WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — Dana White will be at the White House on Monday, and President Donald Trump says the visit has nothing to do with the press secretary job — for the simple reason that the job offer Trump announced on Saturday was a joke, Reuters and the Associated Press reported.
Trump said so himself before leaving Florida on Sunday. “I will tell you, I was only kidding,” he told reporters, calling the announcement “just a little fun.” The giveaway, he said, was the undercard — the UFC fighters he had named as White’s assistants. “That was an example of something where I was kidding, and then people said, ‘You know, that’s actually a pretty good idea.’”
Nor does Trump think White minded being the butt of it. “I was kidding, but I think Dana likes the idea, and he is a very capable guy,” he said. White, he added, “loves the idea” of the job.
The walk-back does not cancel Monday’s meeting. White is still coming to the White House, Trump confirmed, but he said the visit is for other reasons.
Saturday’s announcement had read as anything but a joke. In his Truth Social post, Trump said he was “pleased to announce” that White, whom he called a “violent Fighter and Warrior,” had been offered the press secretary job, and he named fighters including Khabib Nurmagomedov, Islam Makhachev and Justin Gaethje as the assistants White would bring to “defend us against the Lunatic Left.”
Whatever Trump intended, CNN reported on Saturday that White had already turned the job down. White said in London that he would fly to Washington and meet Trump on Monday, and he deflected questions about whether he would take the post.
The press secretary’s lectern is empty in the meantime. Katie Zacharia left the job in October after five days, and the Sunday reversal came at the end of a week in which Trump, after his party’s midterm losses, replaced his chief of staff, naming Stephen Miller to succeed Susie Wiles starting Monday.
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