By Maria Tsvetkova and Steve Holland
NEW YORK (Reuters) – President-elect Donald Trump celebrated his election victory on Saturday night by attending an Ultimate Fighting Championship event with his billionaire friend Elon Musk and cheering fans in a heavily guarded Madison Square Garden in New York City. .
Known to some in the mixed martial arts world as “Fighter in Chief,” Trump counts UFC president Dana White as a close friend and considers sports fans part of his political base. Trump sat between White and Musk and paid rapt attention to the fights.
He entered the arena with music blaring and waved to the crowd, many of whom returned the gesture. Among those who joined him were House Speaker Mike Johnson, Tesla CEO Mike Johnson, Musk, a close Trump adviser, singer Kid Rock and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a who he plans to nominate for secretary of Health and Human Services.
Trump broke out some dance moves as his signature campaign song, “YMCA,” played over the loudspeaker. Finally he sat down and spoke animatedly with Musk.
His visit to the historic Manhattan stadium brought him back to the scene of a controversial campaign rally he held there on October 27, when a comedian mocked Puerto Rico as a “floating island of garbage.”
Saturday’s main event in the Octagon at UFC 309 was a battle for the undisputed world heavyweight championship between Jon Jones and Stipe Miocic.
A Trump aide posted a photo on social media showing Trump watching some of the sideshow fights while sitting on his plane next to Kennedy.
A handful of visitors at Madison Square Garden, a stadium that seats nearly 20,000, wore red hats that read “Make America Great Again.”
One of them, Sean Allen, 22, traveled to the event from Monroe, in upstate New York, where he lives and works for a county department.
He said he had voted for Trump and borrowed his MAGA hat from a friend after learning that the Republican president-elect, who won a decisive victory on Nov. 5 over Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris, might enter the fight.
“I had never voted before. That was the first time I voted,” Allen said, adding that he might have voted in previous elections but didn’t care about politics.
“When I woke up, I thought, okay, wow, Trump won big.”
Nicholas Defilippo, 39, another visitor wearing a MAGA hat, also donned one to express his support for Trump after voting for him. Defilippo lives in New Jersey and works in law enforcement.
“He’s the bravest man on the planet,” he said of Trump.
The president-elect’s self-described “Trump Force One” plane left Palm Beach Airport shortly after dark for a two-hour flight. It was just the second time Trump left the Palm Beach, Florida, area since winning the presidential election on Nov. 5.
The 78-year-old Republican flew to Washington on Wednesday to meet with President Joe Biden at the White House and has also been holding cabinet posts for his incoming administration from his beachfront resort at Mar-a-Lago.
There was a heavy security presence around Madison Square Garden.