Donald Trump’s remarkable decision to offer the role of Press Secretary to Dana White came as a surprise to most, but perhaps not to those who know the UFC president best.Back in June on the South Lawn of the White House, their close relationship was laid bare for the world to see, with Trump inviting his close friend to host his UFC Freedom 250 event in the heart of Washington DC.Their relationship, though, stretches far further back – more than two decades, in fact – to November 2000 and the Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City. Back then, neither man was quite what they are today. Inside the now-president’s gaudy hotel, five thousand fans gathered to watch a sport that 36 different states had banned, dismissed by senators as ‘human cockfighting’ and shunned by every major arena in the country.UFC 28 was the promotion’s first sanctioned event, held at the Taj Mahal – a hotel and casino owned by Donald Trump. White attended that night not as a UFC official, but as the manager of fighter John Lewis. He was accompanied by Lorenzo Fertitta and Frank Fertitta III, brothers who were Las Vegas casino owners and trained in jiu-jitsu under Lewis. In the crowd that evening, the three men looked at what was in front of them and saw a promising future. Dana White and Donald Trump have built an unlikely friendship over nearly three decades Trump made the remarkable decision on Saturday to offer White the role of Press Secretary The UFC hosted ‘UFC Freedom 250’ on the White House’s South Lawn back in July of this yearTwo months later, Zuffa LLC purchased the UFC for $2 million and named White its president. Almost immediately, he needed somewhere to fight and, after struggling to secure venues, Zuffa reached an agreement with Trump to use the Taj Mahal.Trump himself has never been modest about what that meant. ‘They couldn’t get a venue because of the danger, you know,’ he once said. ‘People thought it was dangerous… and I gave them venues early on.’Lavie Margolin, author of Ultimate Fighters: Donald Trump, Dana White and UFC’s Road to the White House, has spent years unpicking exactly what happened in those early days – and the myths that have grown around them. The story White has told, of Trump personally calling to rescue the UFC and striking a deal that saved the promotion, doesn’t quite hold up to scrutiny. The venue was already booked when White took over and the footage from those Atlantic City shows? Trump’s nowhere to be seen.’Dana White has said many times that Donald Trump came for the first fight and stayed till the last fight,’ Margolin revealed. ‘But if you watch UFC 28, 30, 31 – you can’t find a picture with him. You don’t see him on screen at all. ‘What I think Dana meant to say was that for UFC 32 at the Continental Airlines Arena, he attended, stayed for every fight and things were off and running from there.’For the first time, at that June 2001 event at the 20,000-seat Continental Airlines Arena, the broadcast showed Trump cageside. The myth had found its truth. A real estate mogul who’d made his name hosting WrestleManias and Mike Tyson fights was lending his presence to a sport that still desperately needed it. Trump played a pivotal role in the UFC’s development during the organization’s early years ‘People thought it was dangerous… and I gave them venues early on,’ Trump once explained Trump, pictured at a UFC event in April, was first seen cageside at UFC 32 back in June 2001White later told ESPN: ‘He is one of my very good friends’ – one of just ten people in his innermost circle. But the roots of that friendship, Margolin suggests, run deeper than business.’Dana White’s mother wrote a book on Amazon,’ Margolin told me. ‘The whole book is basically saying what a terrible person her son is. He comes from trouble. ‘Donald Trump is 23 years older than him. He’s a very strong authority figure. You could clearly draw the parallel. It’s kind of more than a friend, it’s kind of a father figure.’For years after those Atlantic City shows, the relationship went quiet. But it never went cold. Around 2012 and 2013, as Ronda Rousey was breaking through as a mainstream star, Trump would cut her UFC profiles out of the New York Times.’Like an older person tends to do,’ Margolin added, Trump would mail them to White with handwritten congratulations, in a means to keep the friendship going.’Then came the politics. When Trump ran for president in 2016, White was one of the loudest voices in his corner, speaking at the Republican National Convention. That moment, Margolin argues, transformed what had been a sporting relationship into something far larger.Key to that transformation was a UFC staffer named Stephen Cheung. ‘He came on board around Trump’s first candidacy,’ Margolin explained. ‘He understands how to harness people, how to portray Trump in the right light rather than through mainstream media.’ It was Cheung, Margolin believes, who helped engineer Trump’s appearances at UFC events, his fluency with fighter names and storylines, and ultimately his route to podcasters, the manosphere, and Joe Rogan – whose endorsement of Trump became one of the defining cultural moments of the 2024 election cycle. When Trump ran for president in 2016, White was one of the loudest voices in his corner Trump and White pictured back in 2020 ahead of a ‘Keep America Great’ rally in Colorado Trump has become a regular fixture cageside, pictured here with Kid Rock and Elon Musk’When he endorsed him,’ Margolin said of Rogan, ‘that was a really strong thing. And later you’d see the liberal media being very negative on it: “You’re not going to get disaffected young men to go out and vote.” And then they were like, “Who are our influencers going to be? We’re going to have to learn from this.”‘The UFC’s fanbase – diverse and often oversimplified – had become a genuine political asset. And after January 6, 2021, when corporations and celebrities distanced themselves from Trump en masse, White stood firm. He didn’t scrub Trump from the promotional material and keep his head down. He walked Trump into arenas. He made him visible at a moment when visibility was a statement.Trump’s incredible decision to offer White the role of Press Secretary, replacing deer-in-the-headlights Katie Zacharia, also included a role for various fighters, including two Russians – Islam Makhachev and Khabib Nurmagomedov – and UFC legend Justin Gaethje.Gaethje was the headline fighter on the bill at the Freedom 250 UFC event at the White House this year, and has previously been extremely outspoken about where he stands. ‘I can’t explain to people how big of a fan [Trump] is of this sport,’ Gaethje told the Daily Mail. ‘He only wants to talk about fighting – and he’s normal! When it comes to fighting, he was pivotal in our start. Nobody would let us fight and he went against the mainstream. I love winners and he’s a f***ing winner.’Bo Nickal, who fought on the undercard, has a relationship with Trump that goes back further than most on the card. ‘First time meeting Trump was in 2019,’ he said. ‘I won an NCAA championship and we all got invited to the White House. He really gravitated towards the wrestlers, which was so cool. I got to talk with him for a bit and I told him I was going to fight – he actually asked to be my manager.’The story doesn’t end there. Fast forward to one of Nickal’s early UFC fights. ‘He was in the crowd, I saw him, gave him a nod, won the fight – and then he said, “Let’s go golf!” I’m not much of a golfer so I didn’t know what to expect. Justin Gaethje (second right) was among the UFC fighters also offered a role by the president Lightweight star Ilia Topuria stands alongside Trump ahead of the UFC Freedom 250 event’But it was unbelievable. The coolest part is that we were able to just talk and chat very normally. He’s very humble and very real – I appreciate that.’The White House event in July – held on the weekend of Trump’s 80th birthday – did not come without controversy. A federal lawsuit, filed just days before, called it a ‘volcano of corruption’ – the first private, for-profit sporting event ever held on White House grounds. A federal judge rejected the motion to block it, noting that the UFC had invested $60 million in the event and that the plaintiffs had waited until two weeks after visible construction began to seek emergency relief.Whatever its flaws, the sheer fact of UFC Freedom 250 was extraordinary. A sport that was once described in the US Senate as a form of legalized brutality, that couldn’t rent a ballroom in 36 states, that needed the hospitality of a failing Atlantic City casino just to survive – that sport went on to fight on the most famous lawn in the world. On the president’s birthday. As part of America’s 250th anniversary celebrations. The UFC hosted their UFC Freedom 250 press conference at the Lincoln Memorial The event took place on Trump’s 80th birthday and in his own backyard on the South Lawn’On its face, it’s kind of amazing,’ Margolin reflected. ‘If you look back at the early UFCs and even the darker days once they got kicked off TV, it was so low-rent. ‘Just the terms the media would use to describe them – “low IQ parents,” the lowest of the low. And the fact that we’re here is incredible.’From the Taj Mahal to the South Lawn, and now potentially to the Oval Office. Trump’s relationship with White has taken a series of remarkable twists and turns over the past 25 years.Whether he accepts the role – or whether the offer is even genuine – remains to be seen, but if White does step up to the podium, it’s fair to say he’ll last longer than Zacharia, and holds plenty more trust from the president.