President Donald Trump’s head-spinning decision to publicly offer the White House Press Secretary job to one of his vocal business allies prompted much speculation about his decision-making, and after some digging, observers now believe a laughable name mix-up is behind the situation.
On Saturday afternoon, Trump took to Truth Social to offer the vacant press secretary gig to Dana White, CEO of the Ultimate Fighting Championship MMA promotion and one of his longtime vocal supporters. Trump also appeared to invite White to bring on several notable MMA competitors with him as “assistants.”
“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,” Trump’s post stated. “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. 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!”
Based on the phrasing of the post, it appears that White has not officially accepted the position yet, if he was even aware of the offer beforehand. White has no experience in politics or public service, with his only applicable background for the role being the many media scrums he has taken part in as head of the UFC.
While trying to make sense of the insane logic behind offering White the job, users on BlueSky stumbled upon the bio page for a woman named “Dana W. White” on the Department of Defense’s official website, and noted her background seemed much more applicable to the White House Press Secretary job than the UFC CEO.
“Dana W. White served as the Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs,” her official bio explains. “In this role, she was the principal staff assistant and advisor to the Secretary and Deputy Secretary of Defense for communications, news media relations, public outreach, engagement, public affairs and visual information. Ms. White served as the Pentagon Chief Spokesperson for both the Department of Defense and Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis. As the communications policy lead for Department of Defense, she provided departmental guidance to the U.S. Armed Services and Combatant Command Chiefs of Public Affairs as well as more than 4,500 public affairs personnel worldwide. Ms. White directly oversaw the Defense Media Activity, an organization of approximately 2,000 personnel which provides a wide variety of multi-media information products to more than one million U.S service members, civilian employees, and their families.”
Sharing a link to her page, a BlueSky user theorized that Trump might have been told about Dana W. White as a potential successor to Katie Zacharia, misunderstood the suggestion and run with the idea of his ally taking over the role.
“Oh my god. That is EXACTLY what happened,” user Dave Lack posted. “Someone suggested a Heritage Foundation and Fox contributor and he mixed them up. Or he was given the name of the qualified Dana White, heard the name and thought, ‘I have a better idea,’ and the rest is history.”
Several users also noted the amusing similarity to the “Four Seasons Total Landscaping” debacle of 2020, in which Rudy Giuliani held a press conference at a small landscaping business after trying to book a space at the luxury hotel with the same name. That incident took place on November 7, 2020, six years to date prior to Trump’s Dana White announcement.