The Dictatorship
Democrats toe a line on Israel as AIPAC’s grip on Congress starts to slip
For decades, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee operated as the quiet enforcer of a bipartisan consensus: Politicians of both parties supported Israel — AIPAC made sure of it — and the U.S.-Israel relationship was widely understood to be a non-issue in campaigns.
That arrangement publicly ruptured this week with a House floor vote that split Democrats, including their leadership, on whether to cut off military aid to Israel over its actions in Gaza and the West Bank.
The amendment was symbolic. Lawmakers in both chambers have rejected similar versions for years, and this one, like the others, was never going to pass.
But the numbers voting in favor of such measures have surged in tandem with the mounting Democratic primary wins by candidates who built their campaigns on opposing Israel’s war in Gaza, often over AIPAC-backed opponents.
In May, a record 40 Senate Democrats voted against further military aid to Israel, a roll call that would have been unthinkable two cycles ago. On Wednesday, 103 out of 211 Democrats voted similarly on the House amendment.
Some of those voting against the amendment to cut $3.3 billion in security aid to Israel, including Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., said they had concerns about its scope and political ramifications but agreed with its message.
Some of those voting in favor of cutting off aid, including Democratic Whip Katherine Clark and former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, said they didn’t actually want it to pass but cast their votes to mark the need for a fundamental shift in U.S. policy toward Israel.
“For the good of the Israeli people and the Palestinian people, it is clear that U.S. policy must change,” Pelosi said after her vote. “The United States must be a force for security and stability. The American people are rightly demanding an end to a perpetual cycle of war, and the Netanyahu government cannot maintain its current course.”
In April, a Pew Research Center survey found that 80% of Democrats now hold an unfavorable view of Israel, up from 69% a year earlier and 53% in 2022. Those feelings are showing up at the ballot box in Democratic primaries:
- In New Jersey, progressive organizer Cries Mejia ran openly against AIPAC and won her February special election for a New Jersey congressional seat after AIPAC affiliates spent millions on attack ads targeting a relatively moderate candidateformer Rep. Tom Malinowski. Then in May, Army veteran and physician Adam Hamaviwho operated on children in Gaza, beat out a crowded field of candidates hoping to replace Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman, who announced her retirement last year. Hamawy had the backing of American Priorities, a new pro-Palestine super PAC founded to counter the power of AIPAC.
- In Illinois, Evanston Mayor Daniel Biss, who is Jewish, won a House primary in March after explicitly criticizing AIPAC; the lobbying group spent at least $5 million trying to defeat him before dialing back its attacks in the final days, when it became clear his replacement could be a candidate still more critical of Israel.
- In Denver, attorney and first-time candidate Melat Kiros defeated longtime Rep. Diana DeGette, a progressive Democrat backed by AIPAC, by making Gaza advocacy a centerpiece of the campaign.
- In New York last month, a trio of House candidates endorsed by Mayor Zohran Mamdani triumphed: Former city comptroller Brad Lander ousted Rep. Dan Goldman, a two-term Brooklyn Democrat endorsed by AIPAC, in a contest between two men who embrace the terms “liberal” and “Zionist.” Union organizer Claire Valdez snagged the nomination for an open seat encompassing parts of Queens and Brooklyn, saying “free Palestineorganize your union and join DSA” in her victory speech. And in Upper Manhattan, first-time candidate Darializa Avila Chevalier — a Gaza activist who attended a pro-Palestinian rally in Times Square the day after Hamas killed roughly 1,200 people, the overwhelming majority of them Israeli — defeated Rep. Adriano Espaillat, the chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, who was backed by an AIPAC-affiliated super PAC.
Asked about its recent losses in primaries, AIPAC referred MS NOW to the group’s statement from June: “While disappointed that some of our endorsed candidates did not prevail, our community is proud to support pro-Israel Democrats and Republicans who stand for our values, and we are encouraged that voters in races across the country this primary season continue to choose serious, thoughtful leaders who support a strong U.S.-Israel partnership.”
