Yahoo reported Thursday night that Dana White declined an invitation from President Donald Trump to become White House press secretary. The wrinkle is that White’s own words don’t back up the idea of a rejection. A reporter asked the UFC CEO directly whether he’d told the president no, and White answered, “I don’t tell the president no to anything. No, I didn’t say no.” He said every media outlet in the country was calling him and he didn’t want to be disrespectful by saying anything before Trump did.
Trump then told the room how the whole thing started. “We were having a very bad press day and I said, I don’t know why, I thought of his name,” he said, calling White a longtime friend. He said he sent the idea to a group of reporters, and that was it. “I’m sort of kidding,” Trump added. “And then they wrote the story as though I wasn’t kidding, and you were inundated, and I was inundated, and he was here anyway.”
So the offer White supposedly passed on was, by the president’s own telling, a bit that got loose. The clip was posted on X by the account @RedWavePress, and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis quote-posted it earlier in the week. DeSantis acknowledged that “the press secretary thing was tongue in cheek,” then gave White a full endorsement anyway. He pointed to the UFC running a show in Jacksonville six weeks after “15 days to slow the spread” during COVID and argued that the event helped push other leagues to come back. He wrote that “nobody handled media better at that time.”
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Meanwhile, Back at the Day Job
White’s actual press duties this week involved far less spin and far more cursing. At a press conference Thursday he was asked about the brawl involving Usman Nurmagomedov and Merab Dvalishvili, and he didn’t dress it up. “It’s absolutely ridiculous and stupid. They’re all in jail. That is not a place to go f*ck around,” he said.
Ariel Helwani confirmed on X that White had it right, and that everyone involved is still locked up, including the people who were attacked. Helwani added that Nurmagomedov’s manager has publicly apologized to the entire country of the UAE, which tells you how serious this is.
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White also got a laugh out of the UFC 334 presser, where Caio Borralho and Yousri Belgaroui went at it during their face-off. Belgaroui said, “When I bite, I bite to kill.” Borralho shot back, “Oh yeah? Bite my dick.” White’s verdict, per Championship Rounds: “That was actually f*cking good.”
Tommy’s Take
I’m a little heartbroken this was a joke, because Dana White at the White House podium would have been the best television in Washington since forever. Picture a reporter asking a follow-up and getting a “That is not a place to go f*ck around” in front of the presidential seal. But look at his week. He’s handling a jailhouse brawl in the UAE, he’s playing hype man for Borralho and Belgaroui, and he’s still the guy who answers every question at every presser. He already has the hardest press secretary job in sports. And the man who supposedly said no to the president just told everyone, on camera, that he doesn’t say no to the president.
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