Donald Trump’s briefing room has sat empty for weeks, and the press corps treats the vacancy like a running joke.
Gloating Democrats are betting his next pick folds even faster than the last one.
And Trump just floated one name that could wipe the smirks off their faces.
The Podium’s Newest Contender Never Needed Washington’s Permission
President Trump took to Truth Social and announced that he wants UFC chief executive Dana White behind the most closely watched lectern in American politics.
“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.
Trump didn’t stop there. He asked White to bring a few “assistants” from the octagon, rattling off names like Khabib Nurmagomedov, Islam Makhachev, Justin Gaethje, Daniel Cormier, and Amanda Nunes.
“We need these people to defend us against the Lunatic Left. Dana will be a Press Secretary like none other. Dana, please take the job!”
White hasn’t said yes. But he posted an AI-generated image of himself at the press secretary’s podium on his Instagram story, along with a short caption: “On to the next chapter.”
TMZ reports White plans to sit down with Trump in the Oval Office to talk it over once he wraps up a boxing card in London.
Five Days, One Briefing, and a Summons From JD Vance
The job opened up when Karoline Leavitt left the podium at the end of August and later signed on with Fox News as a contributor.
Trump’s first replacement barely lasted a week. Katie Zacharia, a former commentator tied to the company behind Truth Social, held one short briefing before reporters went digging through her résumé. On Fox News, she acknowledged she hadn’t passed the bar exam despite describing herself as an attorney.
And the exit came quick. The Wall Street Journal reported that a summons to meet with Vice President JD Vance pulled Zacharia out of an interview with the paper, and she never came back to finish it.
Vance later put the blame where most of Trump’s voters would. “I think that the minute she came out of the gate, the vultures had descended upon her, people were trying to destroy her, just trying to destroy her professionally,” he told Mark Halperin.
But Vance also owned a piece of it, conceding the administration “could do a better job of onboarding that person and preparing them for what’s coming after them.”
The rumor mill has churned ever since. A couple of White House staffers floated rapper Nicki Minaj before the midterms. Other chatter pointed to CNN’s Scott Jennings.
Jennings would carry baggage the MAGA base hasn’t forgotten. He’s a former operative for George W Bush and Mitch McConnell, a man he has called “my mentor.” After January 6, Jennings called the protesters “domestic terrorists” who “ought to be treated like any other terrorist uprising with the full force and fury of the US government,” and he claimed Trump was “practically and morally responsible” for what happened that day. The CNN act as a Trump defender came later.
The Sport Polite Society Tried to Ban Found Exactly One Friend
The coverage of the White offer followed a familiar script. The Associated Press called it unconventional “even for the norm-busting president.” UPI openly wondered whether the post was real or a joke. Scripps News treated it as something Trump merely “claimed.”
Dana White has heard that tone before. Plenty of times.
In 1996, Senator John McCain branded mixed martial arts “human cockfighting” and wrote to all 50 governors urging them to ban it. Cable providers dropped the events. Thirty-six states eventually outlawed the sport, and New York held out until 2016.
By 2001, the UFC had become such an outcast that it changed hands for $2 million. Most arenas wouldn’t touch it.
One casino owner would. Trump opened the Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City to a UFC card in February 2001, the first event under White’s leadership.
“Nobody took us seriously,” White has said. “Except Donald Trump.”
White has always given McCain some credit for pushing the sport toward athletic commission sanctioning. And by 2007, McCain admitted the promoters had “cleaned up the sport to the point, at least in my view, where it is not human cockfighting anymore.” But notice the order of events. The fighters cleaned house first. The respectable crowd caught up second. Trump showed up before either one.
The company bled $40 million over three years before a television deal turned it into a billion-dollar business. White went on to speak for Trump at the 2016, 2020, and 2024 Republican conventions. In June, the UFC built an octagon on the South Lawn for its Freedom 250 card, part of the run-up to America’s 250th birthday on July 4, 2026.
Democrats Want a Punching Bag, Not a Press Secretary
The timing here isn’t an accident. Republicans just took a beating at the ballot box, and close to two of every three voters told NBC News exit pollsters that taking military action against Iran was the wrong decision. That’s the fight the neoconservative wing spent months selling.
And the Democrats grabbing the gavels in January haven’t hidden what comes next. Subpoenas. Hearings. A daily parade of “gotcha” questions dressed up as accountability.
Funny how Democrats never minded a press secretary who dodged. Karine Jean-Pierre stood at that same lectern and assured reporters, over and over, that Joe Biden was sharp and fully in command, right up until the debate meltdown put the cover-up on live television. Jen Psaki promised to “circle back” more times than anybody bothered counting, then strolled straight from the podium into an anchor chair.
Nobody in polite Washington called either one of them a joke.
Now, a fight promoter isn’t automatically a policy expert. A press secretary has to field questions on tax bills, court rulings, and trade talks, and White would need a deep bench behind him to pull it off. He also might simply say no and stay with the empire he built.
But White has spent a quarter century running fight-week press conferences full of trash talk, sore losers, and reporters hunting for a headline. He doesn’t rattle. And he doesn’t read from somebody else’s script.
The scoffers have a lousy track record betting against him, anyway.
In February 2001, a sport shut out of 36 states and dumped by cable put on a fight night at the only venue willing to have it, a casino owned by Donald Trump. Twenty-five years later, that same casino owner wants the promoter at the White House podium, and the same crowd is laughing again.
Sources:
TMZ, “Dana White Meeting Trump Next Week to Discuss Press Secretary Job Offer”
Associated Press via PBS NewsHour, “Trump says he’s asked UFC’s Dana White to be his press secretary”
UPI via Yahoo News, “Trump offers press secretary job to Dana White: ‘Please take the job!’”
Newsweek, “Trump Offers UFC CEO Dana White Press Secretary Job: ‘A Violent Fighter’”
Mediaite, “Trump Says He’s Offered White House Press Secretary Job to UFC Head Dana White”
Scripps News, “Trump claims he offered job of White House press secretary to UFC CEO Dana White”
Breitbart News, “Report: White House Press Secretary Katie Zacharia ‘Transitioning Out’ of Role”
Free Press Journal, “Katie Zacharia Pulled Out Of Interview Moments Before White House Firing”
The Daily Beast, “Vance Botches Katie Zacharia Question With Cringe Answer”
Associated Press via WRAL, “The rise of UFC: Dana White’s path from ‘human cockfighting’ to the White House starts with Trump”
USA Today via Lee Enterprises, UFC history from “human cockfighting” to the White House
NOTUS, “How the UFC Went from ‘Human Cockfighting’ to the White House Lawn”
Sports Illustrated, “Dana White talks UFC future, Sen. McCain and, of course, Tito”
