Mel Gibson and Donald Trump mingle at Vegas fighting event

Mel Gibson and other stars mingled with Donald Trump as the former president made a surprise visit to a fighting match in Las Vegas.

Mel Gibson with Roger Stone at the Las Vegas UFC fight on Saturday. Picture: Twitter

Mel Gibson has been spotted meeting Donald Trump during an unscheduled appearance at a fighting match in Las Vegas, where the former president enjoyed a rapturous applause from the crowd as he steps up his 2024 presidential campaign.

The Mad Max and Lethal Weapon star, who spent much of his youth in Australia, was photographed in conversation with the former president and political svengali Roger Stone when they attended a United Fighting Championship.

“Shooting the sh*t with Donald Trump and Mel Gibson,” Mr Stone, a long time friend and confidant of Mr Trump whom the former president pardoned in office, posted on Twitter soon after.

Shooting the sh*t with @realDonaldTrump and #MelGibson at the UFC fight in Vegas pic.twitter.com/nVnwYFotfA

— Roger Stone (@RogerJStoneJr) July 9, 2023

Mr Trump was cheered as he entered the packed T-Mobile Arena on Saturday night local time alongside Dana White, president of UFC and a vocal Trump supporter, before proceeding to mingle with influential podcaster Joe Rogan and Hollywood star Mark Whalberg.

One of the fighters, South African Dricus du Plessis, suddenly jumped the cage to shake Mr Trump’s hand after a win against his opponent Robert Whittaker, as the former president high-fived supporters.

Mel Gibson was photographed saluting Donald Trump at a UFC fight in 2021. Picture: TikTok

The former president, who remains well ahead in polls of Republican voters despite facing two indictments, arrived fresh from an address to supporters at a church outside Las Vegas, where he delivered a relatively short 40 minute speech, taking aim at Joe Biden and his Republican rival Ron DeSantis.

“We‘re using the word crooked for Joe Biden [now], because Joe Biden is the most crooked president in the history of our country by a factor of hundreds,” he said, explaining he would now longer apply his famous description to former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, who he defeated in the 2016 presidential election.

Donald Trump with champion Stipe Miocic and his wife Ryan Marie Carney. Images

“I’m not a big fan of his and he’s highly overrated. He’s highly overrated,” Trump told the crowd at a GOP volunteer, referring to Mr DeSantis, who is trailing the former president by around 30 percentage points, despite higher earlier expectations, in most major polls of Republicans’ primary voting intentions.

“You have the sun too, but you don‘t have the ocean … maybe someway you’ll have the ocean, you never know,” he told the audience, in an apparent joke about climate change while making a contrast with Florida.

MEL GIBSON CALLS ON ALL PATRIOTS TO BRING AWARENESS TO CHILD TRAFFICKING ⚠️ HOLLYWOOD DOES NOT WANT YOU TO SEE THIS 🚨 pic.twitter.com/JioWPIvrcn

— Matt Wallace (@MattWallace888) July 9, 2023

Gibson, who is currently directing a sequel to his 2004 film Passion of Christ, scheduled for release next year, was caught on camera saluting Mr Trump at a previous UFC match in July 2021, footage that went viral on social media.

The 67-year old Braveheart star, who has endured accusations of anti-Semitism and homophobia in recent years after alcohol-fuelledoutbursts, has been heavily promoting Sound of Freedom, a new film meant to ­expose child sex trafficking that unexpectedlytopped the US box office on last Tuesday’s July 4 public holiday.

The film, starring Jim Caviezel, who played Jesus in The Passion of the Christ, made $US14.2m ($21.3m) on its openingday on July 4, whereas the new Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, released late last month, took in $US11m despite beingshown in more cinemas.

Nevada has become a swing state in the US political firmament, marginally breaking for Democrats in last year’s highly contestedsenate race in the ­November midterm elections