President Donald Trump generated waves over the weekend with his apparently tongue-in-cheek announcement on Saturday that “the Great Dana White, a violent Fighter and Warrior, has been offered the job of Press Secretary of the United States.”

The White House press secretary role has been vacant since Katie Zacharia’s five-day trial run concluded on Oct. 16.

‘I was kidding, of course.’

The president suggested further that he had asked the Ultimate Fighting Championship CEO to bring with him a cadre of mixed martial arts fighters, including Russia’s Khabib Nurmagomedov and Brazilian native Amanda Nunes, noting that “we need these people to defend us against the Lunatic Left.”

“Dana will be a Press Secretary like none other,” added the president.

Shortly after Trump’s announcement, Dana White shared to Instagram an AI-generated image depicting himself behind the podium at the White House briefing room with the caption, “On to the next chapter,” reported CBS Sports.

When asked about the supposed offer at a boxing event later on Saturday, the UFC CEO laughed and told reporters, “I’m flying to Washington, D.C., right now. … Right now.”

RELATED: Stephen Miller has the keys. Now what about the deportations?

White House

White, who said that he had a meeting scheduled with President Trump on Monday, added, “I’ve got a lot of jobs already.”

There was some speculation that Trump may have mixed up UFC’s Dana White with Dana W. White, the former assistant to the secretary of war for public affairs.

However, Dana W. White said in a post on her LinkedIn, “To everyone texting me congratulations: thank you, but you have the wrong Dana White. I’ve stood at a 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 is nice for once that, that Dana White is being confused with this Dana White,” she continued. “Best of luck to the next White House Press Secretary!”

UFC CEO Dana White responded to W. White’s post on Instagram, writing, “You are a class act.”

On Sunday, President Trump addressed the question of whether he had been kidding, pointing out that his announcement contained big clues that it was all in jest — namely his request that White bring with him several foreign champion fighters.

“If you saw the assistants I put — I posted the greatest wrestlers and UFC fighters in the world, right? Like Khabib, like Justin Gaethje who’s phenomenal. And you see a lot of rough faces there,” said Trump. “And you would have thought that people would have said, ‘He’s having a good time.'”

“I will tell you, I was only kidding, but Dana loves the idea,” continued the president. “And there’s only one Dana. He’s great, I don’t know. You wouldn’t mess around with him so much. … I was kidding, of course.”

Trump appeared to confirm a meeting on Monday with White, noting that the UFC CEO was “coming tomorrow.”

Blaze News did not immediately receive a response from the White House.

Chatter about Dana White possibly taking the position of White House press secretary comes just weeks after White House communications director Steven Cheung teased Trinidadian native Nicky Minaj as a contender.

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​White house press secretary, Donald trump, Katie zacharia, Khabib nurmagomedov, Ultimate fighting championship, White house, Dana white, Nicki minaj, Politics 

Everything is connected to the internet these days. Devices that you wouldn’t expect to have a Wi-Fi signal latch onto your router to provide connected features. Unfortunately, as AI pokes holes in our legacy cybersecurity infrastructure, these devices are now vulnerable to attacks. Here’s what to look for and what you can do about it.

Smart devices come in all shapes and sizes. Every day, you reach for your phone, tablet, laptop, maybe a wearable. But what about the other gadgets strewn throughout your house? There’s an entire category of smart home devices — dubbed broadly as the internet of things — that connect to your Wi-Fi, giving rogue AI bots and threat actors a direct route to the systems that run your humble abode.

Even if only one or two of these smart devices are connected to your home network, you could be providing hackers with a pathway to access all of your devices and take down your digital life.

The worst part is that many IOT devices aren’t safe and secure by design. With a few exceptions, most of them lack account authentication or encryption, and their software isn’t maintained for maximum security. These devices are sitting ducks, waiting for even the most inept hacker to come along and exploit them.

Once inside, a hacker could cause all kinds of trouble in your home. He could spy on you through the security camera in your living room, eavesdrop on conversations through microphones embedded in smart thermostats, or, as Europe recently found out, spoil the food in your fridge with an unauthorized temperature change. Even worse, hackers can use one IOT device to hack into other devices and compromise your entire Wi-Fi network.

The internet of things is a huge market spanning tons of different products. We couldn’t possibly list all of them, but we rounded up some of the biggest ones to look for in your home.

Kitchen appliances

Smart kitchen appliances are all largely built around convenience.

Smart fridges, like those made by Samsung, use AI to track which items come in and out of your fridge to help you put together meal plans and know when to replenish your food stock.

Smart ovens, like the June Oven, use an internal camera to scan the food put inside to generate an optimal cooking plan, complete with timing, temperatures, and more.

Virtually every appliance these days offers smart options — toasters with touch screens, dishwashers with voice assistant support to start and stop a cleaning cycle, smart washers and dryers that do the same. There are even coffee makers that can schedule your morning cup of brew.

