COLUMN: Trump Watches Men Fight While the World Holds Its Breath

Historic Negotiations in the Shadow of the Ring

That same weekend, the fourth round of negotiations between Washington and Tehran began in Muscat, the capital of Oman. At stake: nothing less than Iran’s nuclear program, the economic sanctions that are strangling the Iranian people, and the question of whether the Middle East will plunge into a new arms race.

On the American side, Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, led the discussions. On the Iranian side, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi. Two men in a room, with the weight of the world on their shoulders. Outside, the region is in turmoil. Israel is watching. Saudi Arabia is weighing its options. Russia is observing.

A third round described as “significant progress”

It’s important to understand the context. The three previous sessions had already produced what diplomats euphemistically call “significant progress.” Tehran had agreed to negotiate—which, in the language of Iranian diplomacy, already represents a considerable concession. The outlines of a possible agreement were taking shape. Uranium enrichment, IAEA inspections, the gradual lifting of sanctions—everything was on the table.

And yet, at the very moment these discussions were reaching their most delicate phase, the U.S. president chose to present himself to the entire world in a manner that conveyed the exact opposite of diplomatic gravity. The message sent to Tehran was not subtle. It didn’t need to be.

Casualness as a Negotiation Tool

It would be tempting—and dangerous—to believe that Trump didn’t know what he was doing. The man who wrote The Art of the Deal (or at least signed it) fully understands the psychology of negotiation. And one of the fundamental principles of any negotiation is this: whoever appears to need the deal the least has the most power.

By showing up at the UFC while his emissaries negotiate with Iran, Trump is sending a calculated signal: this deal doesn’t concern me enough to cancel my night out. Whether that’s true or not is irrelevant. What matters is perception. And that perception is devastating for the Iranian side.

When Richard Nixon Watched Football

History offers precedents. Nixon watched American football during the bombings in Cambodia. George W. Bush played golf while Iraq descended into chaos—before publicly declaring that he had stopped out of respect for the soldiers’ families. Obama was photographed on a golf course on the very day of an Islamic State beheading.

But none of those presidents turned the spectacle into doctrine. With Trump, this nonchalance isn’t a lapse. It’s the operating system. Every public appearance is a reality TV episode in which he is the producer, director, and star. The world isn’t a stage—the world is his show.

An opponent who doesn’t take you seriously

Put yourself in Abbas Araghchi’s shoes for a moment. You represent a country that has been under sanctions for decades. Your economy is struggling. Your people are demanding results. You’ve convinced the regime’s hardliners—the Revolutionary Guards, the Supreme Leader—that it was worth sitting down at this table. You’ve put your political credibility on the line.

And while you’re negotiating your nation’s nuclear future, your main negotiating partner is watching two men fight in a cage.

What do you make of this? How do you return to Tehran with that image in your mind?

The risk of humiliation that derails agreements

In diplomacy, perceived humiliation has killed more agreements than substantive disagreements. The Treaty of Versailles did not fail solely because of its terms—it failed because Germany felt humiliated. The Oslo Accords did not collapse solely because of terrorism—they collapsed because each side felt the other did not respect it.

Trump is playing with diplomatic fire. If Iranian negotiators return home feeling they were treated as an afterthought—less important than an MMA fight—the hawks in Tehran will have all the fuel they need to torpedo any agreement. And yet, that is exactly the signal that has been sent.

The argument from supporters: Maximum pressure works

Trump’s supporters have a ready-made response. Maximum pressure—crushing sanctions, thinly veiled military threats, and public defiance—already brought North Korea back to the negotiating table in 2018. The very fact that Iran is agreeing to talk, after years of refusal, proves that the approach works.

According to this interpretation, the absence at the UFC is not a sign of disrespect—it’s a show of strength. “We’re in such a position of strength that our president can afford not to be there.” The argument isn’t absurd. It’s even, within a certain logic of power dynamics, coherent.

The critics’ argument: You don’t play poker with nuclear warheads

The problem is that diplomatic poker has irreversible consequences. If Trump bluffs and Tehran calls his bluff, no one can pay back the stake. Iran is just weeks—perhaps days—away from having enough enriched uranium to build a nuclear weapon. This isn’t a campaign statistic. It’s the IAEA’s assessment, confirmed by Western intelligence agencies.

Acting nonchalant when the stakes are a nonproliferation agreement is like lighting a cigarette at a gas station. It doesn’t always cause an explosion. But when it does explode, there’s no turning back. And no one—absolutely no one—will say, “At least he seemed relaxed.”

