Vice President JD Vance said people “lost their minds” over UFC fighter Josh Hokit calling former first lady Michelle Obama “a man” at the White House fight last month, arguing the reaction was “totally disproportionate.”
The comment was brought up when Joe Rogan asked Vance on his podcast, The Joe Rogan Experience, if Hokit’s comment about the former first lady or how long Hokit’s appointment held out was “more shocking” at the White House’s Freedom 250 UFC fight last month.
“Definitely the armbar part [was more shocking]. I work in politics, people say crazy stuff all the time,” Vance said in the episode posted on Wednesday. “People lost their minds about it.”
After winning his match at the Freedom 250 fight, Hokit said, “Michelle Obama is a man. Am I right, America?” during his victory speech, sparking widespread backlash online. UFC CEO Dana White called the controversial comment “nasty and false.”
Vance explained the reaction to the comment was so extreme that his communications team was prepping him to answer questions about it in case he was asked about it during his book tour appearance on The View.
“The thing [my communications team] were most worried about was they’re going to ask you about Michelle Obama being called a man, ‘What are you going to say about it?’” Vance said. “I was like, ‘What, an amped-up fighter told a joke after a fight and that’s actually national news?’”
“I’m still surprised, I’ve been in politics for three, four years, I’m still shocked the s*** that people really get fired up about,” Vance added.
As Rogan pointed out, Hokit comments on Obama at almost every fight, but argued that saying the former first lady is “a man” wasn’t the “best thing to say” since the fight was at the White House.
Vance pushed back on Rogan’s statement, saying it’s a “fair” point but argued the reaction was “totally disproportionate.”
“People say stuff all the time,” Vance said. “I work in a business where obviously people make life and death decisions all the time, and I’m always a little bit caught off guard by the culture that just overreacts when clearly the thing Josh is trying to get at is the overreaction in the first place.”
“So you give him exactly what he wants and the worst you could say is, ‘Oh that was an offensive comment,’ and you go on with the rest of your life,” Vance added.
The vice president said he doesn’t understand the people who “flip out” about stuff like the comment about Obama. “The people who really flip out about it and kind of lose their minds, I just, I don’t understand that.”
Rogan, who is a commentator and broadcast voice for the UFC, explained Hokit built a “bad guy persona” in the business but is a nice guy offstage, arguing that fighting in the octagon isn’t enough to get attention.
“[Hokit is] a very good fighter, first of all, but sometimes that isn’t enough to get attention,” Rogan said. “So what Josh has done is create this persona, this pro-wrestling bad guys persona. When you talk to him offstage, he’s very normal.”
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Following the fight, Hokit stood firm on the comment, saying he meant for it to be taken as a “compliment.”
“I thought I was giving her a compliment,” the fighter said in an interview with podcaster Ariel Helwani in June. “Michelle Obama being a man, that’s like — she knows how to deal with adversity. She knows how to work hard like a man when the times get tough.”