Dana White has spoken out in defense of Donald Trump during a recent interview, pushing back on claims that the president is racist.
Trump has repeatedly faced accusations of racism over the years, including criticism from the United Nations.
In March, the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) published a report that accused Trump of using ‘racist hate speech’.
According to BBC News, the report warned that the way migrants, refugees and asylum seekers were portrayed ‘as criminals or as a burden by politicians and influential public figures at the highest level of the state party, particularly its president’ could contribute to hate crimes and increased discrimination.
Trump has also drawn backlash for controversial social media activity, including sharing an AI-generated image that depicted Michelle and Barack Obama as apes — something many people condemned as racist.
However, White — the UFC CEO and president, and a longtime acquaintance of Trump — said he does not believe Trump is racist.
Speaking on The New Yorker Radio Hour, White explained why he rejects that label.
“These things that he’s a racist and he’s a Nazi and he’s this and that – I mean, Donald Trump, all this stuff’s coming out now,” he said.
White then cited Trump’s past comments about Michael Jackson as part of his reasoning.
“You know, the Michael movie just came out, and you see all these videos now popping up of Trump defending Michael Jackson and the type of person that he was and that Michael Jackson was around his children and around his family a lot.”
At that point, David Remnick interrupted and suggested Jackson was a complicated example to raise given the serious abuse allegations he faced.
He said: “Wait a minute, Dana – Michael Jackson – as talented as he was, as brilliant as he was, was a deeply, deeply flawed human being, to say the least, and was abusive [from] everything we know about him.”
White agreed Jackson had flaws but appeared unfamiliar with the allegations being referenced.
“He was abusive?” quizzed White, to which Remnick replied: “Yes, to kids. It’s terrible.”
Jackson was accused of child molestation multiple times in the 2000s, though he was acquitted of all charges after a criminal trial in 2005.
White continued: “I don’t know if that’s true, but I can tell you the president had a very good relationship with Michael Jackson and had Michael Jackson around his kids all the time.
“And you know, defended him when that stuff was going down. So to call the guy a racist is crazy. He’s not a racist.”
UFC has been contacted for comment.