politics
Trump offers Dana White the press secretary job; White says no
President Trump posted on Truth Social that he offered UFC CEO Dana White the White House press secretary role, with six UFC fighters as proposed assistants. White plans to meet Trump Monday but has declined.
President Donald Trump said Saturday on Truth Social that he offered UFC CEO Dana White the job of White House press secretary, CNN reported. Trump paired the offer with a roster of six UFC fighters he proposed as White House “assistants.”
White plans to meet with Trump on Monday to discuss the offer, Fox News reported, but a source familiar with White’s thinking told CNN he will decline. White has run the UFC since 2001 and recently signed a new contract with UFC parent company TKO Group.
The offer lands amid chaos in the press shop. Karoline Leavitt left the role last month. Her replacement, Katie Zacharia, lasted five days. WCYB reported that Trump has struggled to fill the position since Leavitt’s departure.
Trump’s Truth Social post included an image collage of the six fighters and described them as a team that would “help defend the administration against political opponents.”
What the coverage missed
The CNN report frames this as a serious job offer. It is not. White has spent 25 years building the UFC into a global business. He is not going to brief the press corps on Trump’s behalf.
The real story is what the post tells us about how Trump thinks about the briefing room. He named six cage fighters as his proposed press shop staff. The president is telling his supporters that he wants the people who ask him questions to be treated like opponents in an octagon.
The coverage also glossed over the revolving door. Two press secretaries in three weeks is not normal. Zacharia’s five-day tenure may be the shortest in the history of the office. Nobody has asked why the job has become impossible to fill.
What I think
Trump is not trying to hire Dana White. He is putting on a show. The Truth Social post is a bit — the fighters, the collage, the idea of a cage fighter fielding questions from Peter Alexander. It plays to his base and dominates a news cycle, which is the point.
The problem is that the press shop is actually broken. Two people have quit in three weeks. The president is posting about cage fighters instead of finding a replacement. At some point the comedy becomes the dysfunction, and we are past that point.