Ava Wallace (3:20)

You can bankrupt yourself to buy tickets. Exactly, yeah. And D.C. how did the draw ceremony end up here?

Thomas Floyd (3:26)

It was widely reported to be bound for Las Vegas. That is where the World cup draw was held when the US previously hosted the World Cup. And then something at the 11th hour, it appeared to change to the Kennedy Center. Donald Trump, now the chairman of the Kennedy center after his administration took over the arts facility earlier this year, he has a tight relationship with FIFA President Johnny Infantino. And it is understood that he lobbied for the Kennedy center to host this event.

Ava Wallace (3:58)

And the World cup draw is a really big deal. It's kind of trumpeted as the unofficial beginning of World cup season. I read so many things that were like the World cup st starts today. President Trump is, is one of three hosts. So Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum was also there. Canada's Prime Minister Mark Carney was there. But President Trump himself seems to be positioning recentering focus directly on Washington D.C. directly on him. And he's going to be quite involved in the upcoming games. Are leaders of the host countries often this hands on?

Rick Maese (4:31)

Well, I mean I'd say no if we go back, I mean if you go back historically. So 1994, as Thomas mentioned, was when the was the Men's World cup was last in the States. So that draw was a very Vegas esque affair. It had Stevie Wonder, Dick Clark, Rod Stewart, sounds great, but it did not have any politicians. There were no heads of state there. And I'm not even sure anyone gave it a second thought back then, but I would say things have changed a little bit over the past few cycles. And if you go back to, I don't know, Brazil, I think even South Africa maybe, but certainly Russia, the heads of state were in attendance at the draw, but it was mostly ceremonial. They were there to kind of wave their hand, smile for the camera. Trump took it to a whole new level and FIFA took it to a whole new level. This time.

Ava Wallace (5:13)

Okay, so now President Trump is really getting involved, it seems, and he's kind of involving Washington, D.C. and the Kennedy center to do it. Thomas, you'd mentioned earlier this year that the administration had seized control of the Kennedy Center. The Board of District, the board of Trustees, voted to install President Trump as the chairman of the board. In February, the former president was removed from her position. It's. There's been a little bit of this hostile takeover by the Trump administration. Rick, you also reported that for the World cup draw on Friday, FIFA paid nothing. They got to use the space for free. Can you tell me a little bit more about that relationship between the Kennedy center, the Trump administration, and the World Cup? What has that become?

Rick Maese (5:54)

Yeah, I mean, historically, it is an apolitical venue. It's a place to watch plays and musicals and symphony orchestras. And Trump is just another example of him kind of putting his fingerprints on whatever he can. And the organization and the center has changed, and there's new leadership. The post is reported, there's plunging ticket sales. The type of programming they're bringing in is different, as some acts refuse to come, and they're recruiting other kinds of acts to show up. And so the center is just fundamentally changing. And we saw it again Sunday night with the Kennedy Center Honors, where Trump was not only there in a box, he was actually on stage. He was emceeing the thing. He said he played a role in selecting which artists were honored there. Kiss George Strait, Gloria Gaynor. I mean, Trump said he was the one that played a role in picking those, and he even joked that he might give himself a Kennedy Center Honor Award next year. So we're just seeing that whatever he can kind of put his fingerprints on and tailor to his kind of tastes, that's what he's doing. And so, as you kind of mentioned, FIFA signed a contract where they're paying zero rent, and they took over the Kennedy center for three weeks. There were no shows that were in the concert hall for that period. Now, Kennedy Center, I should point out, has pushed back. Kennedy Center. Officials say no, we're actually getting millions of dollars. They've provided no documentation. They don't answer any questions about that. And FIFA has declined to comment. So we don't really know if the administration is making any money, but there's certainly, on paper, there's no evidence of that so far.

Ava Wallace (7:18)

And that's just kind of a big deal, because hosting something like a World cup is usually a chance for the host nation to increase tourism to make some money. FIFA is this Huge body within sports that everyone pays attention to, that's quite wealthy. Got all these celebrities out to the Kennedy center on Friday, but is not paying to use any of that space. Thomas, how did Trump and Infantino's relationship begin? How did it evolve? When did they first become friends?

