACKED” and called the court “a weaponized and unjust Political Organization.”
“They are hurting our Country, and will continue to do so. All I can do, as President, is call them out for their bad behavior! This statement about the United States Supreme Court will cause me nothing but problems in the future, but I feel it is my obligation to speak the TRUTH,” Trump wrote, seemingly acknowledging the potential backlash he might receive over his attacks.
Trump on the day after that ruling said he would raise those tariffs to 15%. Twenty-four states are suing the Trump administration over those duties, saying they’re illegal because the president does not have the power to impose them.
Tariffs aside, the court’s conservative majority ruled overwhelmingly in Trump’s favor during this first year of his second term, approving nearly all of the administration’s unprecedented number of emergency applications seeking a green light for government layoffs, federal funding freezes, expedited removal of immigrants, and expulsion of transgender military service members.
In 2024, the court extended sweeping immunity to Trump in the face of criminal prosecution, which Trump called a “big win for our Constitution and democracy” at the time.
In a second social media post, Trump claimed that the U.S. court system had singled him out and treated him and other Republicans in a politicized manner.
“The Courts treat Republicans, and me, so unfairly, always seeming to protect those who should not be protected,” Trump said. “They are highly politicized. Cases don’t matter, the Judge does!”
He then blasted the Friday ruling by Boasberg, a top federal judge in Washington, that blocked the Justice Department from subpoenaing the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors after determining the government “produced essentially zero evidence” to support a criminal investigation of Powell, the Fed chair.
“How is this absolutely terrible Federal Reserve Chairman, Jerome ‘Too Late’ Powell, not even allowed to be investigated for the horrible job he does?” Trump wrote.
Powell in January had rebuked the investigation, describing it in a video message as a politically motivated effort to influence the Fed’s interest rate policy.
The president on Sunday also attacked Boasberg, who authored the ruling.
“I strongly criticized Jerome ‘Too Late’ for his horrible performance throughout his tenure, which is either gross incompetence, total dishonesty, or both, and, in return for this well justified criticism, get viciously and wrongfully blamed by, as usual, a Wacky, Nasty, Crooked, and totally Out of Control Judge, named James Boasberg, a man who suffers from the highest level of Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS), and has been ‘after’ my people, and me, for years,” Trump wrote.
“In case after case, Boasberg has displayed open, flagrant, and extreme partisan bias and contempt against Republicans and the Trump Administration,” Trump added later in the post.
The president then called for Boasberg to be removed from cases related to Trump and his administration, claiming “he is exactly what Judges should not be!”
Acting U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro said on Friday that Boasberg was an “activist” judge, adding that the Justice Department planned to appeal the ruling.
Following a previous round of Trump attacks on Boasberg last year, Roberts issued a rare public statement defending the judge and judiciary.
