Transcription
We've got some breaking news here that has global implications for the ongoing World Cup tournament. Donald Trump personally called the president of FIFA to get a World Cup red card overturned. So, here's what happened.
On Wednesday, Team USA's striker Flairen Ballagan was set off with a straight red card during the round of 32 win over Bosnia and Herzaggavina for stepping on the ankle of a Bosnian defender. Here's what that moment looked like.
>> Getting some hydration here. I mean, that's tough. That that is contact in the back of the leg.
>> You can see it was actually it was almost the contact. Yeah, Muhareovic's right leg hits Balagans and then Balagan's off balance and then he breaks down.
A red card carries an automatic one-game suspension. There's no appeal, no review. That's just how it's worked for the entire history of the FIFA tournament. So, Balagan should have been done for the subsequent Belgium match which takes place on Monday night.
Now, look, I'm not a soccer official. I'm not going to pretend that I have authority to relitigate the call, but for what it's worth, watching the replay, in my opinion, the red card felt like a grave overreaction to what was clearly not a malicious play. Even Christian Pissic said afterwards, "If you look at the foul, it was just zero intent at all."
So, the argument could be made by plenty of people, myself included, that the ref got this one wrong, including, I should add, by himself. Yeah, I think it was it was you know for me from it's important for me to say obviously first and foremost you know it was totally unintentional which I'm sure a lot of people know. Um but you know I think I think the the choice of the referee was of course his choice but I don't think it was it was the correct call. I think a yellow card would have been fair just due to the to it not being intentional and also you know there's there's not many places I can place my foot in in such a scenario but you know I think it's it's it's happened and it's something I have to accept and just move forward from.
But then we found out that Trump called FIFA president Giani Infantino directly and asked him to review it and on Sunday FIFA did something that it hadn't done for an American player in the 60 plus year history of the World Cup. It suspended the suspension, clearing Balagan to play against Belgium.
Now, Trump naturally took a victory lap on True Social, writing, "Thank you to FIFA for doing what was right and reversing a great injustice."
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Now, it's worth noting that Donald Trump didn't come to this relationship with Infantino cold. FIFA gave him the inaugural FIFA Peace Prize back in December, which was an award literally created, invented for Trump after he failed to win the actual Nobel Peace Prize. Infantino told him at the ceremony, "You can always count Mr. President on my support, on the support of the entire soccer community." So, when Trump calls asking for a favor, he's not calling a stranger. He's calling a guy who's been courting him for months and who wants him front and center at the trophy ceremony on July 19th.
But look, I don't actually think that the real story here is about Trump's interference, even though that is a constant recurring theme when whether it's the Fed, whether it's the Justice Department, or now whether it's FIFA's disciplinary committee. I also don't think it's the reinstatement of Balagan considering I don't think he should have been hit with a red card in the first place.
The real story, the thing that should not be lost on anyone is about this particular player. Faren Ballagan is the top scorer on this US team. Without him, it is considerably more difficult for the US to beat Belgium, which means that we don't advance in this World Cup. That Donald Trump is so desperate to be associated with. So, of course, Trump made the call. He wants this tournament to be a win, literally and symbolically, and he needs Balagan on the field to make that happen.
But here's the great irony. Balagan was born in Brooklyn to Nigerian parents who were living in London at the time. He only became eligible to play for the United States rather than England, who he actually represented at the under 21 level because he holds US citizenship. And the only reason he holds US citizenship is birthright citizenship. The 14th amendment guarantee that if you're born on American soil, you are American. Full stop. Regardless of your parents immigration status or nationality. And yes, that would be the same birthright citizenship that Trump has spent his entire second term trying to dismantle. Just last week, Trump lost at the Supreme Court, which blocked his executive order attempting to sharply restrict birthright citizenship. The same policy that made Balagan an American in the first place and by extension made him eligible to play for the team that Donald Trump is now moving mountains to help win a World Cup.
Sit with that irony for a second. Trump is on the phone with the head of FIFA pulling every string he has to make sure a player stays on the field. A player who exists on this team only because of a policy that Trump has tried and failed to gut. He wants to win badly enough to lean on the president of FIFA, but simultaneously cannot bring himself to acknowledge that the exact thing he's trying to strip away from future American kids is the exact thing responsible for the player he is currently begging to keep eligible.
This is what diversity is our strength actually looks like in practice. Not as a slogan on a tote bag, but as the literal on-the-field fact. Balagan is on the American men's national team scoring the goals that are helping carry this tournament run because America is a country generous enough to say that birth here means citizenship here. No asterisks, no exceptions, no litmus test on where your parents came from, no political test. That is the openness Trump is trying to legislate out of existence. And it's the same openness he is currently leaning on FIFA to protect because he understands whether he'll admit it or not that the US may not make a deep World Cup run without it.
In fact, I made this exact argument last week when the US men's national team advanced to the knockout stage for the first time in over two decades. I wrote, quote, "Even with the record-breaking heat throwing a wrench in things, America 250 has already been upstaged by a different marquee event, the World Cup. For weeks now, Americans have been glued to their TVs, packing sports bars and outdoor watch parties, and flocking to stadiums to watch soccer. Not even one of our top three pro sports. But here we are with the US men's national team taking out their first knockout stage win in 25 years. Naturally, Trump is going to try to take credit for it, calling the US team the best in the world after the win over Bosnia and Herzaggavina. But the success of this team comes in spite of Trump, not because of him. Half of the roster is made up of dual citizenship holders, foreign-born players, and children of immigrants. The coach is Argentine. This team is a repudiation of everything Trump stands for and is working towards. It could never exist in the world that Trump has tried to bring about with his brutal immigration crackdowns and isolationist foreign policy. You can't take credit for the success of the team while simultaneously trying to eliminate the conditions necessary for it to exist."
And it's the final sentence that I think is the most important here. "You can't take credit for the success of the team while simultaneously trying to eliminate the conditions necessary for it to exist." That is exactly what's at play here. Trump wants the praise for a phenomenon that he's actively trying to destroy. Someone should tell the president that you can root for a soccer team composed of diverse Americans or you can advance the MAGA agenda, but not both.
So the next time you hear Trump or anyone in his orbit talk about closing the door on birthright citizenship, remember our star striker Balagan. Remember Trump on the phone with Infantino refusing to let this team lose its best player and ask the obvious question. If the policy is so bad, why is he working this hard to benefit from it?
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