Nate Bargatze’s widely criticized appearance at President Donald Trump’s birthday bout on the White House lawn was not his first time posing with MAGA figures.
Disgruntled fans of the best-selling comedian have resurfaced a months-old photo of the 47-year-old posing with Republican Sen. Marsha Blackburn—a top Trump ally who is firmly part of the MAGA movement.
Blackburn, who represents Tennessee and has declared herself an anti-woke warrior, posted the photo of them smiling together in February. She wrote that it was “great to see” Bargatze and speak with him about his plans for “Nateland,” an idea for a theme park in his native Nashville.
“Can’t wait to see what he has in store for the Volunteer State!” Blackburn added. A source close to Bargatze confirmed to the Daily Beast that the meeting focused on his theme park.
Still, the post’s most-liked comments were filled with Bargatze fans expressing disappointment.
“Nate, say it ain’t so, don’t go to the dark side,” one read, receiving 373 likes.
The post’s top comment read, “Nate, my mans, blink if you need help.”
Bargatze has been harshly criticized after he not only attended Sunday’s UFC fight at the White House but also posed with MAGA figures, including Donald Trump Jr.’s new wife, Bettina, and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
A source close to Bargatze insisted to the Daily Beast that he attended the event only because he is a diehard UFC fan and that his appearance was “not political.”
Bargatze has been silent on the matter and has not posted anything to his 3.1 million Instagram followers about the event, which several A-listers reportedly declined to attend, and during which a disgusting slur was hurled at Michelle Obama by one of the fighters.
However, other MAGA figures have posted smiling photos with Bargatze, who was raised in the conservative Nashville suburb of Old Hickory.
Among the photos is one of Bargatze posing with House Speaker Mike Johnson, one of Trump’s most loyal lieutenants in Congress.
Also in that photo is the Georgia native country singer Luke Bryan, who, like Bargatze, has flirted with MAGA without explicitly revealing his political affiliation.
Bargatze was also photographed beaming next to Republican Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who was Trump’s press secretary for a portion of his first term, and MAGA-friendly podcaster Joe Rogan.
Rogan said Wednesday that he talked “a bunch” of his comedian friends into attending the event, though it is unclear if Bargatze needed extra prodding to make the trip to Washington while in the middle of a nationwide tour.
“I talked a bunch of people into going that didn’t want to,” he said on The Joe Rogan Experience. “Shane Gillis was thinking about not going. I’m like, bro, you got to go. It’s going to be epic. It’s going to be a once-ever thing. Not a once-in-a-lifetime, once in anybody’s lifetime. It’s never happened before. It’s probably never going to happen again.”
Rogan tried to claim on his show that attending the fight was not necessarily an endorsement of the administration that hosted it.
“So many people are trying to make it a partisan thing,” he scoffed. “They’re mad at people for being there. Like, ‘Oh, you support Trump.’ It’s a f---ing fight at the White House. Doesn’t mean you endorse foreign policy. Like, shut the f--- up.”
