Uncle Sam wants hot troops who can pay for travel at White House UFC event 

The Pentagon is recruiting service members to attend the White House's cage fight, so long as they can pay their own way and meet height and weight requirements. 

By Matt Schimkowitz  |  May 29, 2026 | 6:57pm
(Official White House Photo by Daniel Torok)
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Uncle Sam wants hot troops who can pay for travel at White House UFC event 

Hot off the news that President Donald Trump bought between $15,000 and $50,000 worth of shares of stock in TKO, the parent company of UFC, this week, he wants to make sure the TKO event on his front lawn is an uggo-free success. Per The Washington Post, the Pentagon is recruiting hundreds of service members to fill out the bleachers at this national spectacle of conflicts of interest. But there’s a catch. Those recruited cannot be fat, short, or poor. According to the Post, which obtained a memo circulated within the Air Force, eligibility is contingent on meeting “CURRENT WAIST-HEIGHT RATIO and current physical fitness standard.” Another internal message stated that the Department of Defense was looking for junior personnel and officers, specifically, but they must pay their own way, despite, as the Post states, “junior troops make up the military’s lowest pay grades.”

This is perhaps unsurprising, given how appearance-oriented the administration is. Pete Hegseth’s reign as Secretary of Defense has relied on optics to prove its worth to people still buying this shit. Last fall, Hegseth ordered roughly 800 generals to come to DC so he could rail against “fat generals and admirals” and “beardos.” It was likely as heartening to those in the room as it was Hegseth’s target demographic of white supremacists on X. Social media’s dopamine drip just hits different when you read the single most beautiful word in the English language: “Based.”

“Frankly, it’s tiring to look out at combat formations, or really any formation, and see fat troops,” the extremely masculine Secretary of Defense told his brothers in arms. “Likewise, it’s completely unacceptable to see fat generals and admirals in the halls of the Pentagon leading commands around the country and the world.” 

Though less vocal about it in public, Hegseth also appears to have a problem with certain service members’ skin color and gender. It’s all very aboveboard over there at the Department of Defense, which is probably why when DOGE was slashing jobs last year, it took out a quarter of the Department of Veterans Affairs. What can we say? There’s no better way to ring in America’s 250th birthday than by humiliating its military while watching some guy have his orbital bone obliterated.

 
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