First Bring Cage Fighters Into the White House, Then Claim It Was All Just a Little Joke: Trump's Unbelievable Excuse After the Violent Video

On Saturday, Donald Trump publicly offered his friend Dana White the job of White House press secretary. On Sunday, he claimed he had only been kidding. Between those two statements came an animated video showing journalists getting beaten up inside the White House. The president posted it himself. His idea of humor mostly involved fists aimed at reporters. In Florida, shortly before flying back to Washington, Trump acted as though everyone had simply misunderstood an innocent joke.

"I was kidding, but I think Dana likes the idea, and he is a very capable guy," Trump told reporters on November 8. It had been "just a little fun," he said. That explanation came only after he had announced the supposed appointment on his own account, setting off a public debate. Within a single day, a presidential announcement had turned into an alleged bit of amusement. Quite a remarkable idea of reliability from a man whose words have political consequences around the world.

Before his flight back to Washington, Trump was questioned about the Dana White situation. The president now claimed that his publicly announced offer had merely been a little joke.

Asked by a female reporter why he had suggested Dana White in particular and whether he was serious or just kidding around, Trump first pointed to the fighters he had included in his announcement. He said he had posted pictures of the greatest wrestlers and UFC fighters in the world, including Khabib Nurmagomedov and Justin Gaethje, whom he called phenomenal. There were plenty of rough faces in those pictures. People should have realized he was having a good time. "I will tell you I was only kidding, but Dana loves the idea," Trump said. White was great, and people wouldn't mess around with him so much. Some of the fighters came from "parts unknown" and some from "very rough areas," he continued. That, he insisted, should have made it obvious that the announcement was a joke. White really was coming to see him on Monday, but for other reasons. He believed his friend had been planning to come to Washington anyway and would stop by to see him. "That was an example of something where I was kidding. And then people said, that's actually a pretty good idea." The president thus portrayed his own public announcement as a joke whose punch line everyone else was apparently supposed to figure out for themselves.

Saturday's wording deserves another look. Trump announced that he was pleased to have offered the job to the "Great Dana White," describing the UFC boss as a "violent Fighter and Warrior." He also presented six fighters who could assist White. Islam Makhachev and Khabib Nurmagomedov were among them. So were Justin Gaethje and Daniel Cormier. Amanda Nunes and Kayla Harrison rounded out the group, although Trump misspelled some of their names. The team was supposedly needed to defend the White House against the "Lunatic Left." At the end, he explicitly urged White to accept the position.

A president describes a government job, names a candidate, and publicly asks him to accept it. Then he declares the whole thing a joke. The White House has apparently become a place where political responsibility can be treated with all the seriousness of a barroom brawl. Anyone who takes the president at his word risks being made to look humorless the next morning. Trump reserves the right to decide afterward when an official announcement was supposed to be taken seriously.

White himself had behaved rather differently at a Saturday news conference in London than one would expect from a man immediately dismissing an obvious joke. Asked about the offer, he said he was flying to Washington and would meet with Trump on Monday. He would probably have more to say afterward. Asked about his numerous business commitments, he pointed out that he already had plenty on his plate. That was hardly an explicit acceptance of the position. But it wasn't a clear dismissal of the supposed joke either.

UFC chief Dana White confirmed to reporters that he was flying to Washington right after the event and had a meeting scheduled with Donald Trump on Monday. Asked how he could juggle the offered White House press secretary job with his many business commitments, White said he already had plenty on his plate. He declined to discuss any previous conversations with Trump about the position, pointing instead to their upcoming meeting. White did not explicitly accept or turn down the offer during the interview.

White also shared an AI-generated image showing himself behind the White House podium, captioned "On to the next chapter." That only fueled the speculation. Shortly afterward, his account was back to promoting upcoming UFC fights. Trump now claims White likes the idea. Whether the two had seriously discussed an appointment before Monday's meeting remains publicly unresolved.

