NEW YORK (AP) — UFC heavyweight Josh Hokit said he has no regrets about using the White House as a bully pulpit to make an extraordinary and unfounded attack based on a right-wing conspiracy theory about former first lady Michelle Obama.
Hokit made his vulgar remarks inside the octagon in June after winning his fight at the UFC event to mark President Donald Trump's 80th birthday on the South Lawn of the White House.
Hokit fights for the first time since then on Saturday when he challenges heavyweight champion Cyril Gane in the main event of UFC 334 at Madison Square Garden.
Hokit again made a series of crass insults about other fighters on the fight card on Wednesday inside a New York hotel before taking questions about his championship bout and his remarks on Obama.
“I’ll never look back and be like, I regret that," Hokit said.
Wearing a black stocking cap over an American flag bandana, sunglasses and fight gloves, Hokit said he “took the rap of a villain” before he burst into what he called a freestyle rap to express his lack of regret.
Hokit said he was “sure it wasn't” the right thing to do to insult the former first lady but was proud that the remarks had gotten his image on Trump's Truth Social posts. In one post, Hokit appeared in cartoon form alongside UFC chief Dana White in the White House briefing room.
Trump on Saturday said he was offering White the job of White House press secretary, but he later said he was just kidding.
“I'm here to take what's mine,” Hokit said. “If I've got to rub some people the wrong way, if I've got to say some (stuff) in the wrong location, it is what it is. Was it not a good location to say it? I mean, we're at the White House. That house represents freedom of speech. So it is what it is. I think it was the perfect location to say it.”
The 28-year-old Hokit is 10-0 in his MMA career and has won all six fights since joining UFC in 2025.
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FILE - Josh Hokit leaves the ring after winning his fight against Derrick Lewis in a heavyweight bout during UFC Freedom 250 on the South Lawn of the White House, June 14, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump observed Veterans Day by suggesting that the towering arch he wants to build in his own honor would also be dedicated to the U.S. military and those who served in its ranks.
That's despite three veterans having sued to stop the project — which a federal court has since temporarily blocked. Some military groups have cheered the arch, but many others have opposed it or joined efforts to stop construction.
Trump has said for months that the 250-foot (76-meter) arch set for construction near Arlington National Cemetery and the Lincoln Memorial would be inspired by the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, and might even be called the “Arc de Trump.”
He's also insisted that Washington has wanted a similar structure for centuries — even though that’s not true. In comments during an annual ceremony at Arlington Cemetery on Wednesday, however, Trump suggested it was actually veterans who had longed for an arch in the capital.
“And soon we’re going to dedicate a magnificent triumphal arc to our veterans," he said. “And that’s in honor of our great veterans and our great militaries." He added: “They've been waiting for it for 200 years.”
Though the arch received approval from oversight boards stacked with members chosen by Trump, the three veterans are among several entities suing to block the arch's construction. Nine family members of the Kennedy political dynasty are also seeking to stop the project, arguing that the arch would cast a shadow over their relatives’ gravesites at Arlington National Cemetery.
Last week, U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan issued a temporary restraining order, prohibiting work for 14 days.
With Democrats soon taking control of Congress after big wins all over the country in last week's midterm elections, Trump’s renovation projects will encounter far more scrutiny and roadblocks — from his effort to put his own name on the Kennedy Center to remaking a public golf course and building his massive White House ballroom and the arch.
Despite the midterm defeats by his party and the potential legal and legislative hurdles, the White House has continued to promote the arch project.
That includes a slick website unveiled last week which proclaimed that it'd be known as the United States Military Triumphal Arch and was “long overdue, and has been sought for many years, especially by the Military.”
The website prominently displays a picture of and quote from Trump. It also features the word “Triumph” in gold cursive script recalling the typeface used at the president's Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida and similar flourishes that have been affixed to the White House as part of his overhaul of the Oval Office and West Wing.
The arch's plans call for its columns to store munitions and areas on the pedestal and observation deck to be set aside for a sniper's nest. Its base would be designed to launch drones, and the site says that the overall monument “will be Highly Secretive but, at the same time, a Top Level and Lethal structure, the likes of which has not been seen in this Country before.”
The website does not say how much the project will cost or how it will be paid for, although some estimates have reached as high as $100 million.
President Donald Trump speaks during an event to mark Veterans Day at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Va., Wednesday, Nov. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
Washington commuters drive South over the Memorial Bridge that spans the Potomac River toward a traffic circle at the entrance of Arlington National Cemetery, the proposed site for President Donald Trump's Triumphal Arch, Friday, Nov. 6, 2026, as seen from the Washington Monument. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
A protest structure stands near Memorial Circle, the proposed site for a Triumphal Arch, Thursday, Nov. 5, 2026, in Arlington, Va. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
President Donald Trump speaks during an event to mark Veterans Day at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Va., Wednesday, Nov. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
