Former UFC fighter claims he was punished for snubbing Donald Trump, backing Bernie Sanders

Kevin Lee believes he knows where his UFC career went wrong — and he thinks it had everything to do with his personal politics.

Lee competed in the UFC lightweight and welterweight divisions for years. He never got his hands on a title, but he did come up short in an interim lightweight title fight with Tony Ferguson, and defeated top foes like Edson Barboza and Michael Chiesa.

Despite his various successes in the Octagon, it’s fair to say Lee’s time with the UFC ended pretty unceremoniously. He first parted ways with the promotion following losses to Charles Oliveira and Daniel Rodriguez in 2021. After beating Diego Sanchez in a smaller show, he returned, only to suffer a brutal first-round loss to dangerous Russian contender Rinat Fakhretdinov.

The fight with Fakhretdinov in particular was a very tough matchup for Lee. Whether that was by design or not, he feels he was not given a fair shake by the promotion. He believes that’s because he backed Bernie Sanders, and avoided a meeting with President Donald Trump. Trump, of course, is a close friend of UFC President Dana White, and has been heavily supported by White and the promotion in recent years.

Here’s how Lee explained it:

Kevin Lee claims UFC punished him for snubbing Donald Trump

Aye listen I know exactly when I went wrong in the UFCs eyes. After I won my fight at MSG 2019 they told me Trump wants to meet. I snuck into the crowd and left the building.

Then I met with Bernie Sanders a week later and did a whole speech for him. At that point I was dead in…

— Kevin Lee MTP (@MoTownPhenom) March 30, 2026

“Aye listen I know exactly when I went wrong in the UFCs eyes,” the former UFC fighter wrote. “After I won my fight at MSG 2019 they told me Trump wants to meet. I snuck into the crowd and left the building.

“Then I met with Bernie Sanders a week later and did a whole speech for him. At that point I was dead in the water. I was told this. It don’t have nothing to do with Chiesa.

“Let it be a lesson to any young athlete leave that politics shit alone and don’t fuck with the Church’s money.”

This is certainly quite an accusation from Lee, and quite damning of the UFC’s treatment of fighters if true. White, after all, boasts often about not policing anything fighters say. That being said, it is difficult to verify the truth of Lee’s accusation, which will probably never amount to more than a he said, she said situation.

Do you believe this claim from Kevin Lee?