donald trump once again uses taxpayer resources to organize a birthday party. Last year, it was a sparsely attended military parade on the National Mall. This year, the president wants a blood sport and will host an exclusive outdoor event. UFC event on the South Lawn of the White House that is estimated to cost more than 60 million dollars. But while the president and his guests enjoy a night of man-on-man action at the White House, artists and celebrities will host a benefit concert in protest of American Nero’s personal circus.
“Rise Up Sing Out” will take place on June 14 in New York City and will feature featured artists and speakers including Rufus Wainwright, Bette Midler, Patti Smith and Joy Reid, with viewing parties planned throughout the county. Ticket sales for the concert will benefit the Committee for the First Amendment, an alliance of celebrities, actors and artists formed during the McCarthy era and reinstated last year.
The group was revived by the actress and lifelong activist. Jane Fonda. His father, actor Henry Fonda, openly opposed the Hollywood Blacklist carried out by the entertainment industry under pressure from the anti-communist Republican Red Scare led by former Senator Joseph R. McCarthy (R-Wis.). Fonda helped found the committee as a public show of support for the “Hollywood Ten,” 10 directors and screenwriters who were found in contempt of Congress after refusing to cooperate with the House Un-American Activities Committee.
Jane Fonda will headline the concert, which will be held at New York City Hall, an auditorium founded by New York suffragettes in the 1920s with capacity for 1,500 people. (It was famously where Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood, was arrested at a birth control educational meeting.) Last year, Fonda, now 88, announced reform of the committee in an ACLU eventsaying that the need for an organization protest and arts engagement transcended Trump, whom she describes as a fascist. “Which is not [just] Triumph. If Trump died, we would have another one” like him, he said.
“We are past the period of protests. I mean, protests are good because they remind us that we are not alone, but that the people in the White House will just wait for us. They don’t care,” he said. “What we have to do now is called non-cooperation.”
The event is also being promoted by the organizers of the massive no kings protests that in the past have been timed to coincide with events promoted by Trump, including his birthday parade in 2025.
Ezra Levin, co-founder of Indivisible, one of the main organizations behind the No Kings movement, explained to rolling stone That, given the attention surrounding the UFC event, and the fact that it will effectively be closed to the public, prompted the coalition of activists to “contribute something so people can pay attention to something else, ideally something pro-democracy.”
Breaking with long tradition and the limits of American ethics laws, the event at the White House will be packed with corporate sponsorships – including Crypto.comDodge Ram, Bud Light and Polymarket. White House ethics officials have historically avoided giving the impression that corporations can secure access to the president and his government through donations and endorsements, but those standards have been drowned in the Potomac during Trump’s presidency.
Attendees at the UFC event include the Trump family, Jared and Ivanka Kushner, members of Trump’s cabinet, a host of right-wing celebrities and influencers, and hundreds of military personnel (if they qualify). strict physical fitness requirements established by Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth.)
The fights will almost certainly take place on Sunday, but in a last-ditch effort to ruin Trump’s parade (outside of the wet, muggy weather predicted in Washington DC this weekend), one organization has filed a lawsuit in an attempt to close the whole thing.
“The first thing Trump wants now, as he always wants, is for all the attention,” Levin says. Rolling stone. “That’s why he’s throwing this birthday party too, with a ton of donors and attendees, because he’s always looking to make some money off whatever scam he’s up to.”
“I think it’s important for us to continue to convey the message that he clearly cares about himself and enriching himself and his friends,” he added. “If we’re going to stop it, we have to focus on organizing our own communities.”