The next major test comes in August, in Michigan’s Democratic Senate primarywhere AIPAC-backed Rep. Haley Stevens faces Abdul El-Sayed, a Mamdani-aligned progressive endorsed by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. AIPAC has spent more than $49 million on Stevens’ behalf, while El-Sayed has repeatedly ruled out AIPAC money.
The Democratic referendum
For a generation of Democratic politicians, AIPAC’s endorsement was an asset and its opposition a campaign-ending threat. Criticism of the group or its mission risked being labeled antisemitic.
“Twenty years ago, everybody acknowledged how powerful AIPAC was and hardly anyone was willing to take it on or defy what it wanted. There was even something of a taboo talking about it,” said Stephen Walt, a professor of international affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School and co-author of “The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy.”
Now, for a growing share of the party’s electorate, that calculus has reversed. For some Democratic voters, AIPAC’s involvement in a race is itself a reason to vote against the candidate it backs. A candidate’s public opposition to both AIPAC and to Israel’s policies, on the other hand, is seen by some as a sign of “moral clarity and moral courage,” said Usamah Andrabi, communications director at Justice Democrats, the progressive PAC that helped elect Ocasio-Cortez.
AIPAC remains influential, but “it’s no longer an unchallengeable leviathan,” Walt said, likening it to any other domestic lobby, such as the National Rifle Association.
“It’s pretty open now to ask serious questions about the nature of the U.S. relationship with Israel, the amount of support that we give it — both military aid and diplomatic backing,” said Walt, who has had to defend his work against criticism from pro-Israel groups.
For Democrats, the reckoning began in 2024, when President Joe Biden’s campaign was dogged by protesters pressing his administration to push for a ceasefire in Gaza and an embargo on sending arms to Israel.
The human toll of Israel’s response to the Hamas attack — which killed more than 20,000 Palestinians in Gaza within the first three months, a toll that has since reached at least 73,000, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry — spurred the creation of the Uncommitted movement, which sought to register disapproval of Biden’s Middle East policies by urging Democratic voters to support “uncommitted” rather than Biden on their primary ballots. After he withdrew from the presidential race, many in the movement carried their opposition forward in declining to support Vice President Kamala Harris.
Then came Mamdani, who built his 2025 New York mayoral campaign in part on open support for Palestinians and opposition to U.S. military aid to Israel. He did not flinch from calling Israel’s actions in Gaza a genocide, and went from polling at 1% to winning by 9 points in the city with the largest Jewish population in the country.
Mamdani’s win was more than a long shot victory. It was evidence that a pro-Palestinian message could be an asset rather than a liability in a Democratic primary. The message for the rest of the party was hard to miss: On Israel, the primary electorate had begun rewarding the candidates willing to criticize its policies, and punishing those who wouldn’t.
That pressure has reshaped how some Democratic elected officials talk, even those closer to the ideological center. Gov. Gavin Newsom of California, a prominent 2028 White House prospect, has been visibly recalibrating. In a March “Pod Save America” interview, he likened Israel to an “apartheid” state and said the U.S. had no choice but to reconsider military support.
Weeks later, he told Politico he regretted the word and drew a line many in the party, like Pelosi, are trying to draw: “I revere the state of Israel. I’m proud to support the state of Israel. I deeply, deeply oppose Bibi Netanyahu’s leadership.” On accepting AIPAC money, he was unequivocal: “Never have and never will.”
There are still plenty of Democrats who proudly accept AIPAC’s support and win with it. Rep. Greg Landsman of Ohio raked in $593,169 from AIPAC-affiliated groups and individuals this cycle. His primary opponent tried to tag him “Genocide Greg” for his full-throated support of Israel; Landsman carried 68% of the vote.
Although Landsman speaks passionately about the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, which he calls “awful,” his voting record reflects continued support for Israel.
“I just think it’s really important for Israel to maintain its ability to defend itself. And sometimes it means getting in front of issues as opposed to sitting there and waiting for people to attack you,” Landsman told MS NOW.
