The UFC cage fights President Donald Trump has planned to take place on the White House grounds on the night of his birthday can go on, a federal judge ruled Friday.

U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta denied a request from two residents who wanted to stop the event.

The administration has insisted the June 14 event is not solely a personal soiree for Trump but an early chance to celebrate America’s 250th birthday on July 4.

But in their lawsuit to halt the tournament, Virginia residents Susan Douglas, a former federal employee and activist organizer, and Paul Romano, a retired Air Force sergeant and Vietnam War veteran, argued the event is a “deeply corrupt” moneymaking venture for the president.

“Sponsorship packages” cost up to $1.5 million per person, and financial disclosures show Trump personally invested as much as $50,000 in TKO, the company that owns the UFC, two weeks after the fight was announced. The Trump Organization, run by the president’s children Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, and UFC also partnered to sell gold and silver coins with Trump’s face on them to commemorate the event.

Romano and Douglas further alleged the event violates federal regulations barring sporting events on National Park lands and destroys the aesthetic of public grounds with its massive 600-ton steel frame and neon lighting soaring nearly 100 feet into the air, and that the administration ignored environmental review requirements in preparing for the event. (There will be related festivities on the National Mall, including press conferences and weigh-in ceremonies at the Lincoln Memorial and Ellipse, with right-wing influencers like Joe Rogan and UFC head Dana White emceeing events. The tournament is sponsored by the Singaporean cryptocurrency exchange Crypto.com and will be streamed to subscribers by partner Paramount Skydance — run by Trump allies Larry and David Ellison.)

But on Friday, Judge Mehta found that neither Romano nor Douglas proved the UFC fight actually injured them, aesthetically or otherwise.

Though Douglas and Romano said the event would diminish their enjoyment of the White House and Lincoln Memorial, and that the ensuing snarl of traffic and street closures for the event would make work, protesting and travel in the area difficult, Mehta said their “generalized grievances” didn’t quite meet the legal standard of being “directly affected” because they did not have “concrete plans” to attend events.

As for their allegations that the tournament should have been stopped because of its for-profit nature, Mehta said the complaint came too late.

“The for-profit elements of UFC Freedom 250 have long been known, and the absence of congressional approval and a NEPA review is not new information,” he wrote before noting that Romano and Douglas “waited nearly two weeks to file suit” after construction of the arena began.

Douglas and Romano said they waited because they didn’t realize the extent of their injuries until learning about the “corruption” of the event. Still, the judge said the delay undercut their claims of irreparable harm.

After the ruling, Brendan Ballou, an attorney with Public Integrity Project representing Romano and Douglas, told HuffPost: “This isn’t a case about a sporting event, it’s about corruption, as a handful of people and companies stand to profit from our public monuments. While we’re disappointed in this decision, we of course respect it, and we’ll keep bringing cases to raise the cost of corruption in America.”

Before the ruling, White House spokesperson told HuffPost the lawsuit is “obstructionist, baseless, and dilatory” and was “brought simply to prevent President Trump from hosting what will undoubtedly go down as one of the most historic sporting events in our Nation’s history during our semiquincentennial celebration.”

The Justice Department ignored allegations in the complaint that Trump was using the event to enrich himself or that environmental reviews were ignored. The event does “not have significant effects on the environment” and “no more searching review was required,” Assistant Attorney General Brett Shumate claimed.

Shumate argued in a motion Wednesday that the timing of the suit was “inexcusable” since “well over $60 million and tens of thousands of hours of labor have been expended” already. In court records, the administration said it expects at least 4,000 spectators on the White House South Lawn plus more than 1,000 troops from various branches of the armed services to attend. Over 120,000 more guests are expected on the Ellipse after winning free tickets in a lottery. They say the structures will be removed after the event and no later than June 23.

“All these hopes could be dashed at the very last moment, however, by the whim of two people who believe they have superior taste and want to spoil the event for everyone else. [Douglas and Romano] are Virginia residents who think the sights and sounds associated with UFC Freedom 250 are ‘hideous’ and ‘disgusting,’” Shumate wrote Wednesday. “It would be easy enough to simply avert their gazes for the weekend. Instead, they seek to enlist the power of a federal court to impose their idiosyncratic preferences on the rest of the country and ruin an event designed to celebrate the United States of America.”

Congressional authority is required to erect buildings on reservations, parks or public grounds, but the DOJ has argued that only applies to permanent structures.

Shumate pointed to past examples of large sporting events or celebrations that were held, including when, in celebration of the holidays in 2023, President Joe Biden installed a 48-foot-by-68-foot ice skating rink requiring a 100-ton cooled refrigeration system. Other temporary structures on the grounds included public restrooms and an area for skate rentals.

Before the ruling, the Trump administration had made a number of “highly irregular” changes to its original plan, according to Ballou. Two weeks prior, the UFC’s plan featured shutting down the Lincoln Memorial to the public to accommodate fighter “walk-outs” from within the memorial’s hallowed chamber. Once the lawsuit was filed, though, the administration said it wouldn’t use the chamber itself but a section known as the “approach” to the memorial. The administration then reversed course, saying the chamber itself would be used for fighters to “enter the Lincoln Memorial chamber via elevator from a lower level, each accompanied by a child” and that filming was not restricted because filming permits are not required in that space.

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