Dana White Says President Trump Watching UFC 249 As 'Blueprint' For Opening Up U.S.

President Donald Trump will be tuned in to UFC 249 on Saturday to get some ideas on how to reopen the rest of the country amid the coronavirus pandemic, so says UFC honcho Dana White.

Of course, Dana and Donald are very close friends who go back decades -- and they talk all the time.

So, with Dana pushing forward with UFC 249 this weekend -- using teams of medical professionals to test all fighters and staffers -- we asked if Trump would be looking at the event as kind of a blueprint.

"Absolutely," White said Friday on "TMZ Live" ... "His whole philosophy was let's get sports back first, figure out how to do that safely. Then let's start figuring out how do you get people back in the office? How do you get people in cubicles? And, then how do you get kids back in school?"

"So, this is something we've been working on and yes, he's absolutely watching what we're doing this weekend."

White says his fighters, their teams and UFC staff have been undergoing multiple testing -- including swabs for COVID-19 -- and plans to keep it up during future events.

"Health and safety is something we worry about every single weekend ... there's gonna be a lot of testing going on here."

White says other sports should follow suit -- but they have to be willing to spend the money ... "it's really expensive."

As for the fights themselves, IT'S GOING TO BE AWESOME!!!

Justin Gaethje is fighting Tony Ferguson. Henry Cejudo is fighting Dominick Cruz. And, soooo many more awesome fights!