But he too pointed to Netanyahu rather than Israel itself as the problem, and agreed that “there should be a debate” about what the U.S.-Israel “partnership looks like.”
The Republican shift
The change has not been confined to the left. A month ago in Kentucky, Rep. Thomas Massie lost his primary to Ed Gallrein, a former Navy SEAL who was backed by Trump and was the beneficiary of more than $9 million in AIPAC-affiliated spending. Massie — a seven-term incumbent and one of the few Republicans willing to break publicly with Trump — wanted everyone to know who he blamed.
Facing his supporters on primary night, Massie opened with a joke about the man who had just defeated him. “I would have come out sooner,” the Kentuckian said, “but I had to call my opponent and concede, and it took a while to find Ed Gallrein in Tel Aviv.”
The line drew laughs. But it also touched on an old and ugly insinuation — that a rival’s true loyalties lie abroad — even as it captured something real about a fault line now running through the Republican coalition.
Massie, who sponsored the most recent amendment to cut off aid to Israel, drew the ire of AIPAC, which denounced him as a troublemaker seeking to undermine U.S .-Israeli relations.
“We are deeply appreciative of the 314 Republicans and Democrats who voted to reject Thomas Massie’s latest anti-Israel effort and are disappointed by the 103 Democrats who voted with Massie to weaken America and our ally Israel,” AIPAC posted. “This so-called messaging vote on Israel’s security sends a dangerous signal to both our allies and our enemies around the world.”
Some of the conditions that produced the New York sweep are also contributing to this: a Republican electorate that, while still broadly supportive of Israel, is fracturing at its generational edges. That same Pew Research Center survey from April found that 57% of Republicans under 50 now view Israel unfavorably, up from 50% the year before; in both parties, majorities of voters under 50 now rate Israel negatively.
A bloc of prominent MAGA figures — former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly and former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene among them — have broken with Trump in his second term. Among the reasons, by their own account, is that they no longer believe the U.S. should support Israel unconditionally.
There are notable differences in the forces reshaping the two parties, however.
Democrats are responding to a base that increasingly views the war in Gaza as a moral failure; Republicans are splintering along generational lines and around a MAGA media ecosystem newly willing to question the alliance.
But the two currents converge on the same institution: For decades, AIPAC helped set the boundaries of acceptable debate over Israel in American politics. Those boundaries are now being tested from both sides at once — and increasingly, they are not holding.
Erum Salam is a breaking news reporter for MS NOW, with a focus on how global events and foreign policy shape U.S. politics. She previously was a breaking news reporter for The Guardian.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Jimmy Carter used to be one of President Donald Trump ’s favorite political targets, a catchall foil for feckless Democrats that he could jeer at to make himself look strong and decisive.
But lately, Trump’s sentiments on the 39th president have become more wistful as he faces some of the same challenges the late Carter did.
Those include the war in Iran with no end in sight — and now escalating as the U.S. moves to control the Strait of Hormuz — and inflation, a drag on the economy Trump hasn’t tamed despite long insisting that his business background would wipe it out.
The comparison seems to be on Trump’s mind, too. Asked last month why he didn’t dispatch U.S. Special Forces into Iran to forcibly remove its enriched uraniumhe responded, “I didn’t feel like being Jimmy Carter.”
That recalled the failed 1980 raid to free U.S. hostages that killed eight American servicemen. Trump also said in March that the unsuccessful mission “cost them the election” against Ronald Reagan in 1980, sounding cognizant of political realities in a way he didn’t when using Carter as a punchline.
The shift in tone coincides with Trump’s increased focus on his personal legacy and comes as the parallels between the two presidents become harder to ignore.
“I think it is dawning on him — it’s getting through even his thick skull — that he’s kicked over a hornet’s nest and his presidency might be remembered for some of the same things Jimmy Carter’s presidency is,” said Jonathan Alter, author of “His Very Best: Jimmy Carter, A Life.”
