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≡ TRUMP ON 2026 & 2028 ≡
U.S. President Donald Trump, speaking with the press during a meeting with Argentine President Javier Milei, talked once again about moving FIFA World Cup 2026 matches if needed.
Asked about his continuing feud with Boston Mayor Michelle Wu and the seven World Cup matches to be held in Foxborough’s Gillette Stadium, Trump said:
“We could take them away. I love the people of Boston. I know the games are sold out, but your mayor is not good. …
“If somebody [referring to Wu] is doing a bad job and I think there’s unsafe conditions, I would call Gianni [Infantino/SUI] the head of FIFA – who’s phenomenal – and I would say let’s move it to another location.
“And he would do that. He wouldn’t love to do it, but he’d do it, very easily he’d do it. And this is the right time to do it.
“If I thought Boston was doing something that was going to be, cause safety conditions for the World Cup [to be bad] … I could say the same thing for the Olympics because we have events that are in different locations for the Olympics. It’s based in L.A.
“If I thought L.A. was not going to be prepared properly, I would move it to another location, if I had to. For that one, I’d probably have to get a different kind of a permission, but we would do that.”
That’s a reference to the International Olympic Committee, which has a contract with the City of Los Angeles to hold the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games, which the first Trump Administration helped to bring to the U.S. and signed guarantees on multiple access and security issues.
Trump pivoted from Boston to talking about the California Governor:
“Gavin Newsom, he’s got to get his act together because had we not gone in at the beginning of my term, had we not gone in with a very strong, powerful force, they would have lost L.A.”
Trump ordered in 2,000 National Guard troops on 7 June, to protect Federal facilities from demonstrators against immigration raids by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) service, and added 900 Marines a couple of days later. The protests finished on 15 June.
Trump came back to the World Cup in Boston issue, finishing with, “Boston better clean up their act, that’s all I can say.”
Gillette Stadium has five group-stage matches assigned as well as a round-of-32 and a quarterfinal match. Trump raised the issue of moving matches in a media briefing on 25 September, but did not single out a specific location:
“It will be safe for the World Cup. If I think it isn’t safe, we’ll move it into a different city, absolutely. … It’s actually a very fair question. If I think it’s not safe, we’re going to move it out of that city.”
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