Welcome to Wednesday’s Washington Secrets. Today, we give in. The World Cup is nearly over, so we are bringing you a healthy dose of political/soccer news while we quietly board a flight for Atlanta and a new skirmish in the Falklands war. If you have no idea what we are talking about, then it is probably for the best. Normal(ish) service will be resumed on Monday (or tomorrow, depending on what happens in the match).“We have to have our best players, and they have to have their best,” he told reporters in the Oval Office. “And if we win or we lose, it’s fair.”
He must have seen an easy political win, currying favor with the nation’s soccer fans even if the rest of the world whined about it.But it turns out that Americans disagree. A new poll reveals that a majority of people disapproved of Trump making a call to Gianni Infantino asking to reinstate striker Folarin Balogun.Some 51% said they strongly or somewhat disapproved. Only 21% said they approved, according to a YouGov poll for The Economist.This tournament ends on Sunday. And, as usual, all the worst predictions that Trump, ICE agents, visa restrictions would ruin the World Cup proved unfounded.Trump has stayed away from games so far, but is expected at Sunday’s final.Even so, his shadow has loomed large. It was at its largest last week, when FIFA threw protocol out of the window to reinstate Balogun for the quarterfinal game against Belgium after he received a harsh red card in the preceding game. Trump quickly took credit for one of his typically norm-busting moves, admitting (or boasting, depending on your view) that he had telephoned Infantino to register a protest.The joke doing the online rounds is that Balogun did the decent thing and, mindful of the controversy, did the honorable thing and opted to sit out of the match. In fact, he simply looked off his game, as did the team around him, as they fell to a lackluster defeat.He admitted as much in an interview this week.“My initial reaction was I was happy to be back in the team, but when I kind of started to reflect, I knew it was going to cause a lot of controversy, and I could almost see within my team-mates a bit of nerves, because it’s something that is so unique,” Balogun told CBS. “But the closer we got to the game, I tried to just focus as best as I could, but it was difficult. A lot of outside noise, and that’s hard to avoid.” Would the team have played better without Balogun, but without all the noise?And maybe if Belgium had been dispatched with another swaggering performance by the man who plays for Monaco in the French league, then Americans would have been more approving. Just think Venezuela, another of the president’s bold gambles that ended with a dictator in custody and minimal American casualties.Matthew K. Lewis, a conservative podcaster and NOTUS columnist, said Trump’s intervention had changed the status of the team from plucky underdog to villain.“The red card was bogus to begin with, and the president is going to bat for his country, his team,” said Lewis. “So you could understand a political calculation that this is a slam dunk. It works out and you’re the hero, but I don’t think they considered the sort of second-order problems that this would create.”If they had won the game, he added, there is no doubt more people would have approved of the intervention.Brian Glenn, former White House correspondent of pro-MAGA streaming network Real America’s Voice, said: “I know that US soccer fans loved it, but where do we draw the boundaries on what the president should get involved in?”The White House did not respond to a request for comment.A top aide addressed the question last week. Andrew Giuliani, head of the White House’s World Cup task force, said it was always right to stand up for a level playing field when he was asked at a briefing whether anyone had anticipated a backlash.“You had that red card, which never should have been administered, reversed,” Giuliani said. “And we stand by the actions that we took.”Keir Starmer’s World Cup dash
