Donald Trump took to Truth Social on Saturday to publicly offer the White House press secretary job to UFC chief executive Dana White, whom he called "a violent Fighter and Warrior." He also asked White to bring six UFC fighters along as press aides, because "we need these people to defend us against the Lunatic Left." This is the president's response to losing Congress.
The Job Posting Nobody Asked For
Let's start with the post itself, as reported by The Guardian and the BBC. Trump wrote that White "will be a Press Secretary like none other" and finished with the line "Dana, please take the job!" The exclamation point is doing a lot of work for a man begging someone on a public timeline.
The post came with seven images. One appeared to be an AI-generated picture of White standing behind the presidential seal in a press room. The other six were photos of the UFC fighters Trump wants as his dream team of press aides.
The credentials he cited for the job: "violent." "Fighter." "Warrior." Not "experienced with communications." Not "good with the press." Violent. In a job whose entire purpose is talking to reporters. No previous press secretary was ever described this way, and that includes the ones who clearly wanted to hurt people.
The Fighters Trump Wants on Staff
The proposed press aides are Islam Makhachev, Khabib Nurmagomedov, Justin Gaethje, Daniel Cormier, Amanda Nunes and Kayla Harrison. Trump got Harrison's last name wrong and called her "Harris," which is a hell of a thing to do to a woman you are trying to recruit into a government job.
Trump also admitted that two of the picks, Makhachev and Nurmagomedov, are not from this country. He said they could come "even though some are not from our Country," a sentence that will be news to anyone who has watched his immigration policy for the last decade.
It gets better. Both men are from Russia. Nurmagomedov is reportedly close to Vladimir Putin. Makhachev has spoken out in defense of Palestinian civilians killed by Israel in Gaza, and in 2023 he celebrated a win by saying "Alhamdulillah," the Arabic phrase for "praise be to God." Democrat Abdul El-Sayed got hammered in the rightwing media this week for saying the exact same phrase in his victory speech. Trump did not mention any of this. Maybe nobody told him.
A Very Convenient Distraction
Timing matters here. The post landed days after Republicans got routed in the midterms and lost their congressional majorities. The Guardian put it plainly: it was unclear whether this was a real plan or an attention-grabbing stunt from a president desperate to change the subject.
And the subject needs changing. A party losing both chambers is the kind of story that normally dominates a week. Instead, the national conversation is now about whether a cage-fighting executive will staff the briefing room with people who punch professionally.
The vacancy is real, at least. The press secretary job has been open since mid-October, when Katie Zacharia left after just a few days on the job. A few days. People have lasted longer in a Florida hurricane shelter.
Dana White Has Notes, Apparently
White has not given a straight answer. The BBC reached out to the White House and to TKO Holdings, the UFC's parent company, for comment. After Trump's post, White put up an Instagram photo of himself standing behind the podium in the White House briefing room with the caption "On to the next chapter." Nobody can say whether he was joking.
There is a practical problem. White runs the UFC, a gig that has earned him a fortune estimated at more than $600 million. Observers have noted he might be reluctant to trade that for a government salary and a daily audience of reporters who hate him. He would also be taking a pay cut from the best-compensated job in combat sports to the hardest job in Washington.
He does have a history with the press. White is famously combative with journalists who cover his sport. In 2020 he released a video targeting reporters who questioned the UFC's decision to hold fights early in the pandemic. In 2009 he put out an expletive-laden video tirade, using an anti-gay slur, to rebut a journalist's story about backstage credential rules. So he is not unqualified for hating reporters. He might be overqualified.
How the UFC Became a Trump Institution
The friendship is long and genuine. White and his partners bought the struggling UFC for $2 million in 2001, when the sport faced bipartisan backlash. Five years earlier, Republican Senator John McCain had called mixed martial arts "human cockfighting," which helped trigger bans in 36 states.
White has said no venues would touch the product. He credits Trump with saving the organization by hosting two UFC events at the Trump Taj Mahal casino in Atlantic City in 2001. He has returned the favor ever since, speaking for Trump at the Republican National Conventions in 2016, 2020 and 2024.
This summer the loyalty got literal. The UFC staged a cage match on the White House lawn to mark Trump's 80th birthday. Then the first in a series of taxpayer-funded pro-Trump ads that the White House ran before the midterms closed with footage of that fight and White calling Trump "the toughest, most resilient human being I have ever met in my life." He has used nearly the same line on Trump for years.
The Dingo Take
Spare a thought for the White House press corps, because they are the ones who would actually be standing in that room. Reporters get paid to ask uncomfortable questions, and the president's stated plan for those questions is to station a roster of professional fighters next to the podium to "defend us against the Lunatic Left." That is not a joke about the media. That is the president describing journalists as an enemy that requires bodyguards, in writing, with photos.
Maybe it's a stunt. Probably it's a stunt. A man who just lost Congress reached for the loudest, dumbest thing within arm's reach and it worked, because here we are writing about it. But the stunt tells you what he thinks the press secretary's job is: not informing the public, but winning a fight. The vacancy is real. The last holder lasted days. And the person he wants now is celebrated for being violent.
Here is the actual story, buried under the cage-match nonsense. The Republican Party got crushed at the ballot box, and the response from the top is a casting call. No plan for governing a divided Congress. No answer for the voters who just sent a message. Just a Truth Social post, a bad AI image, a misspelled fighter, and a request for a billionaire to please take the job. If that's the opening move after a landslide loss, the next two years are going to be something to watch. Bring snacks.
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