News Article
Published
Jun 15, 2026 at 03:09 AM EDT
updated
Jun 15, 2026 at 05:05 AM EDT
By Khaleda Rahman
National Correspondent
Eric Trump has strongly denied messaging former UFC star Daniel Cormier to ask whether any of the UFC fights on the White House South Lawn on Sunday, celebrating the nation's 250th anniversary, were "rigged," saying screenshots claiming to show him doing so were AI-generated.
The president's second son hit out in a series of social media statements, after Cormier reportedly posted, then deleted screenshots of alleged direct messages between the pair on X. Newsweek has not seen the original posts. We have contacted UFC and the White House for comment via email.
According to USA Today , the screenshots of the purported messages from Trump included in Cormier's post showed Trump asking whether any of the fights were "rigged."
"I'm probably going to get a lot of flak for bringing this to light, however I refuse to stay silent," Cormier is said to have written on X in a post sharing the screenshots.
Trump shared several posts on Sunday night, saying the screenshots had been AI-generated.
"We are aware of the fake, AI generated screenshots being circulated online. I have never spoken to Daniel. He has since deleted his post, which confirms it was clearly fabricated," Trump wrote in one X post, tagging the accounts of UFC and UFC CEO Dana White.
In an earlier post, Trump wrote: "This is completely fake! I have never reached out to Daniel. In fact, this is scary."
He also thanked Cormier for his latest post on X, which said, "Are people really this dumb?"
...
A spokesperson for the Trump Organization, the president's business that is managed by Eric Trump and his brother Donald Trump Jr., also said the screenshots were "fake."
"These screenshots are fake. They were fabricated and do not reflect reality," Kimberly Benza wrote on X.
"This is one of the dangers of AI-generated content: false information can spread quickly when people don't verify what they're seeing. Please do better before sharing misinformation," she added.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
Read the full article at Newsweek →
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