Despite some similarities, the two had glaring differences
Asked about Trump’s change in tone on Carter and the two facing overlapping challenges, White House spokesperson Olivia Wales said, “Trump will never allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon” and “remains laser-focused on implementing his proven economic agenda to lower costs.”
“The president is a one-of-a-kind leader who will always unapologetically advance America’s interests,” Wales said in a statement. “The only legacy he is concerned with is making America greater than ever before.”
Kori Schake, a former member of George W. Bush’s National Security Council, said she doesn’t think Trump is reassessing Carter. “He doesn’t stitch facts together and create theories,” she said.
Still, Trump’s more recent comments are a long way from his 2024 reelection campaign, when he routinely called Joe Biden “the worst” president who made Carter look “brilliant” by comparison. Trump still frequently mentions Carter, who died two years ago at age 100, but usually to incorrectly suggest that he was wary of mail-in ballots.
Other disparities between the two are legion.
Carter was married to his wife, Rosalynn, for 77 years, was deeply religious and pledged to “never knowingly lie to the American people.” Trump is twice divorced, relishes cursing publicly and offers a never-ending onslaught of falsehoods.
As president, Carter placed his family’s peanut business in a blind trust. Control of the Trump Organization has transferred to Trump’s sons, but the president took in nearly $1.2 billion from his crypto businesses last year while not being shy about turning his presidency into a major source of personal benefit in other ways.
Speaking in 1977, Carter declared, “We are now free of that inordinate fear of communism.” Trump has seized on primary wins by progressive Democrats to constantly stoke new fears about communism.
Carter also won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002. Trump hasn’t, despite declaring himself more deserving than any of the award’s past recipients.
The two have inflation and Iran in common
While inflation plagued both presidents, Carter had it much worse, facing a peak inflation rate of 14.7% in April 1980. Consumer prices rose 4.2% this May from a year earlier — a three-year high — and though they fell sharpl y from May to June, that decline included lower gas prices fueled by a U.S.-Iran ceasefire. That deal is now in tattersdriving up oil prices again.
Trump suggested he didn’t think about Americans’ financial woes when it comes to Irana war he started in conjunction with Israel in February. More recently, he shrugged off inflation concerns. But resolution has proved tricky and U.S. attacks have intensified anew after Iran’s attacks on commercial ships in the Strait of Hormuz.
Like Trump, Carter was also bedeviled by the strait, declaring during his 1980 State of the Union address that the situation “demands the participation of all those who rely on oil from the Middle East and who are concerned with global peace and stability.”
Another Trump-Carter parallel was the Democrat having considered military action to seize Kharg Islandthough he ultimately decided against it so as not to jeopardize the hostages. Trump targeted the island with U.S. strikes early in the war, looking to thwart Iranian oil exports, and has threatened it again.
Schake, a senior fellow and director of foreign and defense policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, noted a key difference was “while the Carter administration gave serious consideration to attacking Kharg Island, the reason they didn’t do it was they didn’t want to be at war with Iran.”
“And we’re already at war with Iran,” she said.
Alter said Iran tried to hurt Carter’s reelection chances and raised the possibility that they may do the same to Trump’s Republican Party ahead of the November midterm elections.
“These people are master diplomats, and they proved that during the Carter administration,” Alter said. “They’re proving that again. They’re really good at rope-a-dope.”
Trump now talks up presidential history
The president has lately name-checked many of his predecessors, praising William McKinley ‘s support for tariffs and Teddy Roosevelt as a “great he-man.” Trump said a key reason for reaching the now-imperiled June ceasefire with Iran was to avoid the “economic catastrophe ” that befell Herbert Hoover.
“I’m a student of a lot of history,” Trump said this week.
During his first term, Trump frequently compared his own populist streak to Andrew Jackson’s. He still praises Jackson but has more recently extolled many past presidential recordsincluding those of Democrats like Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
Trump even listed some of Carter’s accomplishments on the “ Walk of Fame” he installed along the White House Colonnade despite displays for other Democrats, such as Barack Obama and Biden, offering biting attacks.