How MMA Became a Political Tool

Ten years ago, the UFC was still viewed by parts of the establishment as a spectacle of modern gladiators, barely worthy of respect. Today, it is an instrument of presidential soft power. The transformation has been staggering—and it has a name: Dana White.

White was one of Trump’s earliest supporters in the sports world. He spoke at the Republican National Convention. He organized events where the president’s presence was the real main event. In return, Trump gave MMA a political legitimacy that no combat sport had ever had in the United States.

The Permanent Colosseum of Trumpism

This alliance is not merely cosmetic. It reveals something profound about the nature of Trumpism as a cultural phenomenon. MMA embodies values that Trump’s base reveres: brute force, individual competition, the rejection of political correctness, and the celebration of total victory over the opponent.

When Trump takes his seat at the edge of the octagon, he isn’t just watching a sport. He is connecting with his base. He is telling them: I am just like you; I prefer real fights to diplomatic salons; I prefer sweat to protocol. And his base responds with an ovation worth more than any poll. The arena has become the real Oval Office—the one where the president feels at home.

The World’s Most Powerful Unelected Man

Elon Musk’s presence alongside Trump on Saturday night is worth noting. Musk heads the DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency), an agency created by executive order to slash federal spending. His teams have already announced cuts totaling several billion dollars across federal agencies. Civil servants have been laid off. Social programs have been eliminated.

And there he was, on Saturday night, in the front row of an event where tickets cost several thousand dollars, laughing heartily with the president, while the Americans he helped put out of work are wondering how they’ll pay their rent.

When austerity for others goes hand in hand with opulence for oneself

There’s a word for this in political science: plutocracy. Government of the rich, by the rich, for the rich. This is not a partisan accusation—it is a factual description of the scene. The richest man in the world and the president of the United States, side by side in a luxurious setting, while nuclear negotiations unfold without them and federal employees clear out their offices.

The contrast is not accidental. It is fundamental. Trumpism does not hide its contradictions—it flaunts them. The ability to live in opulence while claiming to speak on behalf of the people is not a glitch in the system. It is its core function.

The Perfect Attention Trap

On Sunday morning, open any American news site. Count the articles about Trump’s appearance at UFC 314. Count the articles about the Oman negotiations. The ratio will give you the exact temperature of journalism in 2025.

Trump understood before anyone else that in the attention economy, spectacle always wins. A president standing ringside produces images. Diplomats in a meeting room do not. The UFC generates clicks. Nuclear nonproliferation generates yawns. It’s not the media’s fault—it’s the fault of the information ecosystem we’ve collectively built.

And we fall into the trap. Every single time.

Yes, this article itself is part of the problem. By writing about Trump at the UFC, I’m devoting editorial space to spectacle rather than substance. But to ignore the spectacle would be to ignore the mechanism of power at work. The spectacle isn’t a distraction from politics—the spectacle is politics. And refusing to analyze it means refusing to understand how power works in the 21st century.

The real fight on Saturday night never took place in the Octagon. It played out on our screens, between what we chose to watch and what we chose to ignore.

Breakout time has plummeted

To understand why Trump’s casual attitude is so dangerous, you need to understand one figure. In 2015, when the JCPOA was signed, Iran’s breakout time—the time needed to produce enough enriched uranium for a bomb—was estimated at 12 months. The agreement had extended that timeframe, and inspections verified it.

Today, following the U.S. withdrawal from the agreement in 2018—a decision made by Trump himself during his first term—that breakout time is estimated at just a few weeks. Iran is enriching uranium to 60%, a threshold that has no civilian justification. The centrifuges are spinning. The IAEA is reporting anomalies.

The window for negotiations is closing

Every day without an agreement is one more day with Iranian centrifuges spinning. Every sign of U.S. disinterest is one more argument for Iranian hawks who believe that only the bomb guarantees the regime’s survival. Every photo of Trump smiling ringside is a gift to hardliners in Tehran.

Diplomats know this. Witkoff knows this. State Department analysts know this. But the president is watching a lightweight boxing match. And he’s the one who has the final say.

Paris, London, Berlin: The Silent Unease

European capitals have watched the scene unfold with a mixture of dismay and resignation. France, Germany, and the United Kingdom—the three European signatories to the JCPOA—have been trying for months to maintain a diplomatic channel with Tehran. Every effort to build credibility that they patiently construct, Trump blows up with a selfie.

How can we explain to our European partners that the United States takes the nuclear negotiations seriously when the president is filmed raising his fist at a UFC event? How can we ask the European Union to maintain its sanctions—which are costly to its own companies—when Washington gives the impression of treating Iran as a third-rate issue?

