Longtime Ally Dana White Drops Bizarre Michael Jackson Defense to Prove Trump is Not Racist, Then Gets Grilled on Ape Video
‘But I’m not a political guy.’
Donald Trump’s longtime ally Dana White just made a bizarre defense of the president’s character by pointing to his friendship with Michael Jackson, insisting it proves Trump isn’t racist. The UFC president sat down with The New Yorker editor David Remnick on May 22 for a podcast interview, where he argued that critics calling Trump a racist are completely off base because the president had a close relationship with the late pop icon.
According to Mediaite, White even claimed Jackson was around Trump’s kids “all the time,” using that as evidence that accusations of racism are “crazy.” The logic didn’t land well with Remnick, who pushed back.
White’s defense hinged on talk surrounding the release of the recent Michael movie. “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,” White said.
‘Trump had Michael Jackson around his kids all the time’
He doubled down when Remnick questioned whether Jackson’s history – including multiple allegations of child sexual abuse – should really be used as a moral benchmark. “I don’t know if that’s true,” White said about the accusations, “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.”
Remnick wasn’t having it. He reminded White that Jackson’s legacy is far from untarnished, calling him “a deeply, deeply flawed human being, to say the least.” The editor didn’t mince words about the abuse allegations, which included a 1993 civil lawsuit and a 2005 criminal trial where Jackson was acquitted on all counts.
White’s response was to deflect. “He was abusive?” he asked, before pivoting back to Trump’s defense of Jackson as proof of his character. “You know, (he) defended him when that stuff was going down. So to call the guy a racist is crazy. He’s not a racist.”
Remnick then brought up Trump’s ape video
The conversation took an even weirder turn when Remnick brought up a racist video Trump posted earlier this year depicting Barack Obama as an ape. White claimed he hadn’t seen it and didn’t know anything about it, but he insisted Trump couldn’t be racist because, in his words, “If he was that type of person, I never would associate with that type of a person, no matter who he was.”
When Remnick pressed him on how posting such a video doesn’t make Trump “that type of person,” White shut it down. “He’s not,” he said flatly. White’s defense of Trump isn’t new, but this particular argument is especially strange. The two have been close for decades, with Trump even hosting UFC events at his properties.
According to The Daily Beast, Trump and Michael’s friendship goes back to at least 1988, when Trump attended Jackson’s Bad World Tour concert at Madison Square Garden. Jackson later lived in Trump Tower, and Trump publicly defended him during the abuse allegations, calling him “very misunderstood” in 2015. But using Jackson’s troubled legacy as proof of Trump’s racial tolerance is a stretch, to say the least.
Trump’s own history with racism is well-documented
The Department of Justice sued one of his companies in 1973 for allegedly refusing to rent apartments to Black tenants and lying about availability. In 1989, he took out full-page newspaper ads calling for the death penalty for the Central Park Five, five Black and Latino teenagers wrongfully convicted of assaulting a white jogger. They were later exonerated, but Trump never apologized.
Former employees have also accused his companies of discriminatory practices, including claims that Black staff were removed from certain areas when high-profile clients visited his casinos. Then there’s Trump’s political career, which kicked off with the racist birther conspiracy theory questioning Barack Obama’s citizenship. He’s referred to Black neighborhoods as “violent hellholes” and African nations as “s—hole countries.”
The ape video Remnick mentioned isn’t an isolated incident, either. Trump has a pattern of posting dehumanizing content, including framing undocumented migrants as “criminals” who are “poisoning the blood of our country.” White’s claim that Trump “loves this country” and is “on your team” no matter your race or religion rings hollow when stacked against this track record.
The White House is hosting a UFC event in June
White’s interview comes just weeks before the White House hosts a UFC event in June to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. The timing is coincidental but fitting, as the event falls exactly three weeks before the Fourth of July, and, incidentally, Trump’s 80th birthday.
It’s unclear whether White’s defense of Trump will sway any critics, but it’s certainly given them more ammunition. Using Michael Jackson’s friendship as proof of racial tolerance is a head-scratcher, especially when Trump’s own words and actions tell a different story.
The bigger question is why White felt the need to go this route in the first place. Trump’s history with race is a matter of public record, and no amount of celebrity friendships can erase that. If anything, White’s defense highlights just how far some of Trump’s allies will go to rewrite history.
(Featured image: The White House)
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