President Donald Trump said Sunday that he was only joking about offering Dana White, president of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, the role of White House press secretary.

“I will tell you, I was only kidding,” Trump told reporters in Florida before heading back to Washington, adding that “Dana loves the idea.”

The president and White, his longtime friend, are scheduled to meet at the White House on Monday.

In a social media post like none other on Saturday, Trump said, “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.”

It was unclear at the time if Trump’s surreal announcement was in earnest. It was met by an equally uncanny response, however, with the longtime Trump ally posting what appeared to be an AI-generated image of himself in front of the briefing podium on his Instagram story that read, “On to the next chapter.”

In a second story, White shared a screenshot of the president’s Truth Social post offering him the job.

White told reporters after a Zuffa Boxing event in London late Saturday that he was flying to Washington for a meeting with Trump on Monday. When asked about the White House job offer, he said, “Yeah, I got a lot of jobs already.”

Trump said he asked White to bring on several mixed martial artists as assistants — two of whom are Russian nationals — and added, “We need these people to defend us against the Lunatic Left.” Trump then implored White to “please take the job!”

The announcement seemed so far-fetched, even for Trump, that it was met with a heavy dose of disbelief and skepticism. If the job offer was a prank, the White House wasn’t letting on.

White, a multimillionaire who has been a vocal supporter of the president, does not appear to have any professional experience that would qualify him for the role as the White House’s chief public communicator. The job is often thought to be one of the hardest in politics.

White would have to leave the UFC — where his reported annual salary is $20 million — to become a federal employee. His past actions would receive renewed criticism as well. White’s first-of-its-kind UFC Freedom 250 event at the White House in June to mark Trump’s 80th birthday came under intense ethics scrutiny, costing an estimated $60 million.

The White House has not publicly confirmed that White was offered or would assume the position.

Adam Kinzinger, a former Republican member of Congress and frequent critic of the president, called the Trump White House a “joke.” Melat Kiros, a Colorado Democrat who handily won her House race on Tuesday night, said it “demonstrates how deeply unserious this man is.”

Since his party’s drubbing in the midterm elections this week, Trump has refused to take responsibility for the losses and tried to turn the public’s attention to his ballroom construction instead.

But his impending lame-duck phase has appeared to weigh on him heavily. Trump has been lashing out not just at Democrats and the media, but at Republicans and even his own aides as he looks for scapegoats to blame. He replaced his chief of staff, Susie Wiles, with immigration hardliner Stephen Miller on Friday.

Trump also wrote a series of posts on Truth Social on Saturday ordering the Justice Department to investigate Democrats for “threatening” Republican officials and donors with impeachment, imprisonment, and “many other levels of punishment.” He called it “Weaponization and Lawfare” and said without evidence that Democrats’ actions amounted to a possible “criminal act.”

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