President Donald Trump has again threatened to pull international sporting events from Democratic-run cities, this time the World Cup from Boston and Olympics from Los Angeles.
Speaking Tuesday with reporters, Trump was asked about recent “street takeovers” in Boston and the region’s slate of seven World Cup matches next summer. The games are scheduled to be played at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Mass., about 30 miles south of Boston.
“We can take them away,” Trump said. He also called Mayor Michelle Wu “intelligent, but she’s radical left.”
FIFA vice president Victor Montagliani said earlier this month that the global governing body would not be moving any games after similar comments from Trump.
“They’re taking over parts of Boston,” the president said. “We could get them back in about two seconds. All [Wu] has to do is call us, we’ll go in and take ‘em back.” The Trump administration has attempted to send the National Guard to several cities with Democratic mayors this year, including Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., Chicago, Portland, and Memphis.
Trump threatened last month to pull World Cup matches from Seattle and San Francisco, if he deemed them to be “even a little bit dangerous.”
“It’s FIFA’s tournament, FIFA’s jurisdiction, FIFA makes those decisions,” Montagliani said in response. “With all due respect to current world leaders, football is bigger than them and football will survive their regime and their government and their slogans. That’s the beauty of our game, that it is bigger than any individual and bigger than any country.”
Trump has grown increasingly close with FIFA president Gianni Infantino throughout his second term. Infantino has accompanied Trump on official business, including a trip to the Middle East in May and this week’s Gaza peace talks. The FIFA president has made several visits to the White House, watched the Club World Cup final with Trump, and permitted his friend to keep the tournament’s original trophy in the Oval Office.
“If somebody is doing a bad job, and if I feel there’s unsafe conditions, I would call Gianni [Infantino], the head of FIFA, who is phenomenal, and I would say ‘Let’s move it to another location,’” Trump said on Tuesday. “And he would do that. He wouldn’t love to do it, but he’d do it. Very easily, he’d do it.”
Mayor Wu’s office released a statement in response to the president’s comments: “Boston is honored and excited to host World Cup matches, and we look forward to welcoming fans from around the world to our beautiful city, the cradle of liberty and city of champions.”
As for the Olympics, Trump showed openness to moving the Games in his comments last month, but doubled down on the notion on Tuesday.
“If I thought Boston was doing something that was going to cause safety conditions for the World Cup, I could say the same thing for the Olympics, ‘cause you know we have events that are in different locations for the Olympics, it’s based in L.A,” Trump said. “If I thought L.A. was not going to be prepared properly, I would move it to another location if I had to.”
The majority of Olympic events will be held in southern California, with the exceptions of softball and canoe slalom, which will be in Oklahoma City.