Thomas Floyd (7:45)

Infantino has been a constant presence at Trump's side ever since the second Trump administration began. There have been many a photo opportunity where Infantino miraculously appears alongside Trump. There was, you know, a visit by the Italian club Juventus to the White House during the club World cup in June. This is a new event, or rather a reinvented tournament that FIFA experimented with in the United States last summer, basically as a trial run for the traditional World Cup. Imagine your World cup with national teams, except this is club teams. This is Real Madrid, Chelsea, Inter, Miami. Clubs from around the world all came to the United States this past summer and played in a month long tournament that looked a whole lot like the traditional national team World Cup. And when Juventus played a game in D.C. a few hours before the match at Audi Field, they did a photo op at the White House and Infantino was there. Does the FIFA present need to be at the White House for a photo op with an Italian soccer team? It's a little unusual, but that's just the kind of relationship that they have and they seem very friendly. Infantino was at, he was there earlier this past week when there was the sort of renaming of the Donald Trump Institute for peace here in D.C. the two just seem to be in each other's orbit a lot. And it's unusual, but it just seems to be the way it is going into this World Cup.

Rick Maese (9:24)

I mean, you're right, he's appeared at political events. You know, it's not just sporting events showing up wherever he can. If there's a Gaza peace summit, he might be there in the background. He's almost like positioning FIFA as, you know, this nebulous nation out there and him as another leader that should have a seat in the United Nations. And Trump is giving him an audience, more so than most of our allies.

Ava Wallace (9:43)

At this point, giving him an audience and also turning around and saying, shouldn't we rename American football? Wasn't that he made comments about the NFL, right? We gotta come up with a different name.

Rick Maese (9:52)

There's pandering going on back and forth.

Ava Wallace (9:55)

That's big pandering. Rick, what have leaders in Canada and Mexico, what has their reaction been? If you talk to anybody kind of after the World cup draw or just generally about how Trump is inserting himself here.

Rick Maese (10:07)

I think you're seeing a lot of political tap dancing. No one wants to offend Trump. They don't want to offend the United States. I think you hear mostly whispers. And I talked to some folks last week both before and after the draw about Trump specifically, and people don't want to tackle it head on. They don't want to. They don't want to, you know, upset the waters at this stage. We saw the head coach of Canada, Jesse Marsh, spoke with reporters on Friday after the draw. And Marsh is an American and very outspoken American, and he was asked a couple questions and he kind of turned to his PR guy and said, hey, I'm not supposed to talk about this, right? So it's very clear no one wants to say anything. They want the focus to turn to soccer as quickly as possible and away from Trump.

Thomas Floyd (10:45)

I will also chime in and say US Coach Mauricio Pochettino, midfielder Tyler Adams and forward Christian Pulisic all addressed the spectacle. All brought up Trump during availability after the draw. And they all spoke very positively. They all spoke about taking pride in the event. There was a lot of talk about how it was this uniquely American spectacle, that it felt something like a Super bowl halftime show type vibe that was distinct from what FIFA normally stages. And at least publicly, the key figures from the U.S. men's National Team are going along with this and speaking positively about Trump and his administration.

Ava Wallace (11:34)

After the break, we're going to talk about why some critics are concerned about President Trump's increasing involvement in the World cup and how his administration's immigration policies might clash with the goals of the tournament. We'll be right back.

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Ava Wallace (12:27)

One of the more interesting things you guys about soccer is, is. And the World cup in particular is host countries usually use it as almost kind of a tourism advertisement. They want to say, come to our country, look at what the show we can come on, look at all of the great things we have here. But the US Is not really in that kind of mode right now. They're very saying with President Trump's immigration policies, like, actually, we don't want a lot of people coming into this country right now. So with President Trump's growing involvement, there are a lot of concerns about that, about how his immigration policies clash with the goals of the World Cup. Has the World cup always been this political? Have we ever seen these clashes before?

