President Donald Trump said Sunday he was joking when he offered the White House press secretary job to UFC chief Dana White a day earlier, though he added that White may like the idea.
Trump spoke to reporters in Florida on Sunday before flying to Washington. “I was kidding, but I think Dana likes the idea,” he said, adding that White is very capable.
The joke followed a Saturday post on Truth Social, written from Trump’s golf club in Florida. Trump wrote that White would take on the left for the administration, and he promised that Dana would be “a Press Secretary like none other”. He asked White to bring UFC fighters with him and suggested fighters including Islam Makhachev, Khabib Nurmagomedov and Amanda Nunes as assistants.
White shared the post on Instagram from London, where he was attending a boxing event, along with a doctored image of himself at the White House briefing-room podium, and he captioned it as the start of his next chapter. At a news conference in London, White said he would fly to Washington to meet Trump on Monday, and he quipped that he already has “a lot of jobs”. A report citing unnamed sources said White had declined the job, and one aide said Trump was joking.
Online, people speculated that it was supposed to be a different person, Dana W. White, a former chief spokesperson for the Pentagon, and that Trump mixed up the two. The other Dana later said on LinkedIn that she was the “wrong Dana White.”
Trump’s “kidding” remark followed a welcome from White House communications director Steven Cheung on X, reports that White had declined, and the spread of the speculation.
The job has been open for weeks. Karoline Leavitt left the job in August. Trump then named Katie Zacharia on October 9, and she held one briefing before reports of her departure surfaced on October 16, five days into the job.
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Trump made the offer during a White House reshuffle. After Tuesday’s midterm elections cost Republicans both chambers of Congress, he tapped Stephen Miller on Friday to succeed Susie Wiles, who resigned Thursday.
Trump and White have known each other for about 25 years. White has spoken at the Republican National Convention in 2016, 2020, and 2024, and the UFC held an event on the White House South Lawn on June 14.