“Trump is thinking of his legacy, and he might have thought that attacking Iran would have enhanced it. But, in fact, it will seriously hurt,” James P. Pfiffner, a professor emeritus at George Mason University and author of several books including “The Character Factor: How We Judge Our Presidents,” said via email.
After his presidency, Alter said, Carter asked Trump for a donation to help build Carter’s presidential library. Trump later wrote that Carter wanted $5 million, but he didn’t answer him.
Then, during Trump’s first term, Carter wrote the president a letter and Trump called to thank him, eventually leaving Carter with the impression that he might serve as a special envoy to China — an offer that never actually materialized.
“If he had learned anything from Carter’s experience — and listened to predictions about the Strait of Hormuz — he would have hesitated,” Pfiffner said of war with Iran. “But he ignored lessons of history and geography.”
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This story has been updated to CORRECT the spelling of the Carter biographer to Jonathan Alter.
The Dictatorship
Changing the meaning of ‘harm’ in the Endangered Species Act will harm endangered species
ByDerrick Z. Jackson
On Tuesday the Trump administration officially published in the Federal Register what may be a mortal blow to the Endangered Species Act, the key law that aided the spectacular recovery of birds like the bald eagle and the peregrine falcon. The administration’s new rule, which was issued by the Interior and Commerce departments and becomes effective Sept. 14, deletes a critical definition of what constitutes “harm” to species on the brink of extinction.
Under the old definition, harm wasn’t limited to actions that directly killed or injured wildlife. Developers, industrial polluters and landowners were also prohibited from rolling out bulldozers and backhoes and causing “significant habitat modification or degradation” that damaged or destroyed endangered species’ “breeding, feeding or sheltering” areas.
There is a whole world of lesser-known toads, salamanders, turtles, bees, butterflies and fishes that could blink out before we know it.
There are 2,300 species listed under the Endangered Species Act. Some of the more widely known species are the northern spotted owlthe California condorthe Florida pantherthe whooping cranethe manatee and some species of wolves. But there is a whole world of lesser-known toads, salamanders, turtles, bees, butterflies and fishes that could blink out before we know it.
It is obvious who benefits from this outrageous change. Oil and gas drillers, building contractors, mining companiesroad construction groups, ranchers and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce have all chafed at the appropriately broad interpretation of “harm.” In one statementthe Independent Petroleum Association of America claimed the Endangered Species act was “destroying economic growth and job creation.” In a bald-faced press release hailing the change, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum called the old rules a “regulatory trap.” The new ones, he said, will “reduce unnecessary permitting, cut compliance costs, and eliminate confusion for landowners, small businesses, energy producers, farmers, ranchers and local governments.”
Now it is wildlife that will be confused, trapped and possibly exterminated with unfettered development. Environmental groups are suing the administrationbut the odds of blocking the new rule are long given our ultraconservative Supreme Court, which has robotically rolled back even environmental protections that have a direct impact on wildlife.
In 2023 the Supreme Court drastically limited the definition of a wetland. In more sane days, the Environmental Protection Agency called wetlands a “biological supermarket.” More than one-third of all the nation’s endangered and threatened species live full time in wetlands, and more than half of such species spend some time in them.
The court ruled against a generous definition of a wetland even though between 2009 and 2019according to the Interior Department under the Biden administration, the nation lost an area of vegetated wetlands larger than the size of Rhode Island. By the way, groups that filed briefs to reduce the scope of wetlands included agricultural interestsmining interests, the U.S. Chamber of Commercethe American Petroleum Instituteand the National Association of Home Builders.
