Politics

Trump’s shadow hangs over the Winter Olympics

Published

5 months ago

February 5, 2026

President Donald Trump won’t be representing the U.S. at the opening ceremony of the Italian Olympic Games in Milan’s famous San Siro Stadium. But his shadow will surely loom over the two-week-long sporting spectacle, which kicks off Friday.

The president’s repeated jabs at longtime partners, his inconsistent tariff policy and repeated plays for Greenland have shown just how much he’s shifted the traditional world order. The resulting international “rupture,” as described by Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney in Davos last month, has turned beating the Americans in Italy from a crowning sporting achievement to an even greater moral imperative for the president’s rivals.

“This is life and death,” said Charlie Angus, a former member of Parliament in Canada with the New Democratic Party and prominent Trump critic. “If it’s the semifinals and we’re playing against the United States, it’s no longer a game. And that’s profound.”

The Trump administration has big plans for these Olympics, according to a State Department memo viewed by Blue Light News. It hopes to “promote the United States as a global leader in international sports” and build momentum for what the White House sees as a “Decade of Sport in America,” which will see the country host the Summer Olympics and Paralympics in 2028 and the Winter Olympics and Paralympics in 2034, as well as the FIFA World Cup this summer.

But a combative administration may well complicate matters.

He’s sending Vice President JD Vance, a longtime critic of Europe’s leaders, to lead the presidential delegation in Milan. Then there’s ICE. News that American federal immigration agents would be on the ground providing security during the games sparked widespread fury throughout the country.

Trump has also clashed with many of the countries vying to top the leaderboards in Milan. Since returning to the White House in January, he’s antagonized Norway, which took home the most medals in the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, over a perceived Nobel Peace Prize snub and clashed repeatedly with Canada, which finished fourth.

Italy goalie Gabriella Durante skates before a women's hockey game against France at the Milano Santagiulia ice hockey arena at the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics, in Milan, on Feb. 5, 2026.

“We’re looking at the world in a very different light,” Angus said. “And we’re looking at a next-door neighbor who makes increasingly unhinged threats towards us. So to go to international games and pretend that we’re all one happy family, well, that’s gone.”

Trump has also sparred with Emmanuel Macron, the president of France, (the 13th-place finisher in Beijing) and threatened a military incursion in pushing Denmark (a Scandinavian country which curiously hasn’t medaled in the Winter Olympics since 1998) to cede Greenland.

All while seeming to placate Russia, whose athletes competed under a neutral flag in 2022 due to doping sanctions and secured the second-most medals in the Beijing games, which ended just days before President Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine.

The Olympics have long collided with geopolitics, from Russia’s ban in response to its war in Ukraine to South Africa’s 32-year-long exclusion as punishment for apartheid. And Beijing’s time in the limelight was marred by a U.S. diplomatic boycott over China’s treatment of its Uyghur population.

White House spokesperson Anna Kelly said Trump’s political agenda of putting America First is paying off.

“Fairer trade deals are leveling the playing field for our farmers and workers, NATO allies are taking greater responsibility for their own defense, and drugs and criminals are no longer entering our country,” she said. “Instead of taking bizarre vendettas against American athletes, foreign leaders should follow the President’s lead by ending unfettered migration, halting Green New Scam policies, and promoting peace through strength.”

When reached for comment, the State Department deferred to the White House about the political ramifications of the games. A State Department spokesperson also highlighted the role that its Diplomatic Security Service would serve as the security lead for Americans throughout Olympic and Paralympic competition.

Hockey, arguably one of the winter Olympic Games’ highest-profile sports, has already been roiled by Trump’s global agenda. Just look at last year’s 4 Nations Face-Off, which pitted the U.S. and Canada against each other in preliminary play and then again in the final.

Canadian fans booed the American national anthem mercilessly when the two sides faced off in Montreal. Trump called the U.S. locker room on the morning of the final and showered the Great North with incessant 51st state gibes, and then-Prime Minister Justin Trudeau responded boisterously when Canada won the championship in overtime.

“You can’t take our country — and you can’t take our game,” he wrote.

The American men’s team will play Denmark in Milan — fittingly — on Valentine’s Day, and could see the Canadians at the medal rounds.

“I’m sure they’ll concentrate on the events they compete in rather than get involved in politics,” Anders Vistisen, a member of the European Parliament from Denmark, said of his compatriots in a statement. “Maybe Trump’s antics will give them even more motivation? Who knows?”

Elsewhere in Italy, Americans Sean Doherty, Maxime Germain, Campbell Wright, and Paul Schommer will match up against 2022 champion Quentin Fillon Maillet from France in biathlon throughout the games. And Canadian short track speedskater and medal favorite William Dandjinou will look to hold off multiple Americans at the Milano Ice Skating Arena.

