Dana White Press Secretary? Trump Says He Was 'Just Kidding' About the Offer - and White Still Meets Him Monday
Saturday, President Trump announced he had offered UFC boss Dana White the job of White House press secretary. Sunday, he told reporters it was 'just a little fun' - while White, who deflected in London and was reported to have declined, still flies in for a Monday meeting at the White House.
The strangest staffing story of the post-election week ended the weekend where it began: unresolved, on the record, and headed for a Monday meeting. President Donald Trump said Sunday that he was only kidding about making UFC chief executive Dana White his next White House press secretary, one day after announcing on social media that he had offered his close friend the job, the Associated Press reports. 'I was kidding, but I think Dana likes the idea, and he is a very capable guy,' Trump told reporters in Florida before departing for the White House.
Saturday's post was written as anything but a joke. 'I am pleased to announce that the Great Dana White, a violent Fighter and Warrior, has been offered the job of Press Secretary of the United States,' Trump wrote, asking White to bring six UFC fighters along as 'assistants' and closing, 'Dana, please take the job!' Communications director Steven Cheung amplified it - 'Hell yeah! Do it, @DanaWhite!' Within hours CNN reported, citing a source familiar with the matter, that White had declined the idea. White himself, at a boxing news conference in London on Saturday, deflected the question and said only that he planned to fly to Washington and meet with Trump on Monday - a meeting the president confirmed Sunday is still on.
The vacancy underneath the spectacle is real. Trump has no press secretary: Katie Zacharia, briefly given the job, faltered at the lectern and in interviews and left the post after five days, the shortest tenure in the role's history. The offer-then-walk-back also landed in the middle of a genuine shake-up - on Friday Trump ousted longtime chief of staff Susie Wiles and installed Stephen Miller, the architect of his hardline immigration policies, who takes over Monday. That is the same Monday White walks into the White House.
What America made of it is measurable: 'Dana White press secretary' was the day's top non-sports Google search in the United States. Whether Monday's meeting produces a joke's punchline, a refusal on the record, or the most unconventional appointment in briefing-room history is a question only the two men can answer - and as of Sunday night, neither has closed it. This desk reports the offer, the reported decline, and the walk-back exactly as each was stated, and will file the meeting's outcome when there is one.
