EXCLUSIVE: Ultimate Fighting Championship pioneer and legend Royce Gracie has endorsed a pro-law enforcement candidate who is running for governor in California.

One of the biggest names in mixed martial arts and the first UFC champion, Gracie made a name for himself by taking down much larger opponents through precision and skill.

Now he is weighing into the political sphere in the race to replace Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, who is term-limited and widely rumored to have 2028 presidential ambitions.

In a statement to Fox News Digital, Gracie said he is endorsing sheriff Chad Bianco’s long-shot bid to replace Newsom in 2026. Gracie, a three-time UFC champion, called Bianco a “fighter” who is “exactly who we need.”

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“When Gavin Newsom closed businesses, schools, and churches, one person stood against him, Sheriff Chad Bianco,” Gracie told Fox News Digital.

“Chad Bianco didn’t fold. He’s a fighter, and a fighter is exactly who we need as Governor of California,” he added, saying, “We need his strength to turn this state around after the mess Gavin Newsom has created.”

Bianco, who is a vocal Trump supporter and the sheriff of Riverside County, just east of Los Angeles, announced his gubernatorial candidacy back in February, saying, “Californians deserve better.”

He has framed his candidacy around restoring safety and a better quality of life to California.

“This campaign will not be about the divide between Republicans and Democrats. It will be about the common goal we all have for a better California,” Bianco emphasized at his campaign launch.

“As Californians, we want leadership that actually cares about the cost of living …and leaders who will do something about it,” Bianco said in his address. “We want homes we can afford. We want air conditioning when it’s hot, not rolling blackouts. We want water for the crops and animals that feed us. We want the opportunity to achieve the California Dream, not be prevented from it because of red tape and regulation from government. We want honesty and transparency from our elected officials. We want lower taxes and less government waste. We want sanity restored and common sense to prevail.”

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Jiu-Jitsu black belt Royce Gracie kicks at cruiserweight boxer Art Jimmerson during a 1st round match in the Ultimate Fighter Championships in Denver, Colorado. Gracie went on to win the match and eventually the championship. (Markus Boes)

Bianco, who has worked in law enforcement for more than three decades, was first elected sheriff in 2018. A vocal critic of Newsom and soft on crime policies, Bianco was one of the leaders who helped push California’s Proposition 36 ballot measure to a landslide victory in last November’s elections. The measure, which took effect in December, mandates stiffer penalties and longer sentences in California for certain drug and theft crimes.

In response to Gracie’s endorsement, Bianco told Fox News Digital that “Californians are waking up, and we are going to clean up this state.”

“Gavin Newsom has been chasing away Californians in record numbers,” he said, adding, “I’m grateful for the support of patriots like Royce Gracie.”

Fox News Digital reached out to Newsom’s office for comment but did not receive a statement by the time of publication. 

Bianco is facing a steep uphill battle to win as a Republican in deep blue California. It has been nearly two decades since a Republican won a statewide race.

Though still early, the current frontrunner to be Newsom’s successor is former Democratic Rep. Katie Porter, a progressive who has made resisting President Donald Trump a central theme of her campaign.

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Republican Sheriff Chad Bianco (left) received an endorsement from UFC legend Royce Gracie (right) for California governor. (Images courtesy of Chad Bianco Campaign)

Xavier Becerra, former U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary under the Biden administration and former California attorney general, is also running for the Democratic nomination.

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The Democratic and Republican primaries will be held on June 2 next year and the general election will be on Nov. 3.

WASHINGTON — President Trump’s signature plan to impose import taxes on products coming from countries around the world ran into sharp skepticism at the Supreme Court on Wednesday.

Most of the justices, conservative and liberal, questioned whether the president acting on his own has the power to set large tariffs as a weapon of international trade.

Instead, they voiced the traditional view that the Constitution gives Congress the power to raise taxes, duties and tariffs.

Trump and his lawyers rely on an emergency powers act adopted on a voice vote by Congress in 1977. That measure authorizes sanctions and embargoes, but does not mention “tariffs, duties” or other means of revenue-raising.

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. said he doubted that law could be read so broadly.

The emergency powers law “had never before been used to justify tariffs,” he told D. John Sauer, Trump’s solicitor general. “No one has argued that it does until this particular case.”

Congress has authorized tariffs in other laws, he said, but not this one. Yet, it is “being used for a power to impose tariffs on any product from any country for — in any amount on any product from any country for — in any amount for any length of time.”

Moreover, the Constitution says Congress has the lead role on taxes and tariffs. “The imposition of taxes on Americans … has always been a core power of Congress,” he said.

The tariffs case heard Wednesday is the first major challenge to Trump’s presidential power to be heard by the court. It is also a test of whether the court’s conservative majority is willing to set legal limits on Trump’s executive authority.

Trump has touted these import taxes as crucial to reviving American manufacturing.

But owners of small businesses, farmers and economists are among the critics who say the on-again, off-again import taxes are disrupting business and damaging the economy.

Two lower courts ruled for small-business owners and said Trump had exceeded his authority.

The Supreme Court agreed to hear the appeal on a fast-track basis with the aim of ruling in a few months.