“With the current American president, no one knows what he will do or say tomorrow,” said legendary goaltender Dominik Hasek, a gold medalist with Czechia in the 1998 Nagano Games and a one-time rumored presidential candidate in his home nation. “If he doesn’t make negative comments about athletes from other countries in the coming weeks, everything will be fine. But that could change very quickly after one of his frequent hateful attacks.”

Hasek, a frequent critic of Putin’s war in Ukraine, said Trump “has antagonized most of the people of the democratic world with his attitudes and actions.”

“With the current American president, no one knows what he will do or say tomorrow,” said legendary goaltender Dominik Hasek, a Gold medalist with Czechia in the 1998 Nagano Games.

That doesn’t exactly scream “Faster, Higher, Stronger — Together,” the Olympic motto revamped by the IOC in 2021.

“It was personal,” Angus, the former Canadian lawmaker, said of the tense Canada-U.S. showdown in the 4 Nations Face-Off last year. “This was deeply personal. We were at the moment of people brawling in the stands, and that was because of Donald Trump and the constant insults. He turned that game into war.”

But now at the Olympics, the U.S. is just one of more than 90 nations competing. And Trump’s international critics say they’re determined to not let their anger with Trump ruin the games — if just not to give him the satisfaction.

“People are done with Donald Trump’s flagrant attempts to goad us and poke at us and insult us,” Angus said. “It’s like water off our back. We’re a much tougher people than we were last year.”

Nahal Toosi contributed to this report.

Politics

The drone war over World Cup skies

Published

52 minutes ago

June 26, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

The federal government wants credit for mounting the World Cup’s best defense.

The Transportation Security Administration this week said its federal air marshals have seized more than 300 drones that broke through Federal Aviation Administration airspace restrictions imposed over World Cup stadiums or at nearby fan events in what the Department of Homeland Security called “the most comprehensive airspace security and drone mitigation effort in U.S. history.”

As part of that effort, local Federal Bureau of Investigation offices across Atlanta, Miami, New York, Dallas and elsewhere have released rolling social-media updates on their counter-drone enforcement activities, including the interception of dozens of unauthorized drones, along with warnings to recreational drone operators to keep their aircraft grounded.

“These incidents reflect the reality that drones are becoming part of the security environment surrounding major public events,” Michael Robbins, president of the Association for Uncrewed Vehicle Systems International, told Blue Light News.

“The encouraging news is that authorities successfully detected and mitigated these incursions, demonstrating both the professionalism of the teams on the ground and the value of investing in effective counter-unmanned aircraft systems capabilities,” said Robbins, whose group represents drone manufacturers and suppliers.

Beyond countermeasures kits that include portable or wearable detection or jamming tools, law enforcement officials and security personnel are also utilizing enhanced training measures at the FBI’s drone training center in Alabama, which opened last year. FBI director Kash Patel boasted to Congress that “every single agency across the country wants their police officers there.”

As enforcement ramps up, a more fundamental question persists: whether many of the operators behind these incursions are knowingly breaking the rules or simply unaware they are flying where they shouldn’t be.

A former drone industry executive, granted anonymity to candidly discuss how drone policy has evolved in the last few years, said some drone manufacturers have simply put more responsibility on operators to figure out restrictions instead of baking it into the technology.

“Stepped up enforcement has some deterrent effect, but ultimately technology solutions will be most effective at preventing or mitigating incursions,” the executive said.

For now, as large-scale events continue across the U.S. — including the upcoming Olympic games — the next phase of thwarting drones must include “continuing to modernize our counter-UAS framework, expanding the deployment of proven detection and mitigation capabilities, and ensuring federal, state, and local partners have the clear authorities and tools they need to protect the public while preserving the tremendous economic and public safety benefits that drones provide every day,” added Robbins.

Politics

Norway is pillaging hearts and minds

Published

5 hours ago

June 26, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Norway’s fans became famous around New York City for plopping down wherever they are and pretending to row like Vikings — in Times Square, in rain-drenched parking lots before matches and inside MetLife Stadium so vigorously the stadium swayed. Today they bring the “Viking row” to Boston for Norway’s heavyweight clash with France.

For Norwegians, embracing ancestors known above all for rapacious pillaging is complicated stuff, but the country’s leaders are hoping to send some modern messages about their country, too. Princess Ingrid Alexandra and Prince Sverre Magnus’ first visit abroad without their parents was to cheer on Norway’s first men’s World Cup appearance in 28 years.

A former member of parliament and foreign minister, Ambassador Anniken Huitfeldt was posted to Washington in 2024, just in time for the election of President Donald Trump. At a New York party for Norwegian fans, she was treated like a celebrity.

When I met her in the crowd, another journalist from back home stopped to say hello. Some guys asked to be in a photo with her. After the interview was over and I was in the middle of a tailgate outside, a random Norwegian volunteered to help me understand some of the chants – and it turns out he said he knew her, too.

This interview was conducted in English, and Huitfeldt’s remarks have been edited for length and clarity.

This seems like an amazing exercise of soft power. The Viking army — you see Norwegians in the subway, on the escalators.

