Spurious News: Up with People rejects Trump's order to perform at cage match!
DENVER, COLO (Spurious News Network) -- Freedom250, a Trump front organization, will conduct the Great American State Fair in the one place in the continental United States that isn't actually a state - on the National Mall in Washington, DC - from June 25 to July 10, 2026. It is scheduled to feature state and territorial pavilions, a carnival and "classic fair attractions." The festivities will kick off eleven days earlier with UFC Freedom 250, a night of cage fighting on the White House's back lawn.
The cage match is also supposed to feature live music, but there's a problem: no one who can play music wants to perform at it. Even the disgraced 1980s lip-syncing band Milli Vanilli has turned them down.
So it was with great apprehension that the directors of the Up with People Foundation tore into an envelope mailed from the White House and read the note within, which said: "The musical group Up with People is hereby ordered to report to the White House no later than 5 pm June 14, 2026, in costumes and makeup prepared to perform a two-hour concert before the UFC fights commence. Failure to report will cause the termination of your 501(C)(3) tax exempt status."
The Up with People Foundation responded in a long-winded message which they had hand-couriered to the White House. It reads as follows:
Freedom? Nay! Freedom includes the freedom to not give command performances in front of a wrestling cage.
Up with People no longer performs. We haven't since the 2001-2009 Bush Administration. The modern Up with People is strictly a charitable foundation.
Compassion, respect and grace were, and remain, part of the Up with People brand. This White House has none of them, so even if we still fielded touring groups we wouldn't take this gig.
Kindness is also a huge part of what we were and are. The actions of the Trump Administration have been far from kind.
Of course, we COULD gin up a musical group if we absolutely had to. There are lots of glee clubs in high schools. It would be pretty easy: print up some t-shirts, teach a glee club to sing our classic numbers, hire four or five makeup artists to get them ready to take the stage, and fly them to DC. But that wouldn't be fair to the glee club - not only because they'd have to sing in front of a construction site that shouldn't be there in the first place, but because if the Northfield High School Glee Club, say, were to perform for your event they should perform AS the Northfield High School Glee Club, not Up with People.
Fair enough. We COULD do the gig. We just won't.
Funnily enough, we wonder why in the hell you can't find anyone to play this thing. Obviously Kid Rock and Ted Nugent would do it. Stryper, Three Doors Down and Five Finger Death Punch are also popular bands that support President Trump. There are resources available to you. Please use them.
At last, someone needs to ask the question of why you decided on Up with People as the right band to play your cage match. The kind of music we performed when our touring ensembles were still operational seems anathema to the ethos of cage fighting. Since President Trump is going to be reading this, let me translate it: Up with People performing at a cage match is just...wrong, at levels not reached since President Trump was grabbing women's pussies. Death metal would be more appropriate, and we didn't sing death metal - hell, it didn't even exist when our ensembles stopped touring.
Never once did anyone going to a UFC event ever say, "y'know, this would be just perfect if Up with People was playing at it." Yes, we played the Super Bowl four times. But come on...before the NFL decided to start hiring good bands for the Super Bowl, the halftime shows featured college marching bands, card stunts, the Air Force's Tops in Blue, and a magician dressed up like Elvis Presley. Playing the Super Bowl in those days wasn't the great thing you think it is.
Dare we to say that ordering Up with People to play a cage match wasn't the best idea anyone ever had?
Do you know what it takes to legally pull someone's tax-exempt status? It ain't easy, I'll tell you that. It takes a demonstrated and long-established pattern of fiscal malfeasance that refusing to play one cage match doesn't meet.
I think you've sorely underestimated the gravity of what you're telling us to do. We don't have any performing ensembles, we aren't going to start any, we don't have time to start any and we don't want to do this anyway. And you can't make us.
Ergo, we must decline your request.