If you thought President Trump would construe his party’s midterm demolition as a demand that he change course away from the unsettling zaniness of the last two years (about which I wrote the weekender), fuggedaboudit. Obviously, the controversial Stephen Miller’s elevation to the position of White House chief of staff, replacing Susie Wiles, has been the biggest shake-up news (see our Eva Terry’s report). But it’s not the only such news.
I’ll address the ongoing flight from the Trump Justice Department separately. Saturday saw president offer the administration’s second-most-visible position, that of White House press secretary, to his pal Dana White, the mixed martial arts magnate who runs the Ultimate Fighting Championship. UFC put on the bread-and-circuses spectacle on the White House lawn this summer. The bizarre story has the Twilight Zone theme ringing in the country’s ears.
Adam Cochran, an academic and independent journalist, reported on X that a woman named Dana W. White, who ran public affairs for the secretary of defense and has a solid background in strategic communications — in politics, the private sector, and the think tank world — was on a short list of candidates to recommend to the president for the post of White House press secretary. Without knowing anything more about her background, she certainly seems highly qualified for the job.
Yet the next thing you know, the president was announcing that he’d asked his friend Dana White, the UFC entrepreneur said to be worth $600 million, to take the gig. Initially, word was that White had turned down the offer, but now he says he’ll meet with Trump in Washington on Monday.
There has been no confirmation that, somewhere along the line, the president got a couple of Dana Whites confused. If so, it’s too bad, because it appears Dana W. White might have been great at the job. She put out this statement on LinkedIn:
To everyone texting me congratulations: thank you, but you have the wrong Dana White.
I’ve stood at the podium and taken questions from the Pentagon press corps. I have never stood in an octagon. I’d like to keep it that way.
It’s nice for once that, that Dana White is being confused with this Dana White.
Best of luck to the next White House Press Secretary.