Exclusive | Trumps White House UFC fight guests include Melania, Ivanka and Karoline Leavitt in first post-baby appearance
WASHINGTON – First lady Melania Trump will join President Trump at the UFC fight on the South Lawn Sunday night, as will several of his adult children and 5,000 special guests, including press secretary Karoline Leavitt. Don Jr and Bettina Trump, fresh off their honeymoon, will make their first official appearance as a married couple, sources close to the family told The Post.Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner will be ringside, as will Eric and Lara Trump.Leavitt, who’s on maternity leave after the birth of her second child, is returning to the White House for the occasion along with her husband Nicholas Riccio.It’s a rare ringside appearance for the first lady, who has attended fights in the past but usually skips them.
When the president attended a UFC fight in Miami in April, daughter Ivanka was at his side. Sunday also marks the president’s 80th birthday.While he and his family will be ringside, rows of bleachers are being built around the eight-sided octagon for special guests of the president and members of the military. And about 85,000 people will be on the other side of the fence on the National Mall’s Ellipse, where they will watch the bouts on massive screens. The excitement is building along with the mounds of infrastructure necessary to run the high-profile event.The White House is getting spruced up ahead of the match: columns at the North entrance are receiving a fresh coat of white paint, new plants are being installed on the lawn, and a massive fight ring has been built on the South Lawn, complete with an overhead lighting system known as “the claw” and rows of bleachers.The UFC is taking over 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue on Sunday, using all parts of the campus to run the event.Craig Borsari, the UFC official in charge of executing the event, told ESPN the scale of the project, including the number of government agencies involved, was enormous.“In order to get a project approved, there’s so many groups you need to go through and vet...