I think it’s been very important to how we look upon ourselves. Because the Viking history has always been important for Norwegians, but we never brag about it in a way. And we haven’t focused that much about it.

But here, it has really made us proud. And I think a lot of people were a little bit embarrassed at the beginning. But when they saw how well it was received here in the U.S., we have really taken part in it. So now we are super happy. I mean, everybody’s joining.

How are you using it for your job, beyond just sort of introducing Norway to Americans and North Americans? Is it helping you do diplomacy?

We put a lot of effort in social media. We have given interviews before to POLITICO about our chef and diplomacy, and we’ve got so much attention. But the video where we are rowing, the staff at the embassy, has been spread to 3 million people. [It had more than 4 million views by Wednesday.]

Hard pivot to foreign policy: Are you looking for anything in particular out of the NATO meeting this week with the president? Is there something Norway would like to see?

I think it’s very important to focus on how European countries over the years have really stepped up. And now it’s a pretty good deal for the U.S., I think, the whole NATO package. Because we spend more on defense than the U.S. does when it comes to GDP, and at the same time we purchase very much of the weapons from the U.S. that we send to Ukraine.

And not to forget how we are taking care of American security up in the high north. I mean all those nuclear weapons on the Kola Peninsula — the biggest nuclear arsenal in the world — those weapons are not directed at Oslo, but at the United States. So we are also taking care of American homeland security up in the high north. So it’s a pretty good package for the American people, the cooperation that we have in NATO.

How has the Trump administration’s positioning towards the Arctic, towards Greenland, towards other things, changed your job, or what you expected your job to be?

Well, it has been challenging, especially when it comes to Greenland, where we have been very united with the other European countries. I think we have been very coordinated in how we talk about this, and for us it’s extremely important that we don’t change the geography and borders up in the high north.

Politics

Wes Moore lays out his vision for America

Published

8 hours ago

June 26, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Maryland Gov. Wes Moore is on an Independence Day collision course with President Donald Trump.

Moore is planning to deliver a sweeping speech on patriotism on July Fourth from the Maryland State House in Annapolis — with the aim of counterprogramming what Trump promised would be the “most spectacular TRUMP RALLY of them all, a ‘TRIBUTE TO AMERICA.’”

In an interview with Blue Light News, Moore said he thinks Trump is going to spend the 250th anniversary of the nation’s founding talking about himself — but that America deserves something more.

“The president is incapable of meeting the moment,” Moore said.

In his split-screen remarks, called “The Work of Patriotism,” the former Army captain and Afghanistan veteran is expected to “make the case that Democrats cannot cede patriotism to Donald Trump — and that love of country is not about loyalty to one man, one party, or one political spectacle,” according to Ammar Moussa, Moore’s press secretary.

Moore will “draw a contrast between patriotism and nationalism, making the case that nationalism is about allegiance to a person or a movement, while patriotism is about allegiance to the country and the people who make it worth fighting for,” Moussa said.

“We are a nation of strength because we are a nation of sacrifice,” Moore will say, according to a draft of his remarks.

But Moore insisted he’s not trying to be a foil to the president.

“I’m trying to be a foil to darkness,” Moore said. “I think I’m trying to be a foil to fatalism. I think I’m trying to be a foil to self-serving ideologies. What I want people to know in all this is that I believe strongly that we need a future-facing vision for this nation.”

That’s exactly what someone who’s “not running” for president would say, right? Standard Maryland gubernatorial reelection fare.

The speech follows a pattern of growing visibility for Moore. He’s been on numerous podcasts and in new media. The day after his speech, he’s expected to appear on an episode of Jubilee’s “Surrounded,” a booking that’s becoming routine for prominent Democratic figures such as Pete Buttigieg, Texas Senate candidate James Talarico and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.).

On Saturday, Moore is heading to battleground Michigan, a potential early 2028 primary state, where he’ll stump for gubernatorial candidate Jocelyn Benson in Detroit, Saginaw and Flint — all pivotal locales to win reelection in Maryland, of course.

Moore has said he’s “laser-focused” on his 2026 reelection campaign. Or, as he explained in an interview with POLITICO’s Jonathan Martin: “I’m hungry, but I’m not thirsty.”

The Maryland governor also had his own thoughts about what the progressive victories in New York’s primaries mean, and how that insurgent energy could be harnessed by 2028 Democrats.

“I think harnessing the energy means driving for the results that people are aspiring to,” Moore said, citing primary wins in his own backyard too: “I created an entire slate, the Leave No One Behind slate in Maryland that was wildly successful, and if you look at the candidates that I endorsed and supported, you can’t find an ideological thread in them. We endorsed the progressive legislator from Montgomery County, and we supported the prosecutor in Baltimore County.”

In fact, Moore endorsed some 200 candidates across the state, and his advisers say 93 percent have either won or are in the lead.

“What connects them is a belief that the status quo has got to be disrupted,” Moore said.

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