Dana White turns down press secretary job, according to a source familiar with the matter cited by CNN, just hours after President Donald Trump publicly offered the UFC chief the role of White House press secretary and asked him to bring six fighters along as his staff. The refusal leaves the White House still searching for a permanent spokesperson, a vacancy that has now stretched for weeks, and it caps one of the strangest staffing stories of Trump’s second term.
Trump made the offer on Saturday, November 7, in a post on Truth Social, his social media platform. “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,” the president wrote. He ended the message with a direct appeal: “Dana, please take the job!”
It was not an ordinary job offer, and it did not come with an ordinary job description. Trump asked White to bring a team of assistants with him into the White House briefing room, naming six of the biggest names in mixed martial arts: 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 White Turns Down Press Secretary Job, Source Says
By Saturday evening, the answer was in — at least according to CNN. The network reported, citing a source familiar with the matter, that White had declined the offer. Neither White nor the White House has confirmed the decision on the record, and the UFC has not commented either. But the report was clear enough: the job offer that Trump announced in the morning was turned down the same day.
White himself stayed careful in public. He was in London on Saturday, attending a boxing event, when reporters asked him about the president’s post. He did not confirm or deny anything. He said only that he planned to fly to Washington and meet Trump at the White House on Monday, November 9. Asked how he would manage the press secretary job alongside his existing roles running the UFC, he sounded taken aback. “Yeah, I got a lot of jobs already,” he said, adding that he would have more to say after the meeting.
Earlier on Saturday, White had posted a photo on his Instagram story showing himself standing behind the press secretary’s lectern at the White House, with the caption: “On to the next chapter.” It was not clear whether the post was a response to Trump’s offer, a joke, or something else entirely. He has not said publicly whether he would take the position.
Was Trump Joking?
That question has followed the story from the start. One White House aide told CNN that Trump was joking about the offer, a reminder that the president often floats eye-catching ideas on social media that never become formal decisions. The post came days after Democrats defeated Republicans in the midterm elections and won control of Congress, a result that has put the administration under fresh pressure.
But not everyone in the White House treated it as a joke. White House communications director Steven Cheung reposted the president’s message on X, adding: “Hell yeah! Do it, @DanaWhite!” The public cheer from Trump’s own communications chief made it harder to dismiss the offer as a throwaway line, even as aides privately played it down.
The confusion is part of a pattern. Trump and White are longtime friends and political allies — White has spoken at Republican conventions and hosted UFC events at the White House — so the idea of the UFC boss running the briefing room was never as random as it sounded. The press secretary’s job does not need Senate approval, so a yes from White would have been all it took for him to start.
A Vacancy That Keeps Growing
Whoever takes the job will inherit a podium that has been unusually unstable. The press secretary position has been vacant since Karoline Leavitt left the role at the end of August, and her successor, Katie Zacharia, lasted just five days in the job before departing in mid-October. That has left the White House without a permanent spokesperson for weeks, at a moment when the administration is facing tough questions from reporters every day.
The timing makes the vacancy harder to ignore. Trump has been reshaping his senior team — he also named Stephen Miller as White House chief of staff this week — and the communications operation sits at the centre of that rebuild. Read more about that move here: Trump named Stephen Miller as White House chief of staff.
What Happens Next
White is due in Washington on Monday to meet Trump face to face. That meeting may settle whether the offer was real, whether it is still open, and whether the UFC chief is willing to trade the octagon for the briefing room. For now, the official position is unchanged: the offer was made, a source says it was declined, and the search for a press secretary goes on.
If the CNN report is right, the offer is already dead. But with this White House, the story is rarely finished until the president says so — and on Monday, he will have White in the room to ask him directly. The full original report on the offer and the refusal is at CNN: https://www.cnn.com/2026/11/07/politics/dana-white-trump-press-secretary