Dana White got his moment at the White House podium on Monday, and he used it to turn the job down. President Donald Trump brought the UFC chief executive into the James Brady Briefing Room for a surprise news conference, two days after announcing on social media that he had offered White the job of White House press secretary. White joked at the lectern, then gave his answer plainly: “I have zero political aspirations,” according to AFP.
Trump led White out to the podium and told the packed room he had been “having a little fun,” AFP reported. He called White “a great guy” and joked: “The only problem is he’ll talk for a little while and then he’s going to beat the hell out of you.” White, wearing a black t-shirt and jacket, played along at first. “I’ve always wanted to do this. Who has the first question?” he said, before adding the line that ended the speculation: “I have zero political aspirations.” He also said that “the last 24 hours of my life has been insane” since Trump’s announcement.
Near the end of the appearance, Trump put the question to him directly, AFP reported: “So let me ask you the big question. Would you like to be press secretary of the United States of America? Or do you just want to stay with this ridiculous UFC? Huh?” White thanked him for the offer and replied: “I do not want to be in politics.” Trump smiled and headed out of the room, saying: “I am devastated to hear this. Goodbye, everybody.” Asked by a journalist to confirm he had said no, White explained: “I don’t tell the president ‘no’ to anything… I didn’t want to be disrespectful and say anything until he said something first.”
How the weekend offer unfolded
The answer on Monday closed a story that began on Saturday, November 7, when Trump posted on Truth Social from his golf club in Florida that White had been offered the job. He called White “the Great Dana White, a violent Fighter and Warrior” and said White has been offered the job of, in his words, “Press Secretary of the United States.” He also asked White to bring several UFC fighters with him as assistants, naming Islam Makhachev, Khabib Nurmagomedov, Justin Gaethje, Daniel Cormier, Amanda Nunes and Kayla Harrison. “We need these people to defend us against the Lunatic Left,” Trump wrote. “Dana will be a Press Secretary like none other. Dana, please take the job!”
The Associated Press, which reported the offer on Saturday, put the problem with the story in its own headline: nobody would say whether the president was joking. The White House did not respond to AP messages about the post that day, and a spokesperson for the UFC did not respond either, AP reported.
The signals pointed both ways
White was in London on Saturday for a boxing event. Asked about the post at a news conference there, he said he planned to fly to Washington and meet Trump at the White House on Monday, according to AP. He did not say whether he had accepted the job, and he did not say whether he had turned it down. AP reported that his remarks did not make clear how seriously he was considering the offer.
White also shared Trump’s post on Instagram, along with an image of himself standing behind the podium in the White House briefing room and the words “On to the next chapter,” AP reported. The post added to the confusion rather than clearing it up, because it could be read as a yes, as a joke of his own, or as neither.
Other reporting pointed the other way. CNN reported later on Saturday that a source familiar with the matter said White had declined the offer, and that one White House aide said Trump was joking about the proposal. One senior official played along in public: Steven Cheung, the White House communications director, reposted Trump’s message on X and added, “Hell yeah! Do it, @DanaWhite!” according to CNN. Then, on Sunday night, Trump settled part of the question himself, saying he was “only kidding” about the offer, AFP reported. What remained unclear until Monday was whether White would say yes anyway. He did not.
A famous friendship, and a job that is still empty
The offer, joke or not, did not come out of nowhere. White has been one of Trump’s most loyal public supporters for years. He spoke at the Republican National Conventions in 2016, 2020 and 2024, and in 2024 he introduced Trump on the night Trump accepted the nomination. Their friendship goes back to the early 2000s, when Trump hosted UFC events at his Taj Mahal casino in Atlantic City at a time when the sport struggled to find venues. In June, Trump hosted a UFC event, Freedom 250, on the South Lawn of the White House.
The press secretary job itself is still vacant. Katie Zacharia left the post on October 16 after less than a week in it, and her predecessor Karoline Leavitt left in August after a year and a half in the job, according to AFP. The weekend of speculation also landed in the same week that Trump shook up his senior team after the midterm elections, naming Stephen Miller as his new chief of staff. With White’s answer now on the record, the search for a press secretary goes on. Follow the story in our News coverage.
Sources: Agence France-Presse, November 9, 2026; Associated Press, November 7 and 9, 2026; Reuters, November 10, 2026; CNN, November 7, 2026; ESPN; USA Today.