The brazenly corrupt Ultimate Fighting Championship event President Donald Trump hosted on the White House lawn Sunday night boiled down to a long, flashy commercial for his self-enriching cryptocurrency schemes.
The fighters who signed on to beat each other to a pulp for Trump’s amusement entered the cage on steps that featured advertisements for Crypto.com, a trading platform that has sunk a billion dollars into Trump’s social media company in an arrangement critics have derided as deeply corrupt. The Trump family’s cryptocurrency platform, the scandal-plagued World Liberty Financial, announced that Sunday’s fight winners would be paid, in part, using a cryptocurrency traded on the platform. Commentators made sure to promote Trump’s crypto platform during the broadcast. And lest you believe the event’s promotion of the president’s interests were confined to the digital realm, commentators also made sure to promote physical collectible “Trump coins” the Trump Organization has been hawking.
This glorified crypto commercial came amid reports that investors in the Trump family’s crypto ventures have taken a bath while the Trump family has raked in billions of dollars (on paper). Or as Reuters put it in its latest report, “Under the Trump crypto playbook, the family always wins. Investors don’t.”
Financial records from this year have also shown Trump invested in the UFC’s parent company, a disturbing fact to consider amid his administration’s vow to promote the company globally. The Trump Organization has said third parties manage Trump’s investments with no input from Trump or his family.