Someone, somehow, produced screenshots appearing to show Eric Trump sliding into UFC legend Daniel Cormier's DMs to ask if tomorrow's fights were rigged and whether he should bet on an upset. Now everybody involved says it never happened. Which is exactly what you'd expect people to say if it did happen, but sure, let's hear everyone out.
What the Screenshots Actually Said
According to Fox News, the now-deleted post showed what appeared to be direct messages between Cormier and Eric Trump, sent ahead of UFC Freedom 250, the White House fight card that took place on the South Lawn on June 14th. In the screenshots, a contact labeled as Trump asks Cormier who he has winning, whether any fighters are injured, and then, with the subtlety of a man who has never once considered consequences, writes: "I'll just cut to the chase...are any of the fights tomorrow rigged? I've been eyeing the Lopes fight and I think an upset wouldn't be too unrealistic. $$."
The double dollar sign. He allegedly typed a double dollar sign. If you were writing a parody of a Trump family member trying to fix a sporting event, you would absolutely include the double dollar sign.
The alleged Cormier reply in the screenshots pushes back, saying he is "appalled" anyone would ask him something like that and that no fights are rigged. Which is a very polite response to what would, in a real scenario, be a sitting president's son asking a sports official to help him cheat.
Everyone Involved Has a Very Innocent Explanation
Cormier told Fox News Digital, with what reads as genuine exasperation, "They're not real. I can't believe you guys believed that. Like, who believes that?" He added that he was hacked and that journalists reporting he posted the screenshots are simply wrong.
Eric Trump, for his part, posted on X that the screenshots were "completely fake" and later called them "fake, AI-generated screenshots," adding that he has never spoken to Cormier at all. Both men posted their denials Sunday evening, right as the main event was getting underway on the White House lawn.
So to recap the official record: Cormier did not post the screenshots, he was hacked, the screenshots are fake, they are AI-generated, and Eric Trump has never even spoken to the man. Those explanations are not all simultaneously possible, but we are living in a time when internal consistency is considered optional.
This Is Already Part of a Bigger UFC Betting Story
Here is the part that makes the broader context genuinely uncomfortable. This did not happen in a vacuum. Fox News itself reported separately that UFC's Dana White confirmed the FBI has been in contact with the organization over unusual betting activity tied to a fighter named Isaac Dulgarian's match. That is a real, ongoing investigation into real, suspicious betting patterns around UFC events.
So the viral screenshots dropped into an environment where questions about UFC fight integrity and betting were already being asked loudly and officially. Whether the DMs were real, faked, or AI-generated, they landed in the exact worst spot for everyone involved. Timing is everything, as they say.
The White House fight card itself, branded UFC Freedom 250 and held on the South Lawn as part of America 250 celebrations, had Dana White insisting beforehand that the event was "not at all" political. It featured Daniel Cormier and Joe Rogan on the announcing team. It had the entire Trump extended family seated ringside. If that is your baseline for non-political, your calibration needs work.
The Hacked Defense, a Rich American Tradition
Cormier's explanation is that he was hacked, and that whoever hacked him then posted fabricated screenshots of messages he never had, from an account belonging to the president's son, and then deleted the post. That is a very specific and elaborate thing for a hacker to do.
To be fair, getting hacked is real and it does happen to public figures. And if the screenshots were genuinely AI-generated fabrications posted by a third party, that is its own serious problem, the kind of disinformation operation that should scare everyone regardless of who it targets.
But it is also true that "I was hacked" has become the all-purpose exit ramp for anyone who posts something they later wish they had not. Athletes, politicians, celebrities, they all find themselves suddenly, conveniently hacked the morning after a bad night online. The phrase has lost almost all of its shock value at this point.
What We Actually Know
Fox News Digital reports that the screenshots were posted and then deleted. Both Cormier and Eric Trump deny the exchange happened. No third party has been identified as the source of the post. The UFC Freedom 250 event went ahead, the fights were held, and no outcomes have been formally questioned.
What we do not know: who actually created and posted those screenshots, whether they were AI-generated as Eric Trump claims, and whether the FBI's existing inquiry into UFC betting has any connection to this incident whatsoever. Those are meaningful open questions.
The event itself was attended by Ivanka Trump, Jared Kushner, Barron Trump, Tiffany Trump, Lara Trump, and what appeared to be most of the extended family, according to photos published by AFP. A real White House South Lawn UFC event with the whole family in attendance. We are, as a country, somewhere very strange.
The Dingo Take
Look, maybe the screenshots were completely fabricated. Maybe some anonymous troll with impressive AI skills and a grudge against the Trump family decided to manufacture a fight-fixing scandal and attach it to the sitting president's son, hours before a nationally televised White House UFC card, in the middle of an actual FBI betting inquiry. That is technically possible.
But the reason this story spread so fast is not because people are gullible. It is because the message in those screenshots reads exactly like what you would expect from a family that has spent a decade treating rules, laws, and basic ethical guardrails as things that apply to other people. "I'll just cut to the chase...are any of the fights rigged? $$" is not a sentence that strains credulity when the name attached to it is Trump. That is the actual problem here, and no amount of "completely fake" posting fixes it.
The UFC is now hosting events on the White House lawn while the FBI investigates unusual betting activity around its fights. The president's son is publicly denying he ever contacted the announcer of that event. The announcer says he was hacked. Dana White says none of this is political. Everyone involved is asking you to look somewhere else. Classic. Absolutely classic.