This latest rule is a neon green light inviting developers to plow through the wetlands that are left, cut down more forests, build along sensitive coastlines, cast fishing nets into precious feeding grounds for migratory birds and whales, and dump more pesticides and chemicals. The rule is changing despite many studies showing that the biggest threat to threatened creatures is, in fact, habitat loss. Globally, a 2022 study found that habitat destruction affects 9 of 10 species threatened with extinction. In the United States, a 2019 study published in the journal Conservation Science and Practice found that habitat modification was the most common threat to species listed under the Endangered Species Act. The study said current federal and state regulations “are not adequate enough to prevent habitat loss.” Yet the Trump administration has set up the nation to accelerate the loss.
I am writing and photographing on islands where one of the lesser-known endangered species, the roseate tern, nests.
On the day the administration posted the rule change, I was, to borrow from Otis Redding, literally sittin’ on the dock of the bay, watching these protections roll away. I am writing and photographing on islands where one of the lesser-known endangered species, the roseate ternnests. It is a beautiful bird with sharp, elegant plumage. Like most tern species in North America, that plumage made them a target for gunners in the late 1800s and early 1900s to provide feathers for women’s hats. Even with federal protections, the tern population grew back slowly, partially because of habitat loss in the 20th century.
They are long-distance migrants that zoom from the Northeast to South America for the winter. But before they get there, most roseates make a major pit stop on Cape Cod. They roost at night on strips of beaches and sandbars. “It’s an area for parents to refuel after spending the summer raising their young, and it is a training ground for young, inexperienced birds to work on their hunting skills,” said Don Lyons, director of conservation science at the National Audubon Society’s Seabird Institute, based in Bremen, Maine.
The institute is an outgrowth of Project Puffin, which restored Atlantic puffins to islands in Maine after hunting caused about a century’s absence of the birds. I am the co-author, with the project’s founder, Steve Kress, of two books on that restoration.
Lyons said he was not aware of any major planned development on the Cape where the roseates go, but he warned that all coastal areas where birds either nest, rest or winter are at major risk of many threats with increased development. “More people also mean more raccoons, skunk, coyotes, dogs and domestic cats that could predate on the birds,” he said.
Lyons, who himself migrates to Oregon State University every fall to be a seabird science professor, talked about another bird on the West Coast that is not a household name: the marbled murrelet. It is a small, blocky cousin of puffins seen in Pacific waters. The marbled murrelet, which is listed as threatened in Washington, Oregon and California, is one of the most mysterious and difficult seabirds in North America to study, Lyons said. Unlike many seabirds that nest in dense, noisy colonies, the marbled murrelet flies from the ocean into dense, dark old-growth coastal forests to nest in solitude on the branch of a redwood or Douglas fir, hidden by the tree canopy.
The bird is such a recluse that the first murrelet nest was not discovered until 1974 — and only then by a maintenance worker who was climbing a redwood in a state park. The bird’s breeding habits make it a potential casualty for developers or loggers who could easily claim they didn’t know the bird was in a tree they just cut down. Even if a developer missed a tree with a nest, any thoughtless fragmenting of the forest could allow easier access for nest predators, such as jays, ravens, crows, owls and hawks. According to a Washington state wildlife report last yearnesting habitat losses due to logging have been so “substantial” that the state population of marbled murrelets fell from 7,500 birds in 2015 to 4,400 in 2023.
If puffins nested in trees, we’d probably do a better job of protecting trees.
Don Lyons, director of conservation science at the National Audubon Society’s Seabird Institute
“They’re susceptible to habitat loss because they’re a specialized bird in a resource that has real economic value to people,” Lyons said. He said the bird was symbolic of many species that do not have much of a constituency outside of the conservationists who study them. “They don’t have the charisma of other birds,” Lyons said. “If puffins nested in trees, we’d probably do a better job of protecting trees.”
My colleague Kress, the man who brought puffins back to two islands in Maine, starting in the 1970s with chicks translocated from Canada, said the Trump administration’s elimination of habitat protections was particularly egregious. It was only in the last 15 years that the wintering home of Maine’s puffins started to be understood. As it turned out, some puffins spend the late winter in the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts, 130 miles southeast of Cape Cod.