The White House, meanwhile, has a staffing problem to solve. Karoline Leavitt left the press secretary job in August after the birth of her second child. Her successor, Katie Zacharia, lasted just five days in October. Following the Republicans' heavy midterm losses, which cost them control of both chambers of Congress, Trump also replaced his chief of staff, Susie Wiles, on Friday. He appointed Stephen Miller, the architect of his administration's hardline immigration policy, to take her place. While the administration undergoes a shake-up, its president turns his public search for a press secretary into a comedy.

Read also our article: Trump Brings Thugs Into the White House and Goes After the Election Winners, Echoes of 1933

And then there's the video. Trump shared the AI-generated beating scene in which White's animated character takes over the press briefing room with cage fighters and reporters get punched for asking questions. A publicly visible advertising connection leads from the video's producer to the cryptocurrency casino Rainbet. Our investigation examined Rainbet's connections to Adin Ross, a paid advertising partner from Trump's circle, as well as Ross's ties to far-right circles. Calling it all a joke afterward doesn't erase any of those facts.

This president's moral abyss has long since become bottomless. The fact that he now openly celebrates his own moral depravity speaks for itself.

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Read our investigation as well: Trump Has Journalists Beaten Up and Calls It Beautiful: The Far-Right Connections Behind the Violent Video

Trump retroactively declares his own announcement a joke. Before that, he had floated a man for press secretary whom he explicitly praised for being violent, and brought six cage fighters into the picture. He then shared a video showing journalists getting beaten up inside the White House. All of it bears the public signature of the president of the United States. And that raises a question Washington finally has to confront: What is the mental state of a president who publicly spreads fantasies of violence like these and then dismisses his own announcements as jokes? This man commands the American armed forces and controls the United States' nuclear arsenal. His decisions can affect millions of lives. The public has every right to critically question his behavior and his mental fitness. Trump can try to sell his words as a joke after the fact. He is still responsible for them. And the question of what goes through the mind of a president who considers beaten-up journalists beautiful entertainment only becomes more urgent with every laugh.

Inside the White House and among numerous Republicans, Trump's announcement and the violent video also sparked considerable displeasure, including fierce internal criticism. Particularly troubling was the prospect of putting a man behind the White House podium who had slapped his wife in the face on New Year's Eve 2022. There was also concern that journalists might consider legal action, arguing that Trump's announcement and the violent video he shared the following day could be viewed as intimidation and a threat to their work. While communications director Steven Cheung publicly welcomed the idea enthusiastically, considerable unease prevailed behind the scenes. The president had spread a violent fantasy targeting journalists, subsequently dismissed his own personnel announcement as a joke, and left his staff to deal with the fallout. Whether that much-touted joke was actually more of a desperate lie, we'll leave that question open.

Meanwhile, another almost grotesque story began circulating on X. A user calling himself "Allen Ivermectin," posting under @FanSince09, drew attention to a former Pentagon spokesperson named Dana W. White. During Trump's first term, she had served as a senior spokesperson for the Defense Department under Secretary of Defense James Mattis. The user floated the theory that someone had recommended her to Trump for the press secretary position, only for the president to mistakenly think they meant his friend from the world of professional fighting. The post reached millions of people. Other users embellished the theory until Susie Wiles was even named as the supposed source of that personnel recommendation. There is no solid evidence for this story. Trump's original post explicitly identified the UFC boss and named his fighters. The mix-up is an internet story whose popularity mainly shows just how much absurdity people have come to expect from political life in Washington.

And one final question carries far greater weight than filling the White House press secretary position. Trump can announce an appointment on Saturday and claim on Sunday that the whole thing was just a joke. When a president's public statements swing between fantasies of violence and explanations that he was only kidding, questioning his mental fitness can no longer be treated as something improper. This man has access to America's nuclear arsenal. An order to use nuclear weapons would not be a social media announcement that could be taken back the next morning. What would happen if Trump made a decision of that magnitude and then tried to explain that he had only been joking? The consequences of a nuclear strike could never be undone with laughter. A president is free to amuse himself with his own words. The people whose lives depend on his decisions don't have that luxury.