Is the White House UFC fight legal?

0:00Support for Here and Now Anytime comes from MathWorks, creator of MATLAB and Simulink software, to design and develop engineered systems, accelerating the pace of discovery in engineering and science. Learn more at mathworks.com. WBUR Podcasts, Boston. He was not elected to serve the interests of other billionaires. He was elected supposedly to represent the American people. The fight over the fight on the White House lawn.

0:44It's Monday, June 8th, and this is Here and Now Anytime from NPR and WBUR. I'm Chris Bentley.

0:53In a few minutes, we'll hear why Apple's latest updates are the talk of tech. Today, I've covered Silicon Valley for almost three decades now, and I've never seen a pace of development like this. And Apple has not so far been moving at AI speed. But first, President Trump is remaking Washington in his image in a very literal way. His name and face are on buildings from the Kennedy Center to the Justice Department, and much of downtown D.C. has become a giant construction site, thanks to his White House renovations. That includes a huge cage called The Claw, built on the White House South Lawn for a UFC mixed martial arts fight, scheduled for Sunday, June 14th, which is Trump's 80th birthday.

1:43Now the non-profit Public Integrity Project is suing to stop. that fight, calling the event deeply corrupt because the president's friend, Dana White, the head of UFC, is getting, quote, unfettered access to the White House, end quote, to stage a for-profit sports event. Richard Painter, a former White House ethics lawyer and University of Minnesota law professor, tells Indira Lakshmanan, the case does have merit. Well, yes, the legal contentions in the lawsuit are absolutely correct, that the The White House here has been used to promote a private enterprise, and Park Service regulations are being violated.

2:26This is use of public lands, government property, for the promotion of not only the UFC, but also Skydance Paramount, which is going to be broadcasting this and apparently charging$9 for every American who wants to see it. This lawsuit says that Paramount Skydance, which as we know is run by Trump allies, the Ellisons, will charge people a streaming subscription fee of, as you said,$9 to watch the event. Is this legal? Well, it's legal for them to charge$9 for people to watch a fight that they stage and that they pay for, but not on public property, much less on the White House grounds. There are clear Park Service regulations and statutes that pertain to this.

3:14This is also use of public office for private gain, which violates fundamental principles of conduct for federal employees that apply to everyone in the executive branch. And we've seen this repeatedly in the Trump administration, the use of the presidency to promote the president's businesses, other businesses as well, the selling of Teslas on the White House lawn and so forth. I objected also to when President Biden was allowing his name to be used for the Penn Biden Center by the University of Pennsylvania. But I have to say, this is far, far worse. We have the White House lawn being ripped up to stage a fight for the benefit not only of the UFC, but for the skydance paramount.

3:59And that's, of course, the Ellisons. There were strong supporters of President Trump. But that's not what the presidency is all about. He was not elected to serve the interests of other billionaires. He was elected supposedly to represent the American people. The weigh-ins for the contestants in this event will be held by the Lincoln Memorial. Now, one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit is a Vietnam War veteran who says that this will disturb the tranquility of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial nearby. How strong is that legal argument? And do the plaintiffs in this case have standing? Well, I have to say the legal argument on the merits is very strong.

4:42When I was in the Bush White House as the ethics lawyer, I wouldn't let someone auction off for their preschool, a charitable auction, lunch at the White House mess or a White House tour. So this is really quite shocking. The problem is that the plaintiffs may well not have standing to sue. I ran into this with Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington when we sued President Trump under the Emoluments Clause for taking money from foreign governments in violation of the U.S. Constitution. It turned out that a lot of the plaintiffs don't have standing to sue. Unfortunately, the courts usually will not hear those lawsuits unless someone suffers a unique injury from the illegal conduct of the government.

5:24A competitor of UFC or of Paramount's guidance might be able to sue if they were denied access. But it's very, very difficult to get standing in a suit in a federal court. Interesting. Well, the White House has called this challenge baseless, and they're claiming that it's no different from any other events on the South Lawn of the White House. It sounds like you're saying, though, that even though the legal arguments are strong based on the plaintiffs potentially not having standing, you think they might not actually be able to shut down this event? Is that right? They may not be able to. We'll see whether a court is willing to hear this case.

6:05The standing of the plaintiffs will be a great challenge. But the White House is just wrong on this. There have never been events like this on the White House lawn. The Clinton administration got some grief for one night letting the campaign donors stay in the Lincoln bedroom, and that created a huge fuss. We didn't allow any of that in the Bush administration, neither did the Obama administration. This is really quite outrageous. And I think the American people are going to be disgusted to see the White House lawn ripped up to put that cage in there for the fight. That's not what public property is for.

