WH in-town pool report #8/ More detailed quotes on World Cup
Sent: Monday, July 6, 2026 11:42 AM
To: DL WHO Wranglers
Subject: WH in-town pool report #8/ More detailed quotes on World Cup
Here are more detailed quotes from the section where POTUS talked about the Folarin Balogun red card and hosting the World Cup generally:
"I spoke to Gianni [Infantino], who's highly respected, who's produced the most successful World Cup in history by, they say, four times. This isn't just a success. I actually said, 'Gianni, we've got all these games. Each one is turning out to be a Super Bowl.' And we have all these games. You know, when you think of it, every game is like a Super Bowl.
"I watched last night. What a game that was with Mexico and England. Two countries – I don't know the players, although I think Kane is a great player. You see, I play golf with him and I like him a lot. He's a good golfer. He's really great. But I watched. You couldn't take your eyes off the game.
"I said Gianni, you have all these games – because they added games – in a country where it's not our main sport, to put it mildly. And this has been four times more successful – he told me last night – the numbers are four times greater.
"They think 50 or 60 million people are going to be watching the game tonight. These are getting to be Super Bowl numbers. But you have a game tonight and they're projecting a minimum of 50 million people watching a game; we call it soccer, it's called football, I guess, but we can't really call it football because there's a little confusion. So you call it soccer; we're the only ones that do that. But we have football and football's great. But I've never seen anything like it.
"So I saw the play and I'm a person that loves sports and was a good athlete. I understand sports really well – really well – and that wasn't a foul. That wasn't even an infraction. That was two guys running full speed that happened to crash into each other.
"You can't take your foot and properly place it on somebody else's foot when you're going – no, these were two great athletes that got tangled up and this referee, who is a little bit suspect, if you check his past – I don't want to say that because I don't like to create controversy – but very suspect. If you like, I'll provide you with the past.
"He made a call that nobody could believe; you know, even people on the other side, they said, 'Oh, we got lucky, wow!' And it was very interesting: they say they don't show 'em in slow motion and I never realised that, I never heard of that before. But they're not allowed to review in slow motion 'cos it's so different, 'cos you'll take one little quarter of a second and you'll see that a hand is touching a neck or you see something. Whereas when you see it in fast motion, it looked like two guys collided, which is really what happened. They got sort of entangled.
"He didn't do anything wrong. He's our best player or one of our best players and he gave him a red card. I didn't know what that meant. I didn't think it meant much. Then I started hearing that that means he can't play in the next game; at least in the next game. I said, boy, that's a big – you know, if it happened to another player it would have been unfair – but when they take your best player – or just about, they have some great players – and they say, you can't play, that's very unfair.
"You know, it's one thing to penalise somebody for the game but how do you penalise them for a game that hasn't been played yet? It's very unfair. You can't do that so yes, I asked for a review by Fifa. I spoke to a man who's highly respected, and by the way, whose level of respect has gone up tenfold.
"And he was good before this started but he really pushed it in this country. I'm the one that got them to do it. It was not Biden. Biden was asleep. In fact it was very said because I got him to do it and, if the progression was normal, I would have been retired. Now the Democrats are saying, 'Man, we should have just let him have his four years. We would have had him gone.'
"But you know, the saddest thing is I got the Olympics and I got the World Cup. I tried to claim 250 years, too, but that didn't work. They said that one is what it is. No, I tried but it didn't work. I got him, I was so proud of it, and then I realised I wouldn't be president during it because I would have been out of office by that time – I felt badly.
"The beautiful thing about what I did is I ran – I never thought of it – and then all of a sudden I realised, you know, I just got the Olympics and I totally got that myself. And I just got Fifa; I got that myself. We gave a little piece to Canada, gave a little piece to Mexico. I got that myself. And a lot of people helped like that man right there, Kevin [McCarthy]. A lot people, you know that, we work hard on that and we got it.
"But what we didn't know is how successful it was going to be. I didn't know. I said, Gianni, is anyone going to show up? Because, you know, we're not – again, we we're not really – I think soccer is doing much better but I couldn't imagine.
"If you would have said to any very smart – people like this – that the numbers they're doing now would be happening, they've never seen anything like it. Think of it, take the most successful Olympics or the most successful Fifa and you look at what's happening. You look at the numbers for this in the United States, just compared to Fifa, and it's numerous times more. It's not like 10% more, 2% more or 5% more which is more expected. It's like four times more successful than anything they've ever done. In fact, I said to Gianni, let's do it again next time and he said, that would be hard. I said, no, no, you do it again but at the same time you give it to somebody else for the next one. I don't know. It's a little crazy idea.
"All I did, I asked for a review because I didn't think it was a foul. And, you know again, I'm good at this stuff. I didn't think it's a foul, I thought it was two great athletes that crashed into each other and got entangled. That was not a guy punching somebody in the face or anything, you know, would be different.
"If they wouldn't allow a top player, maybe the best, maybe among the best players on the team, to play, I think it would have had a big stain. And I related just that view: I didn't tell him what to do, I can't tell him what to do and I don't believe he made the decision. I think it was a committee that made the decision and they made the right decision because, number one, it wasn't a foul.
" And you want to see a game with your best players. You don't want to say, how would you feel if I took Messi out? Look, he ran into somebody. Or took Ronaldo. Ronaldo, you bumped into somebody, we're going to take you out of the game. He's great. Or Harry Kane. Harry Kane, we're going take you out of game, Harry, because you happened to hit somebody a little bit harder than. You can't do that. If you would have taken him out, I think it would have really stained this incredible champion –.
"We've got to have our best players and Belgium's got a great team, by the way. We've got to have our best players and they have to have their best and, if we win or we lose, it's fair. Otherwise let's say we lost him and we lose the game, it would be a terrible thing. So, I think they made a really brilliant decision. I think the referee's call was horrible. Nobody talks about that. They talk about the red card like it's fine.
"The referee's decision to red card – I didn't know what the hell a red card was. When I found out, I said, you've got to be kidding. This guy just hands up, OK, your best player's not going to play next week or in the next game. I said wow, that's a lot of power, that's terrible. But then I looked at his past and it wasn't so great."
Asked if he will speak to the Belgian prime minister before the game, POTUS replied:
"I didn't think of it but I would. He's a good man. I will tell you this. The people in Belgium, if they win the game, they can be very proud. If they would win the game with a player missing, it would have been a different feeling. You can't do that. And I'm very glad.
"All I did was ask for a review. I didn't say, 'You have to do this'. This man is a smart, tough man. Gianni Infantino is a smart, tough man and his stock has gone through the roof because the job he's done has been great. And I feel we have to have all the best players on the field. We can't take the best players."
ENDS
David Smith
Washington bureau chief
Guardian News & Media