Dana White, the CEO of UFC, has sparked controversy after describing the White House Correspondents' Dinner shooting as 'f*****g awesome' in comments that quickly spread across social media. White was among the thousands of attendees at the Washington Hilton hotel when authorities say 31-year-old Cole Tomas Allen, armed with a shotgun, handgun, and multiple knives, attempted to storm the event.
White's Reaction to the Incident
While many, including Erika Kirk, the widow of Charlie Kirk, reacted with horror to the unfolding events, the 56-year-old White took a markedly different stance. 'It started to get noisy. Tables started getting flipped over, guys running with guns and they were screaming, Get down! I didn't get down. It was f*****g awesome and I literally took every minute of it in,' he told USA Today.
White elaborated on the experience, stating, 'It was a pretty crazy, unique experience. We were sitting right in front of the table, right in front of where the president was. Nobody got tackled but guys came in looking for shooters, I thought the shooter was over by us or something.'
White's Connection to President Trump
White is a close ally of President Donald Trump and is scheduled to promote an MMA event on the White House lawn on June 14, the commander in chief's birthday, as part of the United States' 250th birthday celebrations. At the dinner, White was a guest of Paramount Skydance, the broadcaster behind UFC, and was seated at the head table alongside President Trump, the first lady, and Karoline Leavitt.
President Trump was quick to thank the Secret Service agents who subdued the suspect and announced that the event would be rescheduled. 'The response time was really incredible, and we're going to reschedule. We're going to do it again, we're not going to let anybody take over our society; we're not going to cancel things because we can't do that. We wanted to stay tonight. I will tell you, I fought like hell to stay, but it was protocol,' Trump said.
Previous Attempt on Trump's Life
In 2025, White revealed in an interview with Piers Morgan that after the attempt on Trump's life in Butler, Pennsylvania, he urged the president to drop out of the race. White recalled calling Trump immediately after landing in Italy, finding him 'unfazed' by the harrowing encounter. 'Why are you doing this? Stop. Stop,' White said he told Trump. 'I told him to stop so many times.'
White added, 'You have such a good life and you can do so many things. He believes he believes in God…he's very religious.' Trump later told Morgan that 'he thinks God must've had a plan for me. God wanted me to survive that bullet.' The FBI confirmed that Trump was struck in the ear by a bullet during the attack. White agreed, stating, 'He believes that to his core. That God has spared his life to be the president and do the things that he's going to do over the next four years.'
