Most men who want to throw a birthday party rent a venue. Donald Trump is throwing one on the front lawn of the White House, has spent more than $60 million of government time and labor on the decorations, and is now publicly mulling whether to leave them up.
The event is a UFC fight card on the South Lawn on June 14, framed as part of America’s 250th anniversary celebrations and also, not incidentally, the president’s 80th birthday. The centerpiece is a structure called “The Claw,” a 92-foot open arch visible from Pennsylvania Avenue, surrounded by thousands of arena seats and large screens. When a reporter asked about the dismantling timeline, Trump compared the whole thing to the Eiffel Tower and said, “Maybe we’ll never ever take it down.” He appeared to mean this as a compliment.
A federal lawsuit filed Saturday by the Public Integrity Project argues the event violates National Park Service rules barring sporting events on federal parklands, that Congress never authorized the construction, and that no environmental review was conducted before workers broke ground on the national monument’s front yard. The plaintiffs call it “a private, commercial, corrupt use of our most sacred national monuments.” The White House called the lawsuit “obstructionist, baseless, and dilatory,” which is the administration’s standard response to any piece of paper signed by a judge.
The tell is the comparison. The Eiffel Tower was built in 1889 as a temporary structure, famously mocked by Parisians, and survived because it turned out to be useful. The Claw is a UFC cage on a historic lawn, paid for by the government, built to celebrate the president’s birthday. One of these things has an argument for permanence. The other has Dana White.
When a man builds a fighting arena on public land and compares it to a French national landmark, who is supposed to explain the difference?