Riyadh and Tel Aviv: Different Calculations, the Same Concern

Israel is watching with barely contained nervousness. For Netanyahu, a weak nuclear deal would be worse than no deal at all. But no deal at all—because the negotiations would have been sabotaged by carelessness—would be catastrophic. Saudi Arabia, which has its own civilian nuclear ambitions, is quietly weighing its options: if Iran gets the bomb, the kingdom will want one of its own. And the arms race in the Middle East will become irreversible.

A president in the front row at a UFC event on a Saturday night: for Las Vegas, it’s entertainment. For the Middle East, it’s a strategic signal. And in geopolitics, signals kill.

The “Normal” President vs. the Diplomatic Elites

It would be intellectually dishonest not to acknowledge this: for tens of millions of Americans, the image of Trump at the UFC is exactly what they want to see. A president who refuses to be confined by convention. A man who refuses to play the solemn role the establishment expects of him. A leader who prefers to be with the people—even if those people are wearing $200 T-shirts in an air-conditioned arena.

That is the formidable strength of Trumpism: it has succeeded in passing off casualness as authenticity, irresponsibility as freedom, and contempt for protocol as courage.

The Trap of Elitist Criticism

And this is where critics must be honest with themselves. Every editorial that expresses outrage over Trump’s presence at the UFC confirms exactly the narrative that Trump is selling to his base: the media elites despise you; they despise your hobbies; they despise your culture. Outrage feeds the very monster it claims to fight.

The problem isn’t that a president watches MMA. The problem is that he’s doing it at this specific moment, with these specific issues at stake, sending this specific message. The nuance is crucial—and it’s consistently lost in the media clamor.

When Entertainment Becomes the Standard for Government

What is happening before our very eyes goes beyond Trump. It is a civilizational precedent. If a president can attend an entertainment show during nuclear negotiations without it affecting his popularity, then we have collectively redefined what we expect from the executive branch.

The next president—Democrat or Republican—will know that it’s possible to do exactly the same thing. The threshold of tolerance has shifted. The bar has been lowered. And it never goes back up. This is what political scientists call normative erosion—the gradual disappearance of standards we once considered non-negotiable.

From Kennedy to Trump: The Collapse of Gravitas

In October 1962, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, John F. Kennedy spent 13 days locked away in the Situation Room. He didn’t go to the movies. He didn’t attend a baseball game. He carried the weight of the crisis on his shoulders—physically, visibly—until Khrushchev backed down.

One can debate Kennedy’s policies. One cannot debate his understanding of what it means to be president when the world is on the brink of disaster. That understanding—that gravitas—is what Saturday night buried a little deeper. And yet, the nuclear stakes of 2025 are no less serious than those of 1962. They may be worse.

What Trump Gained on Saturday Night

In the media: massive coverage, viral images, and dominance of the news cycle for 48 hours. Politically: a boost to his image as an anti-establishment president among his base. Personally: an evening of entertainment surrounded by his billionaire friends. On all three counts, it was an undeniable victory.

What the world lost

Diplomatically: a signal of disinterest sent at a critical moment in the negotiations. Strategically: an argument handed to Iranian hardliners against any form of agreement. Institutionally: a further erosion of presidential dignity in a time of crisis. Historically: a precedent that will be impossible to erase.

The math is simple. Trump won an evening. The world may have lost a window of opportunity for peace. And in the arithmetic of Trumpist power, that ratio is perfectly acceptable. That’s the real scandal. Not that he watched a fight. But that he considers that ratio a good deal.

Negotiations continue—with or without him

The diplomats in Oman didn’t stop working on Saturday night. Witkoff and his team continued to negotiate, paragraph by paragraph, comma by comma, just as diplomats have done for centuries—behind the scenes, without cameras, without applause. The real work of government goes on, carried out by professionals whom no one knows and whom no one will ever film ringside.

That may be the most bitter lesson of Saturday night. The president can entertain himself because others are working. The government functions not because of the man at the top, but in spite of him. The institutions are holding up, for now, because nameless men and women continue to do their jobs while their leader watches men beat each other up.

The question that will remain

Ten years from now, when historians examine the 2025 nuclear negotiations, they will look for the moment when everything shifted—toward a deal or toward failure. If the deal is struck, the UFC night will be forgotten, a footnote in a biography. If the negotiations fail and Iran obtains the bomb, that image of Trump smiling in the front row of the T-Mobile Arena will become one of the most terrifying of the modern American presidency.

No one knows yet which of these two stories will be told. But on Saturday night in Las Vegas, one man placed a bet—with chips that weren’t his.

By Jacques PJ Provost