Dana White has essentially now killed off any hope Jon Jones may have had about convincing him that he should fight at next years UFC: White House event.

White had previously said he couldn’t trust Jones enough to have him feature on the card, but with the show now set to take place until the summer of 2026 it had felt like there might still be some wiggle room left for the former heavyweight champion to change his mind.

However, when asked directly by a reporter on Saturday night if there was anything Jones could do in the coming months to earn White’s trust, the UFC CEO issued a definitive response.

“Let me ask you, what do you think Jon would do in the next couple of months that would make me trust putting him on the White House card?” White said. “So I already said that I don’t trust him, and you’re asking me what could he do for me to trust him in the next three months? You don’t trust him! I don’t talk to him either. I haven’t talked to him at all.

“If I had to make odds, it’s a billion-to-one that I put Jon Jones on the White House card.”

The fact that after many months of negotiating Jones recently opted to retire instead of defending his heavyweight title against Tom Aspinall appears to have been the final nail in the coffin as far as White, even though he quickly changed his mind about hanging up his gloves after catching wind of the upcoming White House card.

Of course there’s a long history of Jones proving to be unreliable though, from single-handedly killing off the UFC 151 event by refusing to take a short-notice fight against Chael Sonnen, through to being stripped of the 205lb title three times due to failed drug tests and criminal charges.

So White’s stance on the matter is understandable, though what’s puzzling is that he appears to be willing to give Conor McGregor a pass despite the fact he’s also proven to be extremely controversial and untrustworthy.

“I trust Conor [McGregor],” White told Jim Rome last week. “McGregor has never, unless he seriously injured, this guy has always delivered. Jon [Jones], I’m a little more skeptical about.”

It’s a curious take given that hasn’t fought in four years and withdrew from a comeback fight with Michael Chandler last year on short notice due to a broken pinky toe, despite having repeatedly mocked Rafael dos Anjos many years ago for pulling out of a fight with him due to a broken foot.

Given that McGregor also lost a civil sexual assault lawsuit in Ireland last year and continues to hit the headlines for all the wrong reasons it seems very risky to have him anywhere near a high-profile event on the lawn of The White House.

Nevertheless, McGregor is the biggest star the sport has ever seen and is a far bigger draw than Jones ever was, and with President Trump himself known to be a fan, it seems that White is willing to gamble that this time his comeback isn’t just another false dawn.