Donald Trump and Dana White are meeting Monday, but whether or not the UFC boss will become the next White House press secretary is not seriously on the agenda.
A day after the former Apprentice host offered the “Great Dana White, a violent Fighter and Warrior” the still vacant mouthpiece position via social media, Trump admitted today he was “only kidding.”
Really? Only in America right now would anyone have even taken the bait a bit seriously — which is just sad
Talking to reporters on the tarmac in DC after returning from a weekend in Florida, Trump said “Dana loves the idea. There’s only one Dana. You wouldn’t mess around with him so much.”
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“So, I was kidding, of course,” a white ball cap wearing POTUS added. “I was kidding, but I think Dana likes the idea and he’s a very capable guy,” Trump laughed, having pulled focus on friend, foe and the media again. with another distraction.
Over in the UK this weekend, White humored his old pal and sometimes patron’s public job offer. “I’ve got a lot of jobs already,” White quipped. Doubling down, White later in the day on November 7 posted a pic of himself behind the WH press room with the text: “On to the next chapter.”
Later on Saturday, CNN reported that White declined the never real gig that fueled a never real story — a speciality of hype masters Trump and White. This morning, Trump put up a Family Guy AI-created cartoon of White as WH Press Secretary where the multi-millionaire sports mogul set his fighters on reporters if he didn’t like their questions.
Resurrecting UFC winner Josh Hokit’s racist ““Michelle Obama is a man, am I right America?” comment from the June 14 UFC Freedom 250 match, the cartoon ends with Trump entering the destroyed and burning press room to see how it all went. “Fiery…but mostly peaceful,” cartoon Dana tells a soda sipping Trump in the fake clip
What is real is White is sitting down with Trump at the White House. The Executive Mansion was the location for the much derided UFC Freedom 250 dust-up on Trump’s 80th birthday.
“So he’s actually coming tomorrow,” Trump confirmed for the White House pool Sunday.
Looking for a permanent press secretary since now Fox News host Karoline Leavitt left in August and her replacement Katie Zacharia only lasted five days, Trump has pulled the media’s strings with announcements that MAGA rapper Nikki Minaj could get the job too.
In more serious terms, November 6 saw White House chief of staff Suzie Wiles get the ax after the GOP’s midterm elections drowning under the Democrats’ so-called blue tsunami. The Democrats now control both the Senate and the House of Representatives will solid anti-MAGA majorities as well as governorships in several once deep red states like Texas, Georgia and Ohio. After a couple of days of relative calm, Trump fired Wiles and replaced her with Stephen Miller. The now former WH Deputy chief of staff is widely viewed as an ideological extremist who was the mastermind behind the cruelest Trump 2.0 polices like ICE abductions, killings and unlawful deportations.
As well as dangling the press sec job in front of White (who could actually be good at it in relative terms with his media savvy and longtime closeness to Trump), POTUS in his Saturday post made his mockery pretty obvious with who else he wanted working for him. “I have requested that he bring with him assistants, even though some are not from our Country, of Islam Makhachev, Khabib Nurmagomedov, Justin Gaethje, Daniel Cormier, Amanda Nunes, and Kayla Harris,” Trump wrote listing some of the top UFC fighters. “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!”
Today, breaking the magician’s code of never revealing how the trick works, Trump launched into an explanation of what really went down with his White post. “Of course I was kidding, and you could see that, because I put all the great fighters as his assistants—that they’re all going to come with him,” he said with a straight face. “But it was all just a little fun. But he’s actually coming tomorrow. Actually, for another reasons, I think he’s going to be in Washington, so he’s going to come and see me.”
Never one not to take credit for what he thinks is a good move, and, at the same time, make sure others get blamed for the fallout, Trump concluded: “That was an example of something where I was kidding and people said, ‘That’s a pretty good idea.’”
As usual, Trump didn’t provide any names. The White punking never came up in Trump’s softball 60 Minutes interview tonight, as the CBS newsmag filmed the chat a few days ago.