Donald Trump said on Sunday that he “was only kidding” when he announced a day earlier that he had offered the job of White House press secretary to Dana White, the chief executive of the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC).

Speaking to reporters on his way back the White House from his beach club in Florida, Trump explained the premise of his joke, that if the UFC boss, who is a devoted fan of the president, took over the briefing room, flanked by six fighters, reporters “wouldn’t mess around with him so much”.

“So I was kidding, but I think Dana likes the idea, and he is a very capable guy,” Trump added. “Of course, I was kidding. And you could see that because I put all of the great fighters as his assistants, that they’re all going to come with him … It was just a little fun.”

Earlier on Sunday, the president shared an animated AI cartoon made by one of his supporters on social media, which showed UFC fighters beating up journalists and one, Josh Hokit, repeating the racist remark about Michelle Obama he made during the UFC event at the White House on Trump’s birthday in June.

The president said that his mock announcement that White would become his spokesperson, in a social media post on Saturday, “was an example of something where I was kidding, and then people said, ‘You know, that’s actually a pretty good idea’”.

He did not say who, exactly, supported the idea.

The first in a series of taxpayer-funded pro-Trump ads broadcast by the White House in the run-up to the recent midterms closed with images of the UFC fight on Trump’s birthday and remarks about him from White, who could be heard saying: “He is the toughest, most resilient human being I have ever met in my life.” White used that formulation to describe Trump multiple times during the 2024 presidential election campaign, most notably to sing Trump’s praises at the Republican national convention.

The role of White House press secretary has been vacant for three weeks, since Trump’s previous pick, the far-right commentator Katie Zacharia, was forced to resign after trying, and failing, to dodge questions about why she described herself as an attorney despite having failed the bar exam.