All of these are convenient, yet a single compromise can cause a fire, invite water damage, or spoil your food, all of which would take thousands of dollars to fix.

RELATED: How to protect yourself and your data during the PHP web meltdown

amgun/Getty Images

Home security

Another huge segment of the IOT industry is home security. We like to think that security devices — including indoor cameras, doorbell cameras, and smart locks — are all safe, but these can provide a treasure trove of data and opportunities for hackers.

Indoor cameras from companies like Ring, Nest, and more capture everything that happens in your home. All it takes is a sophisticated hacker to break in and steal private footage of you and your living room, bedroom, or wherever you have a camera set up. If any of the footage is compromising, you could be made a victim of blackmail or extortion.

Smart locks, on the other hand, are the gateway to your home. Hackers could easily unlock your front door so that anyone can come inside — or lock your home to keep you trapped within. Pair this with a fire hazard caused by a hack on your oven or toaster, and you could ultimately lose your life in a tragic incident.

Lighting, cleaning, climate, and comfort

How much do you value the convenience of changing the temperature in your house from your smartphone, or flipping on a light without getting up, or cleaning the floors without touching a vacuum?

Modern innovations like smart thermostats, smart lights, and robot vacuums remove the hassle of maintaining a home, freeing you up to do other things with your time. Unfortunately, if any of these systems are compromised, they could cause some serious trouble.

For instance, a hacked thermostat could lock your temperature at an uncomfortable setting, either so hot or so cold that it drives you out of your home, leaving it vacant and unprotected. A hacked smart light can prevent bulbs from turning on or cause them to flicker. Many robot vacuums today come equipped with cameras and microphones that can record video and audio of you in your home.

Even seemingly innocuous smart devices, like air purifiers, toothbrushes, and smart weight scales, can all provide pathways to hack other devices on your network.

Smart accessories

There are other smart items in your home that you could easily forget are smart at all — electrical plugs, phone chargers, Bluetooth speakers, home hubs, and displays. All of these are susceptible to attacks.

How to tell if you have smart devices in your home

At this point, you might wonder how many smart devices you actually have in your house. If it’s been a while since you set them up, you may not remember which appliances have connected features and which ones don’t.

Luckily, there are a couple of telltale signs to look for.

First, if you regularly use any of your home appliances or accessories through an app on your phone, those devices are likely connected to your Wi-Fi. Even if the devices only provide limited functionality, they’re still part of your system, and you should treat them as potential vulnerabilities.

Second, the companion app to your Wi-Fi router can show a list of all the devices connected to your network. If you know how to view this list, you can quickly identify your IOT devices and even block them from network access.

Finally, if you’re still not sure which devices are connected to your Wi-Fi, you can take the nuclear option by changing the password to your Wi-Fi router. This will kick all of your devices off of your network, and the only way to reconnect them is to set up the devices with the new password.

RELATED: Another major AI attack hits the internet — this time targeting the backbone of American capitalism

Black_Kira/Getty Images

What you can do

Even if only one or two of the smart devices above are connected to your home network, you could be providing hackers with a pathway to access all of your devices and take down your digital life. Take steps now to make sure that doesn’t happen.

First and foremost, when you choose an IOT device and connect it to your network, make sure you only buy products from established, trusted companies that take security seriously. These include the Big Tech giants like Apple, Google, and Amazon.

Second, update your IOT devices often to make sure they have the latest security patches in place. Consider setting a monthly reminder to check all of your IOT devices via their apps for new software.

Some Wi-Fi networks allow you to create a guest network aside from your main home network. If this is an option for you, it’s a good idea to set up IOT devices on the guest network to ensure that hackers can’t reach your main system during a device attack.

The settings that control your Wi-Fi network may be accessible to third parties on the web. Disable remote management now to ensure that only people inside your home can adjust your router’s settings.

Unplug any IOT devices that aren’t currently in use or that you rarely use. This way, they’re disconnected and offline most of the time so that hackers have less of an opportunity to break in.

Finally, if you’d prefer the nuclear option, the safest thing you can do to protect your home is to turn your IOT devices back into dumb devices. Disconnect them from your Wi-Fi network, forget the network entirely, and use them as simple gadgets. This way, hackers have fewer targets to access your Wi-Fi. Unfortunately, this may break the functionality of some of your IOT devices, but it’s better to be safe than sorry in the age of AI-compromised cybersecurity.

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​Cybersecurity, Cyberattack, Internet, Tech 

The left may not be as far gone as Blaze Media co-founder Glenn Beck previously believed, as it’s no longer just traditionally red states actively pushing back on some of the more insane proposals being offered to Americans this year.

“Idaho just defeated one of the most aggressive abortion laws ever,” Glenn explains.

