Top Trump ally's move seen as opening act of MAGA exodus from president's 'stink'

Ultimate Fighting Championship chief Dana White’s latest vow to stay out of politics drew swift mockery online, with critics casting it as an early sign that Trump allies are heading for the exits after the GOP’s midterm rout.

“You’ll never see me involved in politics. I want nothing to do with politics,” White said in an interview on Fox News that aired Saturday.

White has sworn off politics before. Shortly after Trump’s 2024 win, he told The New Yorker, “I want nothing to do with this s---. It’s gross. It’s disgusting.” Months later, on Stephanie McMahon’s podcast, he said “politics just isn’t for me.”

Journalist Nick Field flagged an obvious hole in the claim.

“He’s spoken at the last three Republican National Conventions!” he wrote.

White took the stage at Trump’s nominating conventions in 2016, 2020 and 2024, according to the Associated Press. At the 2024 convention, he was the last speaker before Trump accepted the Republican nomination.

Others read White’s comments as a preview. With Republicans set to hand the House and Senate to Democrats in January, anti-monopoly writer Matt Stoller suggested the rush to rebrand had already begun.

“All these guys are now saying ‘oh well I’m not political,’” Stoller wrote.

Writer Molly Jong-Fast was similarly unconvinced.

“You don’t get to put Pandora back in the box cause your team lost,” she wrote.

Sports journalist Luke Thomas zeroed in on the UFC’s role in Trump’s comeback, describing White as “the CEO of the organization that did its level best to launder the reputation of Trump after he tried to steal a presidential election on Jan 6.”

MeidasTouch editor Ron Filipkowski predicted the effort would fail no matter who tried it.

“As hard as these guys try now and into the future,” he wrote, “they will never get the stink of Trump off them.”