Rick Maese (13:10)

I like the way you phrase that because I went to an event Friday night sponsored by the Mexican hosts, and everyone was just going on and on about how our country is open. We want to see the world here. Usually countries use events like this to showcase themselves to the world, to invite people into their borders and to promote long term tourism. I mean, you think about the World cup, there's going to be, I don't know, Thomas, but a billion viewers or something over the course of the tournament. That's a lot of eyes on your country. And I think Mexico and Canada especially are taking that kind of approach. They want to show off their people, their culture, their places, their cities. The United States a little bit different. They're clearly saying all the right things. They're saying, we want to see you come in here. They're looking forward to the visitors. But on the other hand, there's at least two nations. We know there's two nations that have qualified, Iran and Haiti, whose fans are not welcome here. They're not going to be able to get visas the way things currently stand. And it kind of, it's sending a broader message to not just those countries, but other countries that, hey, United States wants some of you here. And then another thing people are worried about is what are we going to see in some of these US Cities when the World cup actually comes to town. You know, first of all, Donald Trump has threatened to move matches out of some of the cities that he deems unsafe. And, you know, the people are very concerned about some of the raids they're seeing, you know, in places like Los Angeles. And so there was a question last week. Andrew Giuliani, he's the head of the task force between the White House and FIFA, was asked, you know, are there going to be raids during the World Cup? And he would not rule it out. He says safety is a top priority for this president and we're not going to rule anything out at this stage. So I think a lot of people are keeping a close eye on that. They don't want the spotlight to be on, you know, immigrants being detained and deported in the middle of the World Cup.

Ava Wallace (14:48)

And Trump has threatened to, kind of loosely threatened, I guess, to take some hosting capabilities away from cities.

Rick Maese (14:55)

It's kind of like a political cudgel. He's Using at this point. I guess he can't do it himself. He can lean on FIFA to do it. It'd be very difficult for them to relocate matches this, this far down the road. But, yeah, cities that he has particular issue with, you know, he's mentioned Los Angeles, Seattle, Boston. And never mind that some of these places or San Francisco, the games aren't actually in, you know, San Francisco or Boston. So he's upset with some of the Democratic leadership in these places. And I suspect we're going to keep hearing these threats until the games actually start.

Ava Wallace (15:26)

And Thomas, one of the featured moments on Friday was Trump winning this FIFA Peace Prize that FIFA created a few weeks after he was passed over by the Nobel Peace Prize committee. What is this prize? Why did President Trump win it? What happened there?

Thomas Floyd (15:43)

The FIFA Peace Prize, as is very subtly named, was in fact announced, I believe, about four weeks after Trump was overlooked for the Nobel that he actively campaigned himself for. In this situation, I think it is. It's not overly difficult to connect the dots. I think Infantino sees Trump as an ally. He wants to have Trump on his side going into this World Cup. There are many reasons why FIFA benefits from the administration of a host nation being friendly to their organization. There were $600 million of funds in the legislation passed earlier this year for FIFA World cup security. There was a program recently announced that will allow for.

Thomas Floyd (16:36)

Visas for World cup ticket holders for those visa interviews to be conducted faster than they would be normally. These are just some of the reasons why FIFA would want to be really friendly with Trump, really friendly with his administration. And if they can stroke his ego with, with a FIFA Peace Prize, when he feels spurned by the Nobel Peace Prize, then, you know, they are not above doing that kind of thing. And I, I think that is what we saw on Friday.

Rick Maese (17:04)

You know, the award itself there, there's no set criteria for the thing. So we've asked FIFA a series of questions, and I was saying Human Rights Watch also sent a very detailed letter, pointed letter, with, with questions. Who. Who's making this decision? What are their criteria? What was taken into consideration? Who ultimately chose Donald Trump to be the first recipient? There are no answers. And you could say the fact there are no answers, maybe that is your answer.

Ava Wallace (17:25)

Rick, why are critics concerned about this Peace Prize that FIFA kind of made up? You know, can't FIFA just give a guy a prize if they want to? What are people saying about it?

