Was this terrible idea the worst thing Trump has proposed since being voted out of office?
Donald Trump has had a lot of ideas since rising to political prominence but one of his worst might have been his hair-brained scheme to create a migrant fighting league that he believed would be a real winner.
Trump was speaking in front of a crowd at a Faith & Freedom Coalition on June 22nd in Washington when he told his audience about a talk he had once had with Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) President Dana White.
“Did anyone ever hear of Dana White?” Trump asked before he kicked off his remarks about the time he floated the idea of a migrant fighting league to White according to his own claims on stage, which were quoted by The Washington Post.
“I said, ‘Dana, I have an idea. Why don’t you set up a migrant league of fighters and have your regular league of fighters, and then you have the champion of your league — these are the greatest fighters in the world — fight the champion of the migrants,’” Trump explained.
“I think the migrant guy might win; that’s how tough they are. He didn’t like that idea too much,” Trump added. White later confirmed the former president’s comments during a post-fight press conference in Saudi Arabia but claimed they were “a joke.”
“I saw everybody going crazy online. But yeah, he did say it,” White told reporters at the post-fight press conference. Trump would also repeat his comments at a different campaign event in Philadelphia on the same day, and he somehow made the story even worse.
Trump explained to a crowd of supporters in Philadelphia that he told Dana White those who were coming into the country were “tough cookies" before telling the audience White had said Trump was the toughest person he had ever met.
“I said ‘Dana, Dana, I have an idea for you to make a lot of money. You’re gonna go and start a new migrant fight league. Migrants, only migrants,’” Trump said, which netted him cheers from the crowd.
Trump then stated that he told White the champion of the migrant league should face off against the UFC champion at the end of the year, explaining to the crowd that he told White the migrant champion would win according to Rolling Stone.
“I hate to tell you, Dana, I think that migrants might win,” Trump said, adding: “That’s how tough they are. These are not, this is not a normal situation.” The former president then went into a short rant about the quality of people he thinks are coming into the country.
“These people are drug dealers, gang members, killers in so many different ways. Now, and we probably have 18 million we’ll have 20 million by the time we get this guy [Joe Biden] out of there,” Trump explained.
This wasn’t the first time Trump has made derogatory comments about the migrants and The Washington Post noted that the former president’s remarks were part of a “broader pattern of using dehumanizing language when discussing immigrants.”
Trump has often described migrants as violent criminals and once said they were “poisoning the blood of our country.” The former president has also previously stated on multiple occasions that migrants crossing the border come from prisons and mental institutions.
The Biden administration was quick to denounce the former president’s first remarks in Washington with a statement issued by campaign spokesperson Sarafina Chitika, who chastised Trump for his rhetoric at the religious event in Washington.
“Fitting that convicted felon Donald Trump spent his time at a religious conference threatening to round up Latinos, bragging about ripping away Americans’ freedoms, and promising to be even more extreme if he regains power,” Chitika said, according to CNN.
“Trump’s incoherent, unhinged tirade showed voters in his own words that he is a threat to our freedoms and is too dangerous to be let anywhere near the White House again,” Chitika continued. Whether or not voters would agree will be seen in November.