President Donald Trump held an impromptu press briefing with reporters at the White House on Monday, where he conceded that his announcement of UFC president Dana White as the next White House press secretary over the weekend was just “a little fun.”
Trump opened the press briefing by stating that the United States, likely, would not resume military operations in Iran, before inviting White up to the lectern in the Brady Briefing Room.
“I thought I’d bring Dana here because he loves the idea, and I love the idea,” the president stated. “The only thing is, we have other things we have to think about. But he’s a unique, unique person, and he was seeing me anyway, unrelated. And I thought maybe he would say a few words. And I think he probably liked the job. He loves the country, and he would do a hell of a job.”
White, in turn, told reporters that he has “zero political aspirations” and that he was in London when Trump called him and told him “that he had done this.”
“The last 24 hours of my life has been insane,” he laughed, later claiming that he originally didn’t publicly reject the offer because he “didn’t want to be disrespectful and say anything until [Trump] said something first.”
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“We were having a very bad press day, and I said — I don’t know why I thought of his name. He’s been my friend for a long time,” Trump added. “I said, ‘You know I think I’m going to get Dana White to be my new press secretary.’ I sent it to a group of the press, and that was it. I was, sort of, kidding, 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. We thought to have a little fun, and we brought Dana here.”