MIAMI — Former President Donald Trump made an appearance at the UFC 287 mixed martial arts event in downtown Miami on Saturday, days after he became the first former U.S. president to face criminal charges stemming from hush money payments to an adult film star during the 2016 election.
Trump shook hands and waved to a cheering crowd at the Kaseya Center before he sat in the cage-side between Dana White, UFC president, and singer Robert James Ritchie, known professionally as Kid Rock. Trump was also seen standing from his chair to greet his supporters who were among nearly 20,000 people in attendance.
“USA! USA!” some chanted.
Miami fighter Jorge Masvidal — who retired after losing to Gilbert Burns Saturday night, ending his 20-year-old mixed martial arts career — fired up supporters of Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
Masvidal, 38, referred to Trump as the “greatest” president in the history of the world.”
“I love that guy!” he said. “We also got the greatest governor of all time here in Florida.”
The fighter also made a call to “replace” President Joe Biden, using an expletive when calling for Biden’s removal.
“Let’s take that you-know-who. ... Let’s go Brandon (expletive) out of power and replace him,” he said.
Masvidal then led Trump supporters in chanting “Let’s go Brandon,” a code phrase among Republicans to insult Biden.
Trump was arraigned Tuesday after he was charged in New York state with 34 counts of falsifying business records in the first degree because he concealed “damaging information and unlawful activity from American voters before and after the 2016 election,” according to the office of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin L. Bragg Jr.
The one-term president and others, the district attorney’s office says, employed a “catch and kill” scheme to “identify, purchase, and bury negative information about him and boost his electoral prospects.”
The office accused Trump of going to “great lengths to hide this conduct, causing dozens of false entries in business records to conceal criminal activity, including attempts to violate state and federal election laws.”
Among the people who were paid, the office says, were a former Trump Tower doorman, who claimed to have a story about a child Trump had out of wedlock, and adult film actress Stormy Daniels, who alleges had an extra-marital affair with the former president four months after his wife, Melania Trump, gave birth to their son, Barron.
Trump has denied all allegations.
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