Politics
Mullin: I ‘danced a happy dance’ when Iran got knocked out
Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said Tuesday that he “danced a happy dance” when Iran was knocked out of the FIFA World Cup — unusually blunt remarks from the official whose department is overseeing security at the U.S. games.
“I’m just glad they’re done, and they’re not coming back,” Mullin said. “I was so happy when we were able to pull their visas and said they could leave U.S. soil, and I might have sung a song or two, or maybe danced a happy dance.”
The World Cup is no stranger to geopolitics, but his comments this week underscore just how politically fraught this tournament cycle has become.
Indeed, Iran’s participation in the tournament had been in doubt for months. After Trump ordered military strikes against Iran, FIFA President Gianni Infantino conducted shuttle diplomacy between Washington and Tehran to avoid a boycott that some feared would delegitimize the world’s largest sporting event. The administration ended up creating a unique arrangement where Iran would play its matches in Tijuana, Mexico — flying in the day before each match and out immediately after.
Mullin’s remarks came after he addressed employees from across the federal government at the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Special Events Coordination Center, which coordinated security planning for the expanded 48-team tournament.
Speaking with reporters afterward, Mullin vigorously defended the administration’s decision to impose unprecedented travel restrictions on the Iranian national team, arguing U.S. officials had gone out of their way to accommodate the squad while protecting national security.
He also dismissed criticisms from Iranian officials who had complained publicly that the restrictions on their national team were unfair and disrupted the team’s preparation.
“That wasn’t accurate. They — of course, you can’t trust anything Iran is saying,” he said.
According to Mullin, the administration had initially planned to admit the team five days before its opening match, but Iran sought to arrive even earlier. Instead, FIFA worked with U.S. and Mexican officials to establish a base camp in Tijuana, roughly a 45 minute flight from Los Angeles, where Iran played its opening matches.
“We worked with Mexico, talked with our counterparts there, and we talked with [Mexican] President [Claudia] Sheinbaum and it was agreed to allow them to come to Tijuana,” Mullin said. “They could stay there rather than come into the United States earlier.”
Mullin argued the Trump administration provided accommodations unavailable to any other team: Customs and Border Protection officers processed the team’s biometrics in Tijuana before each flight so players could bypass normal inspections upon landing in the United States, and federal air marshals accompanied the delegation to ensure safe travel.
“We didn’t do that for any other team,” he said.
Mullin also rejected complaints that the team had to leave immediately after matches, comparing the arrangement to NFL teams routinely flying home after games.
“The game was over. Let them get back to the hotel, their base camp, where they’re at,” he said, noting that the U.S. men’s national team similarly flew back to its Southern California base after a match in Seattle.
Behind the scenes, Mullin said Iran presented by far the greatest security challenge of any delegation participating in the tournament.
“There wasn’t a single team — not a single team — we had to spend more time with, by far, dealing with what Iran was trying to do,” he said.
Mullin alleged Iranian officials attempted to bring into the U.S. numerous individuals with ties to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, including personnel who had never previously traveled with the national team. He also said two individuals presented as media members had connections to IRGC intelligence and claimed another applicant was the subject of an international warrant.
“They were playing games the whole time,” Mullin said. “I’ve talked about them enough. They’re gone, they’re out of the tournament, we don’t deal with them anymore.”
NEW YORK — Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who has spent much of the last month displaying his intense soccer fandom, just said during a press conference on security plans for a busy July Fourth weekend that France and Norway would be playing. He corrected himself after Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said something to him in an aside: In fact it will be Brazil and Norway facing off at the Meadowlands on Sunday. France played Sweden there yesterday and Norway in Boston last Friday.
BELGRADE, Serbia — The blue-clad throngs who arrive in Santa Clara, California, today for Bosnia and Herzegovina’s match against the United States will not only be rooting for a national team that has already advanced farther in a World Cup than ever before. They will also be cheering for Palestine.
That has been a staple of every stop made by Bosnian fans on their movements through North America, from a fan march in Toronto to the streets of Los Angeles before the Switzerland match to the stands in Seattle. It reflects a strong current of pro-Palestinian solidarity in the Muslim-majority Balkan nation, where many draw a direct line between their own war and the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.
In 1990s, a coalition of U.S. and European powers, fresh off the internationalist euphoria that followed the end of the Cold War, were determined that the war crimes in Bosnia receive the highest and most professional response international justice could offer.
They set up the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, where the perpetrators of ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity across the region were subjected to rigorous trials led by international prosecutors and judges.
This is how Bosnia spent a painstaking 25 years putting the perpetrators of its worst wartime crimes on trial, culminating in a genocide conviction for those responsible for the Srebrenica massacre, carried out over three days in early July 1995. It is the only European country since the Nuremberg trials to have pursued such action.
Bosnian diaspora communities — many traveling in large numbers to watch the matches in the U.S. — along with people back home, feel a strong connection to what they see as the plight of the Palestinians and the absence of international criminal prosecution for the crimes they believe Israel is committing in Gaza.
The issue is further inflamed by the fact that Bosnian Serb strongman Milorad Dodik — the single most divisive figure in the country and the most fervent denier of the Srebrenica genocide — has weaponized the legacy of the war to curry favor with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Željka Cvijanović, a fellow member of the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats now serving as the Serb representative to the country’s three-headed presidency, also visited Israel in late June.
Many of the other World Cup competitors whose fans most fervently embraced the Palestinian cause — including Jordanians who wore keffiyehs to their matches in Santa Clara — have been eliminated from the tournament.
LONDON — Much of Westminster will knock off work at 5 p.m. U.K. time for England’s round of 32 match against the Democratic Republic of Congo. Presumptive PM Andy Burnham is planning to watch with aides, while Keir Starmer, the man he is likely to replace on July 20, plans to watch in 10 Downing Street. Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch has a shadow Cabinet meeting at 4 p.m. but is set to end it promptly so she can watch from her suite of opposition offices in parliament.
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