“It was like, ‘You know what? If your son’s 43 and you’ve changed your mind, you could go ahead and kill him.’ I mean, it was a crazy law. They voted that down,” he continues.

And not only that, he says, but “voter ID laws have passed in [five] states: Alaska, Arkansas, Kansas, South Dakota, and West Virginia.”

Even Washington state is standing up to some of the crazier positions the left has previously held, including “forcing women’s nude spas to admit men.”

“They’re crazy. … But here’s good news — not as crazy as we thought,” Glenn says. “Isn’t that amazing?”

“If I said to you, ‘Yeah, they want men in women’s nude spas,’ you’d be like, ‘Of course, it’s Washington state.’ Even Washington state said, ‘Nah, we can’t go that far,’” he adds.

“There were several left-leaning states that passed bills to protect women’s sports,” Rikki Ratliff-Fellman chimes in.

“And what’s so fascinating about this is that this is one culture war issue where conservatives are winning over left minds,” she says.

“And it’s actually like the new social justice issue, if you will,” she continues. “I love that they have taken this once-divisive debate where the left was owning it and now they’re saying, ‘Actually no, you’re a freak, and there’s something wrong with you if you think a boy should be in the [girls’] locker room.’”

Want more from Glenn Beck?

To enjoy more of Glenn’s masterful storytelling, thought-provoking analysis, and uncanny ability to make sense of the chaos, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

​Abortion laws, Blue states, Glenn beck, Voter id, Womens sports, Blazetv show 

Young Americans don’t need another lecture about how to live more cheaply. They need an economy capable of producing more of what they need. Electricity bills are climbing. Buying a first home can seem impossibly distant. Even young professionals with decent salaries delay moving out, building savings, and starting families. Several forces drive those costs, but one is hiding in plain sight: America has made it extraordinarily difficult to build.

As Congress returns following the midterms, lawmakers have an opening. The Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act, introduced in September by senators from both parties, would speed federal reviews of energy and infrastructure projects. It is an early test of whether affordability is a governing principle or another political slogan.

Environmental protection and indefinite delay are not the same thing.

Permitting sounds like a distant, bureaucratic concern until a power plant or transmission line gets tied up for years. Lengthy environmental reviews, overlapping requirements, and litigation can hold up projects long after developers have shown they are technically and economically viable. Those delays raise costs and discourage new investment in an economy that needs more power.

The bill would revise environmental reviews under the National Environmental Policy Act and parts of the Endangered Species Act and National Historic Preservation Act. It would ease approvals for certain interstate transmission lines and narrow the grounds on which states could withhold water-quality certifications under the Clean Water Act.

States have legitimate interests in protecting water and other natural resources. But a review process must reach a decision. Environmental protection and indefinite delay are not the same thing.

Consider SunZia, a roughly 550-mile transmission line carrying electricity from New Mexico to Arizona. Development began in 2008. Construction did not begin until 2023, after years of permitting disputes and challenges involving federal lands and historic sites, and requiring the approval of several federal and state agencies. The project finally entered service in June. Nearly two decades passed between its conception and its completion.

That does not make every objection frivolous. It does show what happens when an essential piece of infrastructure must navigate layers of approval before anyone can benefit from the power it delivers.

RELATED: Young men are being left behind

Kieferpix/Getty Images

New York’s Valley Lateral pipeline offers another example. In 2017, the state denied a water-quality certification for the nearly 8-mile line meant to supply the CPV Valley Energy Center. Federal regulators concluded that New York had missed the statutory deadline, and a federal appeals court upheld that finding. The power plant has been operating since 2018, but its path to operation involved a costly fight over which agency had the last word.

Young Americans are especially exposed to the consequences. They are less likely to own homes or have accumulated enough savings to absorb higher costs. A $200 increase in monthly housing and utility bills means something different to a 25-year-old trying to get established than it does to a wealthy retiree with a paid-off house.

The housing problem has its own permitting obstacles. Federal energy reforms will not, by themselves, overturn restrictive local zoning or speed every apartment project. But the principle is the same: When government makes building harder, it makes necessities scarcer and more expensive. New York City voters approved measures this week to centralize building permitting and shorten approval timelines for certain city projects. The appetite for practical reform is hardly confined to Washington.

For decades, America became richer by building factories, highways, homes, power plants, and businesses. The next generation deserves the same opportunity. Young Americans need more reliable electricity, more places to live, and an economy that can grow without running into a wall of paperwork.

Permitting reform is a Gen Z issue. If Washington wants to make America more affordable, it should start by making America easier to build.

​Affordable housing, Economic growth, Electricity bills, New york city, Young americans, Environmental protection, Housing costs, Gas prices, Opinion & analysis, Gen z 

Republicans suffered a rout on Tuesday. There is one sliver of good news, however. The remaining congressional GOP may be less divided on the issue Trump rode back into office on: mass deportation.