6:39Richard Painter served as White House ethics lawyer under President George W. Bush. He's now a professor at the University of Minnesota Law School. Richard, thanks so much for joining us. Well, thank you.

6:52Coming up next, Apple has been accused of being behind in the artificial intelligence arms race. It caught up a little today by rolling out new AI features for its digital assistant, Siri. And if being behind means saving hundreds of billions of dollars on data centers, that might not be so bad. More after the break.

7:25Today, Apple rolled out new features at its annual Worldwide Developers Conference in Cupertino, California. Axios Chief Technology Correspondent Ina Fried was there, and she told Scott Tong, the big news today was a revamped Siri. But it's more than just a smarter voice-operated digital assistant. Well, the world has moved on. Siri was groundbreaking when it debuted a long time ago, but many people have noticed the frustration that Siri is right there at your iPhone, but it just doesn't do as much as the voice modes of things like ChatGPT or Google's Gemini. Yeah, so then to your point, I have to admit, I have an iPhone.

8:08I don't really use Siri that much anymore, but if this changes for me, Siri gets all these new powers, does that mean more of our device use? is going to be with these assistants and not the apps? I think that's certainly where we're headed. I mean, the app metaphor dates back to the debut of the iPhone, really. And it just became the way we do everything. And so as new things came along, Uber came along, DoorDash, all these things, we got used to pressing a button and opening an app. But that doesn't have to be the way we interact with our devices. And I think with AI, you have the option to just say what it is you want.

8:45And we're still early in that. I think people are still using apps today, but the world is moving in a different direction. You know, there's a lot of talk that Apple is behind in AI. Tell me about that conversation. Well, they certainly are. I don't think that's a debate. I think there is a school of thought to say, hey, this is actually a good thing. While Google and Meta and Microsoft and all these companies are spending tens of billions or hundreds of billions of dollars on these expensive data centers, Apple isn't spending that. So Apple has saved a ton of money through its approach, but it's now more reliant on others because it's always been using other people's cloud services.

9:28But in this case, it's now using Google's Gemini models to help power this. So it's reliant on others. And again, the risk when you're reliant on others is that over time, they just supplant you. Yeah, but is that kind of a model in Silicon Valley that is if you're one of these big tech companies and you need to jump forward or catch up in technology, you kind of look around and buy it? Look around and buy it usually works for smaller things. So, you know, if you need a little bit of talent in one niche area, that's a great way to grow. It's hard to do at the big scale. And Apple actually has rarely grown through big acquisitions.

10:05Beats is probably one of the biggest acquisitions they've made. And it was even just a compliment. So I think for Apple, it's got to be a pathway towards what's next. They're not going to be able to buy or rent what's next long term. The context of this, what Apple's doing today is AI and AI agents. Kind of remind us what those are and where Apple is in that part of the conversation. Right. So Apple laid out this vision two years ago that, I'll be honest, was really compelling. They're saying, look, we're going to do AI too, but the way we're going to do it is on your behalf. So we're not even going to look at the data you're sending.

10:44We'll access your email, your information, but only for your benefit. And I still think that's a really compelling vision. I think that's what most people want out of AI. At the same time, it's taken Apple now two years to deliver what it originally promised would take only a few months. And the danger is we're moving away from chatbots. Apple's finally catching up here, and the world's moving towards these semi-autonomous agents that do work from you in the background while you're not even on your device. And again, I think this is the risk for Apple is that they're incorporating others and they're behind, so they're catching up.

11:23But this AI world is moving so fast. I've covered Silicon Valley for almost three decades now, and I've never seen a pace of development like this. and Apple has not so far been moving at AI speed. And what else might be next for Apple? I understand there's talk of a folding iPhone coming, perhaps? Yeah, I think that's very likely, and I think that's an area where we are playing to Apple's strengths. Apple's really good at taking a new technology and making it appealing for the masses. So foldable phones have been around for a few years now, but nobody's developed one that people are regularly carrying around, especially in the U.S.

12:01If you go to Asia, you'll see a lot of Samsung foldable devices. Ina Fried is Chief Technology Correspondent for Axios, talking to us from Apple Park in Cupertino, California, for the Apple Annual Developer Conference. Ina, thanks so much. Thank you.

12:20We're going to take one more short break, and then... The skills that increased the most were time management, resource energy allocation, negotiation, communication, and conflict management. Find out who is an underappreciated asset of the workforce in just a minute.

