Not everyone is afraid to voice their support for former President Donald Trump and the GOP in public these days.
Jorge Masvidal, a former UFC fighter who retired earlier this month, made a political statement on April 8th by publicly commending Trump and GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis after his final welterweight match at the Miami Fight Night event.
In his first interview with Fox News since expressing his political support, Jorge Masvidal appeared on “One Nation” with Brian Kilmeade on Saturday, where he talked about, in part, his gratitude for living in the United States.
Before the 20-year champ hung up his gloves following UFC 287 in his hometown, Masvidal dubbed Donald Trump the “greatest president in the history of the world.”
He added that when he saw Trump sitting ringside of the octagon, he “had to say that to the world.”
“First, let me say thank God for everything that I have, thank God that I even give this interview,” Masvidal said. “Thank God that I’m in the greatest country in the world, the United States, in the best state in the country, Florida. And I’m biased, the best city in the world, Miami.”
WATCH:
Trump Loved by Supporters…!
UFC fighter Jorge Masvidal praised Donald Trump as the former US president watched on from ringside on Saturday.
Trump, 76, was sat in the front row at the Miami-Dade Arena, where Masvidal retired from mixed martial arts with a loss to Gilbert Burns. pic.twitter.com/kjsJxAXQUZ— C_I_Winning (@CIWinning) April 15, 2023
Masvidal also praised Florida politics and DeSantis’ handling of the coronavirus pandemic.
“Thank God the hate is not that bad in Florida because we have an amazing governor DeSantis that has fought against this like a fighter would,” he said. “You know, and it’s amazing that we have all this freedom and liberty in Florida, in Miami, and we could go out there and make money and be involved in businesses, you know, So I just thank God.”
He praised the COVID response in the Sunshine State and the return to normalcy when the sport held UFC 261 in Jacksonville in 2021.
“It’s so special because I felt like it set the rest of the world on track to get back to regular. You know, we’re still like 30% in attendance at a live show. Things like that,” he said.
“And it was just nuts, you know, and we’re way past that already. And Corona was a major setback, I think, in a lot of people’s minds as well, like the way that we were living. We just had a breakdown and that was a way to break it. So I always thank Governor DeSantis for that moment,” he added.
Fox News noted further that Masvidal is from a family of immigrants, and he said he “learned many lessons” by escaping communism and coming to America.
“My dad, his best friend, and his best friend’s uncle, they got two tire tractors, turned them into a raft and hit the seas. Seven days later, they got to the Bahamas. From there, he got extradited to the USA and began his journey,” he said.
“As I got older, you know, like close to my teens, like 11, 12 years old, I really understood why my dad did this. And it was to escape the tyranny that is communism over there in Cuba, in places like Venezuela, where we see this happening in Brazil,” he noted further.
“So this was like just part of like a daily topic, a daily conversation that we talk about always, you know, whether I engage it or not. This was spoken out on the dinner tables around the family.”