Dana White turns down press secretary role, President Trump admits he was ‘sort of kidding’ about job offer
UFC CEO Dana White made an impromptu appearance at a White House press briefing on Monday but it doesn’t appear he’s actually taking the press secretary job offered by President Donald Trump.
Trump announced on Truth Social that he was offering White the press secretary job with hopes he would bring along some of the top UFC fighters to serve as his assistants. White later stated that he was flying to Washington D.C. on Monday to meet with the president and he admitted he wasn’t in the business of turning down Trump when he comes calling.
“I don’t tell the president no to anything,” White said during the press briefing. “I didn’t say no. Literally every media outlet was calling me and I didn’t want to be disrespectful and say anything until he said something first.”
Afterwards, Trump admitted he was joking about the job offer after a tough day dealing with the press.
“We were having a very bad press day and I don’t know why, I thought of his name, he’s been a friend for a long time,” Trump said. “I said I think I’m going to get Dana White to be my new press secretary. I said it to a group of the press and that was it. I was sort of kidding.
“Then they wrote the stories as though I wasn’t kidding and then [Dana] was inundated and I was inundated. He was here anyway and we thought we’d have a little fun and we brought Dana here. He would be fantastic.”
Trump has been searching for a full time press secretary since Karoline Leavitt resigned from that position back in August.
When he was finally pressed by the president for an answer to his job offer — clearly in a joking manner — White answered “Thank you for the offer, sir. I do not want to be in politics.”
Trump responded by saying he was “devastated” before ending the press briefing.