‘Please take the job!’ – Trump asks UFC boss Dana White to be White House press secretary

Famously combative, White has at times clashed with journalists covering the sport during news conferences.

In 2020, he released a video targeting reporters who had questioned the UFC’s decision to hold fights early in the pandemic.

In 2009, he released an expletive-laden video tirade using an anti-gay slur while rebutting a journalist’s story about changes to backstage credentialing rules at UFC events.

White is a longtime ally – and friend – of Trump.

When White and his business partners bought the then-struggling UFC organisation for $2m in 2001, the sport was facing intense bipartisan backlash.

Just five years earlier, Republican Senator John McCain had famously labelled mixed martial arts “human cockfighting”, sparking bans in 36 US states.

“None of the venues wanted [the UFC],” White told CBS, the BBC’s US partner, in 2025. “They didn’t believe in it. They didn’t like it, and they were worried about the type of crowd that would show up for this type of event.”

With mainstream arenas shutting them out, White credits Trump with saving the organisation by hosting two UFC events at the Trump Taj Mahal casino in Atlantic City, New Jersey, in 2001.

This summer, the UFC held a cage match on the White House lawn.

White became a speaker for Trump’s White House campaigns at the Republican National Conventions in 2016, 2020 and 2024.