WATCH: Jim Acosta Melts Down Over Trump’s ‘Migrant Fight Club’ Joke

Over the weekend, former President Donald Trump started heated discussions with his off-the-cuff remarks about creating a migrant fighting league to rival the UFC. The comments, made during a gathering of Christian conservatives in Washington, D.C., and later at a rally in Philadelphia, quickly drew backlash from media figures, notably CNN’s Jim Acosta.

Trump, known for his love of combat sports, said he floated the idea to UFC President Dana White, recounting the conversation during his rally. CNN’s Jim Acosta didn’t hold back his disdain for Trump’s remarks, playing a clip during his show and expressing his disgust.

Trump said at the rally:

Dana, I have an idea for you to make a lot of money. You’re going to go and start a new migrant fight league. Migrants, only migrants. And then at the end of the year, the champion migrant is going to fight your champion. And I hate to tell you Dana, I think the migrant might win. That’s how tough they are. They’re just getting comfortable now. They’re going to start hitting us very hard.

Following the clip, Acosta was visibly upset. “This is ugly stuff,” he said.

“I find it really disgusting. You know, my grandparents were immigrants. Everybody’s parents came here, or grandparents as immigrants at some point,” Chuck Rocha said on the network. “He just keeps throwing so much red bait to the base of his party. I know what he’s doing. Anybody who’s done campaigns for more than 30 seconds knows what he’s doing, but at a certain point, you know, it just crosses the line over and over again.”

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The conversation quickly became a back-and-forth about the seriousness of Trump’s rhetoric versus the actual violence occurring due to immigration issues.

“Family separations and everything else we’ve seen during the Trump presidency… the Trump experience,” Acosta went on. “They’re talking about deportation camps in this country. Fight clubs, I mean, come on. At what point does your side say enough is enough on that kind of rhetoric? It’s dehumanizing.”

Conservative analyst Scott Jennings fired back, “This is not a serious… He’s clearly joking at these rallies, but he’s drawing attention to something that’s no laughing matter, and that’s the violence being committed against to something that’s no laughing matter, and that’s the violence being committed against a number of people.”

White, speaking at a UFC event in Saudi Arabia, confirmed that Trump had indeed suggested the idea to him but dismissed it as a joke. “No, it was a joke. It was a joke,” White said. “I saw everybody going crazy online, but yeah he did say it.”

Polling data has shown that Trump is making significant inroads with Black and Hispanic voters in head-to-head matchups against Joe Biden for 2024. The numbers are poised to set modern-day records for a Republican candidate in a presidential election.

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