The Trump Sports Curse Reaches FIFA
What Next | Daily News and Analysis
Slate Podcasts
4.3 • 2.4K Ratings
🗓️ 8 July 2026
⏱️ 26 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
It was the red card—and subsequent White House phone call—heard ‘round the world. After USMNT striker Folarin Balogun was dealt a red card, President Trump gave FIFA head Gianni Infantino a ring. Suddenly, Balogun’s one-game suspension was revoked. It wasn’t enough to keep USMNT from losing against Belgium 4-1… but it was enough to ruin the World Cup vibes and make the United States, once again, the world’s villain.
Guest: Joon Lee is an independent sports journalist. His work can be found on his Youtube channel: @iamjoonlee.
Want more What Next? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free listening to the whole What Next family and across all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of our show page. Sign up now at slate.com/whatnextplus to get access wherever you listen.
Podcast production by Rob Gunther, Evan Campbell, Madeline Thames-Ducharme and Patrick Fort.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | I do not follow U.S. soccer, especially closely. |
| 0:10.9 | But on Monday night, when I sat down to watch the World Cup, the U.S. versus Belgium, |
| 0:16.4 | even I could tell, it was not going well. |
| 0:20.3 | Yes. I mean, it was a mess in a lot of different ways. |
| 0:26.6 | I called up sports journalist June Lee to confirm my suspicions. He's got a great YouTube channel. |
| 0:32.1 | He should really look them up. I think the team looked really stiff coming out in large part because this was the biggest set of eyeballs they've had on this team. |
| 0:41.5 | I mean, a lot of Americans who don't watch sports were watching the game last night because the U.S. was in the round of 16. |
| 0:48.4 | And the round of 16 is where the U.S. historically is kicked out. |
| 0:53.5 | Yes, it has always flamed out. It was a brutal beatdown. |
| 0:58.8 | Like, at one point, Belgium scored a goal because the American goalie just wasn't there. |
| 1:04.2 | The final goal that Belgium scored, it was just like a bonus showoff goal in the final moments |
| 1:10.5 | of the game. I was like, what? You didn't even |
| 1:12.8 | need to do that. And there was a level of taunting there, too, where the Belgium team did the |
| 1:17.5 | Trump dance after the goal. And I think that kind of speaks to the entire cloud that was hanging over |
| 1:23.7 | this event yesterday. |
| 1:34.2 | The cloud hanging over this event was, who else, President Trump? |
| 1:39.1 | Trump, of course, is the reason the World Cup is being hosted in the U.S. in the first place. |
| 1:41.4 | He courted FIFA back in his first term. |
| 1:45.3 | And Trump had been relatively quiet about the event until the last week or so when American star, Fuller and Balligan got a red card in the U.S. team's penultimate game. |
| 1:52.6 | That red card should have meant Balligan, who most people call Flo, got sidelined during this |
| 1:57.9 | week's matchup with Belgium. But Trump made a call to his friend Gianni |
| 2:02.2 | Infantino, FIFA's president. And suddenly, this unappealable red card, well, never mind. |
... |
Transcript will be available on the free plan in 17 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Slate Podcasts, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Slate Podcasts and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.