The recent dinner arranged by musician Kid Rock between President Donald Trump and comedian Bill Maher has made many headlines thanks to the volatile relationships they have shared over the years, but how did UFC CEO Dana White do at the same meeting?
White’s friendship with Trump is well documented, but the president attended UFC 314 in Miami last weekend, but he has no real connection to this dinner other than he actually knows Kidlock, and he actually appears in the Marhers Club Random Past podcasts. White’s invitation came as a result of Trump and Maher taking such ugly shots of each other over the years, when the Emmy-nominated musician decided they needed someone else in the room with him.
“Kid Rock was blowing my phone away and he said, “I need help – I just had Bill Maher and Donald Trump for dinner together. And if this doesn’t want to go south, wouldn’t I want to fly here?”
Kid Rock’s concerns are probably unfounded given that Trump filed a $5 million lawsuit against Maher in 2013 after pledging to donate that same amount to charity if he could prove that the future president is not the son of an orangutan.
But despite all the bad blood between them in the past, White says that the dinner between Trump and Maher is actually quite heartfelt, and he has earned a memorial from an encounter scheduled to be exhibited at the UFC office.
“So the first thing that happened was Bill Maher walking into the oval office, me and the president were there, and he has a paper with all the names the president has called him over the years,” White revealed. “It was hilarious, like 100 names on this list.
“Thank God, he had two because I had signed them.
Maher spoke to me at that moment on his HBO series real time Last Friday, a long list of insults was presented to the president as an icebreaker of sorts, and it clearly worked out.
“I brought this to the White House and wanted him to sign. “I know he says with humor, millions of liberal sphincters have been toned.
White says that while Trump and Maher talk about various issues he was just a fry at dinner to be on the wall, but he says the meeting was actually an overall great experience.
“I think the coolest thing about that meeting and that dinner was two guys who didn’t like each other for a long time.
“They talked about a lot of things they agree with and a lot of things they don’t agree with, but Kid Rock and I always say… No one stepped out to meet and dinner with Donald Trump and went out and they didn’t like him.
Although he wasn’t the center of attention at the meeting, White says that after he first appeared at the White House, he still enjoyed an interesting exchange with Maher.
The UFC CEO revealed that he rarely dresses up while hanging out with Trump, but Maher showed up wearing a full suit while taking the cracks in white because he wasn’t doing the same thing.
“First of all, the President is always on me, because I don’t wear a suit when I go to these things,” White said. “Bill Maher is walking into an oval office. He said, ‘There’s no way I was showing up in hell without a suit’ and I didn’t have a suit. It was interesting.
“There were a lot of really good, clever conversations that went back and forth between him and the president and Kid Rock. I just sat there and spent time together two of them. It was amazing.”
During the event summary, Maher admitted that he left dinner with a very different impression of Trump than anyone he watches on TV or responds on social media, but that doesn’t necessarily mean he agrees with his politics.
White said it was roughly the same, but putting them together at least in the room could potentially bridge the gap between two different ideologies that would never happen if they were to shoot each other through interviews and social media.
“That’s what needs to happen,” White said. “Everyone doesn’t dislike each other, people who have opposition, come together, talk, disagree.
“It’s okay to disagree. There’s no case where you agree with all of your friends, your family, and all that you say you’re definitely not the president of the United States. That doesn’t mean you need to hate each other.”