Because of its wealth of deep-sea corals, and terrain that concentrates nutrients and smaller fish for terns, puffins, turtles, dolphins, rays, sharks and whales, President Barack Obama declared the area a national marine monument in 2016, closed to commercial fishing and oil and gas drilling. This year, Trump reopened the monument to commercial fishing. In a press release touting the potential bounty of tuna, swordfish, mackerel, squid and red crab, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said“Restoring fishing in the Northeast Monument sends a signal that our fishermen are valued in the United States.”
To Kress, the signal is that wildlife no longer has a value. “This is a case of actively causing a species to decline and disappear,” he told me. “This is not a case of mere neglect. You don’t have to kill a bird to harm it. Take habitat away, they’re doomed.”
Derrick Z. Jackson
Derrick Z. Jackson is a Union of Concerned Scientists fellow in climate and energy at the Center for Science and Democracy. A former columnist for The Boston Globe, he’s the co-author of “Project Puffin: The Improbable Quest to Bring a Beloved Seabird Back to Egg Rock.”
I visited Russia with friends for the 2018 FIFA World Cup, and it was one of the great trips of my life.
Entering the country was a breeze. Between chasing matches in three cities, we drifted about with no particular agenda other than entertaining ourselves. We wandered through parks, drank vodka, admired the beautiful architecture, temporarily picked up smoking cigarettes, looked at art and partied day and night. Russia is not known for a warm public culture, but it was easy in such a festive atmosphere to make local friends — some of whom I stayed in touch with long after that summer. The experience went so smoothly, and I felt so good about the experience, that between returning to the States and the end of the World Cup, I somehow found myself rooting for Russia’s team (alongside others) as it progressedeven suspiciously soin the tournament. When I think back on the trip, I remember the rich Russian culture that rarely gets covered in the Western press.
A political scientist might describe my fond memories of my Russia World Cup trip as a perfect example of the efficacy of sportswashing — that is, governments staging sports events to launder their reputation and divert attention from their misdeeds. The World Cup brightened my perspective on Russia: A well-run tournament, organic social connections and pleasant vibes improved my feelings toward the country. I spent little time thinking about Russia’s vicious ruler or authoritarian repression, and my stories about the fun surrounding the games I saw likely encouraged others to consider traveling there, or at least to think of the country a bit more positively.
President Donald Trump was handed a golden opportunity to boost America’s image to international visitors here for the 2026 World Cup. He is the reason, after all, the world is suffering from higher oil prices. He can’t find his way out of a mortifying war he’s clearly losing, tourism is plummetingand his international reputation is in swift decline.
But he blew it.
Trump achieved the opposite of sportswashing. His policies were hostile to visitors, he injected politics into the tournament, and he even brazenly meddled with what was happening on the pitch. In sum, his style of hosting cast the U.S. in an unusually negative light during the most widely watched cultural event in the world. Trump’s inability to see beyond his most reflexive impulses to throw red meat to his base sabotaged the larger opportunity to impress the world and soften his image. His failure to be the welcoming, gracious tournament host mirrors the way he operates with increasing frequency in domestic politics — blinkered, self-defeating. Trump’s modus operandi is one own goal after another, and an embarrassment for the United States.
Trump injected the corrupt kleptocratic energy he governs with into a global sporting event that’s designed to be meritocratic.
World Cup hosts have often relaxed their entrance policies to simplify and expedite the arrival of World Cup ticket holders. Notably, this is true even for countries with restrictive immigration policies, including Russia and Qatarthe last two World Cup hosts. But for far too many people in 2026, a World Cup trip was hellish, if not impossible. This year, The New Yorker observedis “the first time a World Cup host has blocked visitors from participating countries en masse.” Fans from more than a quarter of the countries participating in the tournament faced bans, high rates of visa rejections or restrictions from the U.S. The head of the Jordanian fan association told the BBC he took more than 40 documents with him to his visa appointment, and his application was rejected. “If the head of the fan association was refused, who will be accepted?” he asked. (The U.S. does not provide explanations for why visas are rejected.) A Somali referee was not allowed in the U.S. to do his job. A number of individual playersincluding team members from Iraq and Haiti, struggled to get visas or were detained in airports. Many sports journalists from the Middle East and Africa were denied entry.