Rick Maese (17:35)

Well, look, FIFA always has obstacles to navigate when it's staging this tournament. It's a undertaking to Host all these matches in cities across the country or across a continent, in this case. In the past several cycles, human rights focus has been on, you know, people getting pushed out of their homes to make way for new stadiums. South Africa, yeah, the treatment of workers as they've kind of built up these new stadiums, as we saw in Qatar, and kind of as a backlash to that or, you know, that kind of triggered a lot more conversations around human rights in the World Cup. And for the first time, FIFA said, you know, we want to see all the Bids for the 2026 World cup, but we actually want a human rights component included. Give us your strategy. How are you going to take care of people? And so that was part of the United bid that we saw several years ago, and they accounted for human rights and said, you know, this will be the tournament that takes it into consideration more than any other. And so I think some of the concern is that really what we're seeing, you know, in the United States of America right now, the way the Trump administration's stance has been on immigrants and deportation. And so that's really got a lot of critics and human rights advocates up in arms because they're saying, how can we honor this guy, give him this kind of award, platform him this way, when all of his actions on the ground are sending a different message to the world right now?

Ava Wallace (18:51)

Thomas, what can we expect from this upcoming summer? Aside from. I'm actually, I'm not mad that DC's not a host. I don't want the traffic. I don't want the traffic. That's such a selfish sports writer. Fair of me. But no, Rick said that we're going to kind of see a transformation from some of these cities, but what can we expect from hosts, from people traveling around? Just, you know, tell me everything.

Thomas Floyd (19:15)

Well, the big headline, you know, aside from the political angle at play here, is this is the first 48 team World Cup. The World cup had been frozen at 32 teams since 1998, so that means more teams, more co host nations, more matches. The tournament is a week longer. It is Now, I believe, 39 days, which will make it, you know, easily the longest World cup in history. You have to play eight matches in order to win the World Cup. So it is going to be quite the, quite the enduring spectacle this summer. It will be fascinating to see how this sort of stretched out 48 team competition changes the fan engagement, changes the quality of play on the field. There are also storylines about preparedness in terms of, you know, field conditions. Mid summer temperatures in The United States. We have the World cup finals, a 3pm Kickoff at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey, in mid July. So there are all kinds of kind of interesting questions and storylines surrounding this World Cup. It just seems to have been eclipsed for now by the Trump administration's involvement in the proceedings to date.

Ava Wallace (20:33)

And just quickly, US Team, pretty friendly draw, right?

Thomas Floyd (20:37)

Yes, they drew with the World cup draw. To give a quick rundown, there are four pots of teams that are basically ranked by, you know, the first pot is the highest seeds, and then the second pot is the second highest seeds and so on. The US Drew the easiest team from the second pot, Australia. They drew a middle of the pack team, Paraguay, from the third pot. And then from the fourth pot, they drew a European playoff winner that, you know, they. It'll probably be Turkey, which is not the most difficult matchup they could have drawn. So all in all, it's. It's a group that I think the US Would certainly expect to get out of. And it's also, you know, three teams that they have played in the last year. They beat Paraguay last month. They beat Australia in October. They played Turkey pretty tight in June while fielding an experimental team. So this is a group I think the US Would feel pretty comfortable about.

Ava Wallace (21:30)

So they're gonna win, right?

Thomas Floyd (21:32)

They're totally gonna win. The World cup.

Thomas Floyd (21:35)

Called it here.

Rick Maese (21:36)

They gotta get out of group stage, though.

Thomas Floyd (21:37)

Yeah.

Rick Maese (21:38)

Like they have to their home turf.

Thomas Floyd (21:39)

Yes. And also a quirk of the 4018 World cup, if you finish in third place in your group of four, you probably will still advance with the way the format works. So it's actually not particularly difficult to make it to the knockout round now.

Ava Wallace (21:53)

They could do third. Yeah. Right. Check in with me in July. Yeah, we'll see. Thank you both. I think that was a good place to leave it, but I appreciate you being here. Thank you so much, Rick.

Rick Maese (22:04)

Thank you.

Ava Wallace (22:05)

And thanks, Thomas.

Thomas Floyd (22:06)

Thank you.

Ava Wallace (22:10)

Rick Mace and Thomas Floyd both covered the draw ceremony for the Washington Post. Today's episode was produced by Lucas Trevor with help from Josh Carroll and Alana Gordon. It was mixed by Sean Carter. It was edited by Thomas Lu and Rena Flores. And thanks to Sarah Larimer and Joe Tone. I'm Ava Wallace. We'll be back tomorrow with more stories from the Washington Post.

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