President Donald Trump said on Nov. 8 that he was only kidding when he offered UFC chief Dana White the role of White House press secretary.
Trump posted to Truth Social on Nov. 7 that he had offered White the job and asked him to bring along assistants. The position has been vacant since Katie Zacharia left in mid-October, just five days after taking the role.
Speaking to reporters on Nov. 8, Trump said White is “a very capable guy” and “loves the idea,” but added that he was not serious about White for the position.
“Of course, I was kidding. And you could see that because I put all of the great fighters as his assistants, that they’re all going to come with him. But it was just a little fun,” he said.
In his Truth Social post on Nov. 7, Trump described White as “a violent Fighter and Warrior” and suggested that he bring six current or former UFC champions as assistants.
That included two athletes from Russia’s Dagestan republic, Islam Makhachev and Khabib Nurmagomedov; Americans Justin Gaethje, Daniel Cormier, and Kayla Harrison; and Amanda Nunes, a Brazilian native who became a U.S. citizen last year.
When asked about the offer during a news conference in London, White said he would travel to Washington to meet with Trump on Nov. 9 but did not elaborate.
White also posted an image of himself standing behind the podium in the White House press briefing room with the caption: “On to the next chapter.” He did not say whether he was considering the role.
Trump later confirmed on Nov. 8 that White was coming to see him in Washington, but for reasons unrelated to the press secretary position.
Trump was an early supporter of mixed martial arts, hosting two UFC events at the Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City, New Jersey, in 2001, and showing up in the front row for the fights. That started 25 years of friendship between the president and White.
Zacharia took over the press secretary role in October after former White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt stepped down in August to spend more time with her family following the birth of her second child. But Zacharia’s tenure was short-lived amid public scrutiny of her legal credentials.
Trump made another personnel change in his administration on Nov. 6 after White House chief of staff Susie Wiles announced that she would step down.
Trump has tapped Stephen Miller to replace Wiles. Miller was the president’s deputy chief of staff and has been a chief proponent of the second Trump administration’s immigration policies.
The shake-up came after Republicans suffered losses in the midterm elections, which handed control of Congress to Democrats. In a Truth Social post on Nov. 7, Trump accused Democrats of threatening Republican officials and donors with “impeachment and many other forms of punishment.”
Sylvia Xu and Jack Phillips contributed to this report.