Even amid the carnage, voters gave Republicans a narrow edge over Democrats on immigration. In the NBC exit poll, 44% said Republicans would handle the issue better, against 41% for Democrats. That is not proof that every voter favors mass deportation. It is a rebuke to those who spent two years insisting that immigration enforcement itself had become a political loser.

Somehow Americans were expected to endure war abroad but not inconvenience at home.

I spent much of that time arguing with reporters, activists, members of Congress, and their staffers about a manufactured consensus. The people who wanted to abandon enforcement were often the people who stood to benefit from cheap, illegal labor. I said so, loudly. It cost me invitations that somehow never arrived. Fine.

The voters who sent Trump to Washington expected him to carry out the largest deportation operation in American history. Instead, they got a war with Iran. Even Vice President JD Vance says plainly that the war cost Republicans the midterms.

The Iran campaign was defended on the grounds that short-term economic pain was worth a long-term strategic gain. The lobbyists who oppose worksite enforcement invoke the same economic pain as a veto over sovereignty. Beef could cost more. DoorDash might take longer. You might have to mow your own lawn. Somehow Americans were expected to endure war abroad but not inconvenience at home.

We could still make that choice.

ICE does not need a new check from the incoming Democrat Congress. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act appropriated roughly $75 billion for ICE enforcement and detention, above annual funding, available through September 2029. The money is there. The missing ingredient is a serious commitment to enforcing immigration law at worksites — where employers who profit from illegal labor have so far enjoyed far too much deference.

RELATED: The day after tomorrow: A new GOP

Tom Brenner/Getty Images

And the deportation totals are not where they need to be. The Migration Policy Institute estimates that through July 2026, formal removals under Trump averaged about 380,000 a year, below the Obama-era annual peak of more than 432,000. The unauthorized immigrant population, meanwhile, grew from roughly 11 million during the Obama years to an estimated 15.8 million by mid-2024. Measured against the size of that population, this is not the promised operation at scale.

My organization, the Oversight Project, has sued the Department of Homeland Security for detailed deportation records. The government should release the numbers and let Americans judge the results for themselves. We intend to keep pressing until it does.

Vance seems to recognize what is at stake. In his post-election assessment Wednesday, he wrote: “I’m open to the idea that we should change enforcement — by focusing more on businesses that hire illegal labor, for instance. But anyone pushing amnesty is lying to you.”

That is more than a throwaway line. It acknowledges a fight over whether the administration will confront employers who want the border secured but their illegal workforce untouched. Vance has now publicly put worksite enforcement on the table.

So has the personnel shift at the White House, or at least it should. Trump on Friday named Stephen Miller to replace Susie Wiles as chief of staff, effective Monday. Few people have done more to move the political debate on immigration than Miller. He will occupy the most powerful staff position in the administration. If Washington cannot move from promises to mass deportation now, when will it?

RELATED: Trump conquered the Republican Party. What a waste of a victory.

Brendan SMIALOWSKI/AFP/Getty Images

The midterms also cleared out many lawmakers whom immigration hawks judged weak on enforcement. According to the Immigration Accountability Project’s post-election tally, 18 losing lawmakers ranked in its bottom quartile, compared with just two in its top quartile. The group also counted eight defeated co-sponsors of Rep. María Salazar’s (R-Fla.) “Dignity Act.” Those rankings do not tell us what caused each defeat. But they give the new Congress a different complexion.

Consider Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.). When ICE stepped up activity in southwest Kansas’ meatpacking country in September, Marshall complained that agents had not coordinated with local law enforcement and had caused “mass disruptions to local communities and businesses.” He then lost to Democrat Adam Hamilton by nearly five points, becoming the first Kansas Republican to lose a Senate race since 1932. His defeat had many causes. It also illustrates the political pressure that arrives when enforcement reaches the employers who depend on illegal labor.

Republicans were punished over the Iran war, the cost of living, and promises left unfulfilled. The answer is not to give up on the issue on which voters still trusted Republicans more than Democrats. It is to keep the promise that helped bring their coalition together.

Trump has the funding. He has a vice president talking about worksite enforcement and Stephen Miller about to run the White House staff. The special interests are weaker than they were a week ago. A large contingent of pro-amnesty Republicans lost. There is no shortage of excuses left to invent. There is less reason than ever to accept them.

Now do the job.

​American voters, Border security, Cost of living, Dignity act, Homeland security, Ice funding, Illegal labor, Immigration enforcement, Immigration law, Immigration policy, Mass deportation, Midterm elections, Special interests, Stephen miller, Trump administration, Vice president vance, War with iran, White house, Worksite enforcement, Chief of staff, Oversight project, Opinion & analysis