US President Donald Trump has said he “was kidding” about asking Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) boss Dana White to be the White House press secretary.
Trump told the media on Sunday that White “loves the idea” but that the invitation was “just a little fun”.
It comes after the president posted on his Truth Social platform on Saturday that he had offered White the role, asking him to take it while writing, “Dana will be a Press Secretary like none other.”
White said later that day he was going to meet the president on Monday, but would not be drawn into whether or not he would take the vacant position.
On Sunday Trump told reporters White was visiting him on Monday for “other reasons”.
“I think he’s going to be in Washington. So he’s going to come over and see me.
“I will tell you, I was only kidding. But Dana loves the idea. And there’s only one Dana. He’s great,” the president said.
“But, it was it was just a little fun.”
The press secretary role is yet to be filled after it became vacant in October when Katie Zacharia quit after less than five days in the job.
She took over from Karoline Leavitt, who was the youngest press secretary in US history and had held the role since Trump began his second term.
Trump’s job offer came after a heavy loss in the midterm elections, where the Republican Party lost its majority in both houses of Congress.
In his Truth Social post on Saturday, he said he was “pleased to announce” that White “has been offered the job”.
He said he had asked White to bring with him several current and former mixed martial arts fighters as “assistants”.
“We need these people to defend us against the Lunatic Left,” he wrote.
“Dana, please take the job!”
Asked about the Trump offer at a news conference on Saturday, the UFC chief executive said he had “lot of jobs already”.
“I’m sure we’ll have something to talk about after that,” he said of their planned Monday meeting, but did not say whether or not he would take the job.
White leads UFC, and PowerSlap , a regulated slap-fighting promotion league, as well as recently launching promotion company Zuffa Boxing.
He is also a board member of Meta, the owner of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.
White appeared as a speaker in support of Trump’s White House campaigns at the Republican National Conventions in 2016, 2020 and 2024.
He also appeared on stage for Trump’s victory speech in the 2024 presidential election.
This summer, the UFC staged a cage match on the White House lawn.