OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
Former heavyweight boxing champ Mike Tyson has spilled some remarkable details following a private dinner with former President Donald Trump and some of his family at Mar-a-Lago recently.
Tyson’s dinner with Trump, former First Lady Melania Trump, and their son Barron was the second meeting between the two in the past few months, according to reports.
At one point during an interview with podcaster Patrick Bet David, the host brought up Trump’s recent appearance at a UFC event where she showed up with Tyson, Kid Rock, and UFC boss Dana White, saying, “We were at the UFC fight in Miami. And you walked up with Trump. And that place lost their mind when you guys walked up. I don’t know if you…?”
Tyson went on to give Trump a glowing endorsement, adding: “People don’t like it, but Trump is the man. Trump is the man, he has his fan base, he has his supporters, and they’re gonna stick with him to the end.”
Bet David then asked Tyson, “How has he been to you over the years?” Tyson, remaining similarly positive about Trump, said, “I never had a bad moment with him.”
When pressed, Tyson clarified that he’d never had a bad moment with Trump, who agreed in the late 1980s when Tyson’s career was just taking off to be the future heavyweight champ’s financial adviser.
“I became very profited from him,” Tyson said, adding that he just had dinner with the current GOP presidential frontrunner.
“I just had dinner with him a week ago,” Tyson continued. “Me, him, Barron, and his mother, and it was just off the hook. Barron, he’s so smart… This kid’s on top of his game intellectually.”
He also called Melania an “awesome first lady.”
WATCH:
“Iron Mike” hasn’t hung up his gloves just yet; he has a match coming up this summer against Jake Paul.
During the 2016 presidential campaign, Tyson defended Trump against accusations of Islamophobia when he proposed temporarily shutting down the arrival process from all Middle Eastern nations, which is a policy that actually mimicked one implemented by then-President Barack Obama.
“Anybody that was ever president of the United States offended some group of people or some groups of people were offended,” the fighter told TMZ. “Ask his fans if he needs to apologize. He’s still ahead in the polls and he deserves a chance. If they don’t like him, they shouldn’t vote for him. Let’s go to the polls and see who wins.”
Trump, over the years since leaving office, has frequented UFC fighting events, including one in November when he showed up with White, Kid Rock, and former Fox News star Tucker Carlson to raucous approval from the crowd.
Podcast host Joe Rogan, on his show “The Joe Rogan Experience,” spoke about it the following week.
“When he walked out of Madison Square Garden, it was f-cking bananas. The whole place was cheering. He walks out to Kid Rock’s ‘American Badass’ with Kid Rock and Tucker Carlson walking in like the ‘Right Wing Avengers,’” the host, who also appears frequently at UFC events as a broadcaster, said. “And the place went nuts. I’m telling you, the f-cking cheers of the crowd were nuts.”
“It was overwhelming in support of him, and it lasted a long time,” he said. “I mean, you had to hear what the crowd sounded like before he walked in and then when he did. I mean it was just overwhelming cheers for like over a minute. I mean, just imagine a minute of people screaming at the top of their lungs.”
A major GOP donor who was initially backing Ron DeSantis has now begun to throw millions in financial support behind Trump following the Florida governor’s exit from the Republican primaries, The Epoch Times reported on Friday.
In February, MAGA Inc. received several million-dollar contributions, including the largest one from the biggest donor of Mr. DeSantis’s campaign for the GOP nomination. According to FEC records, on February 9th, aerospace and real estate mogul Robert Bigelow made a $5 million donation to MAGA Inc., the outlet reported.