12:44Other news we're following today over at hereandnow.org. Iran and Israel agreed to halt attacks on each other this weekend after President Trump demanded the two sides, immediately stop shooting. Houthi rebels in Yemen also announced a ban on Israeli shipping in the Red Sea and confirmed their first missile attack on Israel since April. We've got the latest from Beirut, Lebanon, which Israel bombed over the weekend. And in the U.S., the slow process of counting votes in California is giving oxygen to false claims that there's something fishy with last week's primary elections. Votes are still coming in by mail, so forecasts of who is ahead have changed since polls closed.

13:33President Trump claimed the election was rigged, and when an NBC reporter asked him to provide evidence, he walked out of the interview. Do you think it's appropriate that they have an election and five days later they're nowhere close to picking a winner? State and local officials acknowledge they are slow, they're urging. No, they're crooked. They're urging the votes to be counted quickly. That's how they vote in California. They're crooked, just like you're crooked. Your press is crooked. And meet the press is crooked. To be fair, I'm not crooked. But let's continue. Really? Well, you play right into their hands.

14:02Let's continue. You're either crooked or you're stupid. At least one Democratic candidate in California agreed that the speed of the count is a problem. Brian Goldsmith said on X, quote, this is a national embarrassment and we need to fix it. End quote. He did not say it was evidence of fraud. Scott Schaefer at KQED in San Francisco told us the vote count may be slow, but there is nothing to back up Trump's claims. Well, California simply made it policy to make it relatively easy to vote here. And, you know, people can vote early if they want. Any registered voter can mail in their ballot or fill it out at home and walk it to a voting center.

14:40And like 80 percent of voters do that. And keep in mind, we have 23 million registered voters. That's a lot of ballots. And as long as a ballot is postmarked by election day and it arrives within seven days, it gets counted. We've, you know, the president said they're nowhere near to finishing counting. That's not accurate. About 6.3 million ballots have been counted. Still about 3 million to count. But, you know, it does take time. There is a process. The people at the county level are careful. They open them up. They check the signatures, make sure people haven't voted somewhere else. It could be speeded up, you know, with more money from the state or federal government.

15:15They could hire more people, more machines, but that doesn't happen. So it takes a while. You can find that whole conversation right now at hereandnow.org, where you'll also find Indira Lakshmanan's conversation with Alexa Starks, CEO of Mothered Media. They talk about what new moms bring to the workforce and how their experience can be an asset. Well, first of all, I love your LinkedIn profile and how you've described the many challenges that you face and the skills you've learned as a mom and so many other moms have learned, translating those skills into familiar corporate culture speak. Can you please read us a short excerpt?

15:54Absolutely. I also delivered a measurable increase in ambition, resilience, and leadership drive following motherhood, achieved an estimated 400 % growth in strength, self-confidence, and personal power under sustained pressure, developed advanced skills in prioritization, boundary setting, and decision-making with real-world consequences, and operated with limited resources, shifting requirements, unclear communication, and no sick days while keeping the system running. I love that. And what HR manager or hiring manager wouldn't love that write-up? Now, I want to start right there because some employers who have not raised children may not realize how applicable parenting skills are to the workplace.

16:40Talk about that and how attitudes may or may not be changing in that respect. Yeah, I think it's definitely a cultural commentary that's going on in society that doesn't frame motherhood as a major life transition and developmental experience, right? We see it portrayed in media, TV shows, movies, that it's something individual, the mom goes through and then just clocks back into work. But in any other developmental major experience that you go through, there's your identity shifts, you develop new skills, new strengths, and that's exactly what motherhood is. And so I think the more we talk about what we know as mothers to be true about how much stronger and more capable we are, the more we talk about that out loud, the more we can all bring that into the workplace and easily translate the skills we're using every day and developing every day into the workplace.

17:35Listen to that whole conversation right now at hereandnow.org. That'll do it for the show today. Here and Now anytime comes from NPR and WBOR Boston. Today's stories were produced by Jill Ryan, Thomas Danielian, Ashley Locke, and Sam Rapelson, and edited by Michaela Rodriguez. Technical direction from Matt Reed and Andre Peralta. Our theme music is by Mike Moschetto, Max Liebman, and me, Chris Bentley. Our digital producers are Allison Hagen and Grace Griffin, and Here and Now's executive producer is Alan Price. Thanks for listening. We'll be back with you tomorrow.

18:15Thank you.