President Donald Trump brought UFC president and CEO Dana White into the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room on Monday afternoon, November 9, 2026, before a scheduled meeting between the two men. The appearance was arranged so quickly that aides had no time to place the presidential seal on the podium.
Trump introduced White by returning to the joke that started the story. “Dana White could be our press secretary if you would only take the job,” he said, before asking White to say a few words.
White stepped to the podium smiling. “I’ve always wanted to do this,” he said. “Who has the first question?”
He then made his position plain. “I have zero political aspirations,” White said. He told reporters he was in London for a Zuffa Boxing event when Trump called him about the supposed offer. “The last 24 hours of my life has been insane,” he said.
A reporter asked White to analyze a hypothetical cage match between Trump and former President Joe Biden, at the same age and the same weight. White did not give a technical breakdown. He gave a tribute instead.
“The toughest, most resilient human being that I’ve ever met in my entire life,” White said of Trump. “Many times during the last eight, 10 years, whatever it’s been, I have told him, why do you keep doing this? Why are you doing this, when he was going through everything that he went through? And I mean, as tough and as resilient as I thought he was after he got shot, I, yeah. He is a one of one unique human being.”
Asked whether it would be a knockout victory for Trump, White said, “It would be very bad. Yeah, I think it would be very bad.” He laughed and added, “I can’t believe you actually have questions for me.”
White also told reporters he had not turned Trump down over the weekend. “I don’t tell the president no to anything,” he said. “I didn’t say no. Every media outlet was calling me, and I didn’t want to be disrespectful and say anything until he said something first.”
Trump then explained how the offer happened. “We were having a very bad press day,” he said. “And I said, I don’t know why, I thought of his name. He’s been my friend for a long time. I said, you know, I think I’m going to get Dana White to be my new press secretary. And I said it to a group of the press. And that was it. I was sort of kidding. And then they wrote the stories as though I wasn’t kidding. And you were inundated. And I was inundated. And he was here anyway. We thought we’d have a little fun and we brought Dana here.”
Trump took questions for about half an hour on other topics. At the end of the briefing he put the question to White directly, asking whether he would like to be press secretary of the United States, or whether he wanted to stay with what Trump called “this ridiculous UFC.” White thanked him for the offer and said he does not want to be in politics. “I am devastated to hear this,” Trump said. “Goodbye, everybody.”
How the story built over the weekend
On Saturday, November 7, Trump announced on social media that he had offered White the job of White House press secretary. Zark News reported the offer the same day: https://zarknews.com/trump-offers-dana-white-press-secretary-job/
On Sunday, November 8, Trump told reporters he had not been serious. “I was only kidding,” he said, while adding that White liked the idea and was coming to Washington on Monday for a meeting that had already been scheduled.
Monday’s briefing room appearance was that meeting going public. White got his turn at the podium, took real questions, and closed the story himself by declining the job in person. The press secretary post remains open.
Video: The White House (official recording of the November 9, 2026 briefing).
