Ex-Trump aide gets CNN smackdown as he calls Trump party criticism 'elitist'

CNN's Audie Cornish was caught off guard by a former Donald Trump official's response to criticism of the president's plans for his 80th birthday celebration.

An octagon-shaped cage is being erected on the White House South Lawn to host next month's UFC bout marking the nation's 250th anniversary and the president's birthday, and mixed martial arts analyst Luke Thomas addressed some of the concerns about the hulking structure and the event itself.

"It seems a little classist tome, to be perfectly honest," Thomas said. "It's not thatI'm opposed to the argumentsthat – for example, I've lived in Washington, D.C., on and off,since the 1980s, and I grew, Ilearned how to swim at East Potomac Park. My daughter hadher second birthday there. Youknow, the fact that he's takingthat over or that he's paintingthe bottom of the Reflecting Pool blue or he's putting hisname on the Kennedy Center.

"These are things that you canhave a real problem with, oreven just a debate or aconversation about, but thencalling it tacky or trashy, I'mlike, who is this convincing to?" Thomas added. "This is automatically alienatingto people who need tounderstand there's a biggerproblem here, which is not somuch the event. I don't reallyhave a problem with the event assuch. It's the union betweenthe Ultimate Fighting Championship and Trump'spolitics, or how one enabled theother, and I think that to me isthe thing that people should befocused on."

Mike Dubke, who served as White House communications director early in Trump's first term, advanced that argument.

"This is either thepeople's house or it's not thepeople's house," Dubke said, "and I think toyour point, it's a bit elitistto be really up in arms over allof this."

"Wait, so whose house is it?" Cornish interjected. "It looks like it's Trump'shouse. It's his birthday party."

"It is," Dubke agreed, but his argument fell apart at that point. "I don't it's anoctagon. I think with all themilitary that's going to bethere, it should be a Pentagonbirthday. But that's a wholeother thing."

Thomas picked up the discussion and made clear the event was centered around the president and his birthday.

"To beclear, it's on Trump's birthday," Thomas said. "I mean, we coulddedicate this show to the 250thanniversary of the birth of thenation, that doesn't make it areal celebration of it as such.I mean, I'm sure they might havesome genuine intentions, butthey moved it originally from a July closer date back to Trump's birthday. I think thatlike trying to disguise the factthat this is largely about ... magnifying Trump. It's just disingenuous."

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