The Iranian soccer team got treated like a band of murderers instead of elite professional athletes. Many members of the team’s support staff were barred from entering the U.S., and the team was forced to move its base training camp from the U.S. to Mexico. It was also given less time in the U.S. to prepare and recover after matches. The U.S. government’s mistreatment of the team and its clear attempt to stigmatize it likely affected Iran’s play. In short, the Trump administration wrongly disadvantaged and punished the team from a country he is upset about losing to in a war.
Also during the tournament, the Trump administration made social media posts supporting the U.S. team laced with right-wing nationalist rhetoric, including the slogan “DEFEND THE HOMELAND.” Such posts are antithetical to the World Cup, a tournament widely held as one of the world’s foremost examples of international harmony and exchange.
Trump’s most egregious misstep was aggressively lobbying FIFA President Gianni Infantino”https://www.ms.now/opinion/us-belgium-balogun-trump-red-card”>to reverse FIFA’s one-game suspension for U.S. striker Folarin Balogun after he received what appears to have been an undeserved red card in the the U.S. match with Bosnia-Herzegovina. FIFA reversed the suspension, which The New York Times noted marked “the first time since 1962 that FIFA has allowed a player to appear in a game when they would have been suspended after being sent off in the World Cup.” FIFA did not overturn the call itself, it only rescinded part of the punishment — and only after Trump leaned on the venal Infantino, who has long maintained a fawning posture toward Trump. If FIFA were not cartoonishly corruptit would have resisted pressure from Trump to protect the integrity of the tournament. But FIFA’s corruption is legendaryand after it rolled over, Trump boasted about the sordid affair.
An Austrian friend told me he thought the red card call against Balogun unfairly robbed the American team of a valuable player and he initially wanted the U.S. to win its next match. But after Trump’s intervention, he flipped and rooted for Belgium, and was satisfied by the 4-1 result.
Trump could not even for a brief moment imagine a whole world of people who simply want to see honorable competition and delight in being together for the sake of being together.
I’m sure he wasn’t alone. Belgium’s team went viral mocking Trumpand its soccer association posted on X“Overturn this.” Trump injected the corrupt kleptocratic energy he governs with into a global sporting event that’s designed to be meritocratic, and not only did it not help the U.S. prevail, it resulted in terrible vibes and a burst of cynicism about the event. I couldn’t help but notice an uptick in social media conspiracy theories of FIFA rigging refereeing and results after the episode, a growing suspicion that everything was for sale.
All the vices Trump has displayed during this tournament — win at any cost, revel in cruelty, act with hostility toward outsiders — only make sense as an attempt to excite his shrinking die-hard base. But successful, rational autocrats know how to cater to different audiences and think strategically about unique opportunities, and Trump does care about how he’s received by the international community. A number of Russians bitterly noted to me during the 2018 World Cup that authorities had relaxed law enforcement and taken a shockingly lax attitude toward street demonstrations. They considered it Russia’s attempt to present a deceptive picture of an open society to visitors. Trump could have taken a monthlong break from his usual culture wars — at no cost to his domestic standing — and built up some international political capital. But he can’t help himself. Trump could not even for a brief moment imagine a whole world of people who simply want to see honorable competition and delight in being together for the sake of being together.
None of this is to say that most fans who made it to the U.S. didn’t have a grand time and experience some heart-warming cultural exchanges. But the good feelings of our visitors happened despite Trump and his myriad offenses. The tournament succeeded in generating joy despite Trump’s unholy alliance with Infantino. Instead of allowing those visitors to focus on the best of America, he showed them the worst of himself.
Zeeshan Aleem is a writer and editor for MS NOW. He primarily writes about politics and foreign policy.
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