I Can’t Believe What Trump Just Did At The World Cup

I cannot believe this story. I am about to tell you as a critic of American authoritarianism and as a fan of soccer, football and the World Cup. Now, as many of you know, one of Donald Trump's worst qualities is that he's a scammer, grifter, con man, just like not a particularly good trait to have if you are a person. And I talk about that on the program. We talk about it with regard to Saudi sovereign wealth funds and pool renovations at the reflecting pool. And it comes up in a lot of different contexts. And it is also the case that I love soccer, football, I think if you want to take the cringe out of it. And we are in the middle of the World Cup right now. And we have just learned that Donald Trump is involved in cheating for the World Cup to try to help the U.S. men's national team. And it is absolutely disgusting. And what is taking place here is unconscionable. And it shouldn't be a surprise that Donald Trump is involved in cheating at sports since he report reportedly cheats at golf all the time. Now, let me explain what happened. Then maybe you'll have a different opinion than me, but maybe we'll agree. During the last U.S. game, which was U.S. against Bosnia and Herzegovina, the top goal scorer for the United States team was given a red card. The player is Flo Baligan. And by the way, Baligan is a U.S. citizen because of the very birthright citizenship and fourth 14th Amendment that Trump is trying to overturn. That's actually a different story. But I just mentioned that detail here. And during the game, Flo Baligan got a red card after his foot came down on the ankle of an opponent. Now, in football, this is a big deal. Players wear cleats. There is very special attention paid to whether in the middle of a game a player is stepping on another player's foot or ankle. And the way that soccer rules are, when you get a red card, you immediately have to leave the rest of that game. Your team is left to play with 10 players rather than 11. It's a big disadvantage. And then the way it works in the World Cup is if you get a red card, that specific player can't play in the next game. In the next game, your team can have 11. But the particular player that got the red card is not allowed to play. So after this incident, which is, of course, creates a disadvantage for the United States, without a doubt. Donald Trump calls his buddy Gianni Infantino, the president of FIFA. FIFA puts on the World Cup and he says to Gianni, how about reviewing this red card? How about reviewing this suspension? I don't know about this one. Maybe you can reverse it. Can you consider it? And yesterday, FIFA goes, hey, you know what? We've reviewed it and we have reversed the suspension. And thanks to that reversal, Flo Baligan can now play today against Belgium. Trump posting about this to Truth Social, he says, quote, thank you to FIFA for doing what was right and reversing a great injustice. There has not been such a reversal in 64 years since 1962. Now, my analysis is as follows. I don't believe this play was really worthy of a red card. I don't. I've seen the replay at this point 50 times. I don't think it was worthy of a red card. However, this is how sports work. There are tools available to the in some sports. It's just what the ref sees in real time with their own eyes. In other sports, there's replay in soccer. They have VAR video assistant referee and they can use it to check. Should that have been a penalty kick, as was called on the field? Should that have been a yellow card? Should this be a red card? And the video can be used to create a call or to debunk a call and to take back a call. And referees can change their decisions or they can confirm them. And that's it. This is part of sports. Now, in baseball, perfect games have been ruined for pitchers by umpires getting a safe call wrong at first base. There's a perfect game going ground ball throw to first. The runner is supposed to be out and the umpire says safe and the pitcher's perfect game is gone. That happens sometimes during this World Cup. There have been dubious penalty kick calls where I saw and I said, I don't think that should have been a penalty kick. And the ref goes, yes, it is. Or the opposite. There have been handballs where a non goalie player has touched the ball with a hand. And I believe it should have been a hand call, a handball call. And it wasn't. But this whole idea of after the game is over, going back and revisiting calls, it is a very dangerous precedent. And in the midst of this comes Trump and the naked grift. And you also have Gianni Infantino, the FIFA president, who is a pathetic figure desperate to cozy up to Donald Trump. Don't forget that Infantino is the guy who developed the ridiculous FIFA Peace Prize to give directly to Donald Trump. Just pathetic. So this is not for me about one red card. It's do the rules apply equally to everybody. Sports work if the fans believe that outcomes are decided on the field. I have been many times on the short end of bad on court decisions on field decisions based on the teams I like. But it shouldn't be determined by who has the president's phone number. Imagine the reaction for a second if this happened in Russia or Qatar or Saudi Arabia. And American commentators would be saying this is a disgraceful, corrupt act. And so we shouldn't use a different standard because it's happening here because Trump has spent years claiming the elections are rigged and courts are rigged and the media is rigged and institutions are rigged and the Kennedy Center is rigged. And then the moment he has influence, he uses it to influence the outcome of an international sporting event. And it is an incredible contradiction. Now, FIFA has created a terrible incentive. Every country with political influence will wonder, should we start leaning on FIFA when we get a red card? We don't like when one of our players gets suspended. And if Balogun deserved to play, the officials should have gotten it right during the match. And once the whistle blows, the president of the United States shouldn't be acting like the world's most powerful sports agent. We look weak when this stuff happens. The rules are optional is what it portrays. Now, I don't ultimately know what's going to happen. We have some hours before the APA 8 p.m. Eastern game tonight. Belgium says they are appealing and it's going to have to get sorted out. But is there no situation in which Trump has no shame inserting his corrupt, grifty nature? And by the way, you've also got to look at the person being grifted, which in this case is Gianni Infantino, who has decided to get on his knees and pray at the altar of Trump. They're even going to have Trump hand over the World Cup trophy to the eventual winner. So a pathetic and regrettable episode that once again, the rules don't apply to Trump is the belief that he has. Most VPN companies sell privacy the way that diet pills sell confidence. A lot of marketing, not much proof. But the thing is that your data is constantly being tracked. That is why I like our sponsor Private Internet Access. It is a VPN that is different because they've proven multiple times in court they are not logging your activity. When authorities have said turn over the logs, they don't have them because they don't keep them. And you can verify that for yourself because of their open source software. 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