In defense of the president and his “Liberation Day” tariffs, Trump’s lawyers argued these import duties involve the president’s power over foreign affairs. They are “regulatory tariffs,” not taxes that raise revenue, he said.

Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan disagreed.

“It’s a congressional power, not a presidential power, to tax,” Sotomayor said. “You want to say tariffs are not taxes, but that’s exactly what they are.”

Imposing a tariff “is a taxing power which is delegated by the Constitution to Congress,” Kagan said.

Justice Neil M. Gorsuch may hold the deciding vote, and he said he was wary of upholding broad claims of presidential power that rely on old and vague laws.

The court’s conservative majority, including Gorsuch, struck down several far-reaching Biden administration regulations on climate change and student forgiveness because they were not clearly authorized by Congress.

Both Roberts and Gorsuch said the same theory may apply here. Gorsuch said he was skeptical of the claim that the president had the power to impose taxes based on his belief that the nation faces a global emergency.

In the future, “could the President impose a 50% tariff on gas-powered cars and auto parts to deal with the unusual and extraordinary threat from abroad of climate change?” he asked.

Yes, Sauer replied, “It’s very likely that could be done.”

Congress had the lawmaking power, Gorsuch said, and presidents should not feel free to take away the taxing power “from the people’s representatives.”

Justice Amy Coney Barrett said she was struggling to understand what Congress meant in the emergency powers law when it said the president may “regulate” importation.

She agreed that the law did not mention taxes and tariffs that would raise revenue, but some judges then saw it as allowing the authority to impose duties or tariffs.

Justices Brett M. Kavanaugh and Samuel A. Alito Jr. appeared to be leaning against the challenge to the president’s tariffs.

Kavanaugh pointed to a round of tariffs imposed by President Nixon in 1971, and he said Congress later adopted its emergency powers act without clearly rejecting that authority.

A former White House lawyer, Kavanaugh said it would be unusual for the president to have the full power to bar imports from certain countries, but not the lesser power to impose tariffs.

Since Trump returned to the White House in January, the court’s six Republican appointees have voted repeatedly to set aside orders from judges who had temporarily blocked the president’s policies and initiatives.

Although they have not explained most of their temporary emergency rulings, the conservatives have said the president has broad executive authority over federal agencies and on matters of foreign affairs.

But Wednesday, the justices did not sound split along the usual ideological lines.

The court’s ruling is not likely to be the final word on tariffs, however. Several other past laws allow the president to impose temporary tariffs for reasons of national security.

All three justices on the ballot in Pennsylvania will keep their jobs after winning races on Tuesday in an election that had threatened to change the state Supreme Court’s liberal composition.

Democrats will continue to hold a 5-2 majority on the state’s highest court, a result of voters overwhelmingly choosing to retain Democratic justices Christine Donohue, Kevin Dougherty and David Wecht. The Associated Press called the races at about 10 p.m. local time.

“Tonight, folks across our Commonwealth sent a resounding message by voting to retain all three Supreme Court Justices who will continue to defend the rule of law, safeguard our elections, and protect our constitutional rights,” Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro said in a statement.

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The race attracted an unusual amount of attention as state and national groups poured what The Associated Press estimated to be more than $15 million into it, exceeding spending in past retention elections and underscoring the stakes of changing the court majority.

Pennsylvania Supreme Court justices serve 10-year terms and can be retained for consecutive terms until they reach the age of 75, at which point they must retire. Donohue, who is 72, will be unable to serve out another full term.

Republicans’ fight with the judiciary has intensified this year as judges have routinely thwarted President Donald Trump’s agenda. Their defeat in Pennsylvania, a battleground state that has seen high-stakes election litigation in recent years, comes after they suffered a bitter loss in an expensive Supreme Court race in another swing state, Wisconsin, in April.

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A voter drops off a mail-in ballot at the City-County Building in downtown Pittsburgh Tuesday, Nov. 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)

Trump weighed in on the race this week, calling for the ouster of the three justices. Trump said they “ruled for Sleepy Joe Biden over and over, and interfered in the 2020 Election” and that it was “time for Justice.”

The odds had been stacked against the GOP in Pennsylvania since only one justice, Russell Nigro, had ever been voted out through a retention race. Nigro was defeated in 2005 amid public outrage over legislative and Supreme Court justice pay raises.

A voter uses a ballot drop box at the Bucks County Administration building voting on demand and ballot drop center in Doylestown, Pa., Oct. 31, 2024. (Ed Jones/AFP via Getty Images)

Republicans dedicated their spending and resources to attempting to persuade voters that ousting the justices would be a well-deserved referendum on the Supreme Court’s controversial decisions surrounding COVID-19 lockdowns and election rules. Democrats argued that a loss would threaten women’s access to abortion and reproductive health services.

The state’s highest court rejected Republicans’ attempt to toss out 2.5 million mail-in ballots in the 2020 election but delivered a mixture of smaller wins and losses to the GOP in the 2024 election over mail-in and provisional ballot lawsuits.

In 2020, the state Supreme Court also upheld Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro’s order temporarily shutting down non-essential businesses in the state because of COVID-19.