Venezuela Earthquake Response & World Cup Politics

Good morning. It's Tuesday, July 7, 2006. This is up front. I'm Brian Edwards-Tigger. On today's show, we're two weeks out from twin earthquakes hitting Venezuela's coast. The death toll has topped 3,500, and the government is starting to face a reckoning over its response. We'll speak to Miguel Tinker Salas. And actually, it is Wednesday, July 8th. Sorry about that. In the second half of our program, we'll be joined by Jules Boykopf, Professor of Government and Politics at Pacific University. And a former professional soccer player who played on the U.S. Olympic team, we're going to talk about the politics of the corrupt international organization behind the World Cup and how they have come to a head in scandals over the games being held on the North American continent. All that and more coming up next. After the News. I'm Max Pringle with these headlines. Iran is targeted American military sites in the Gulf, after the U.S. launched strikes on several places in Iran and reinstated sanctions on its oil sales. This came after Iran fired on ships in the Strait of Hormuz. President Trump declared the ceasefire over. John Gambro has more. These strikes on ships in the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf through which about a fifth of all oil and natural gas traded once passed is coming as those ships were trying to avoid being under the control of Iran. There are ships that are going very close to the shores of Oman. The Iranians have insisted that ships must obey its commands and are saying that they will start charging fees on ships moving through that waterway in the next little bit. That's something that's a... by both the Gulf Arab states and the United States. The Strait of Hormuz has been considered an international waterway for decades. Now, Iran has said that it did suffer attacks. It's reported explosions in the southern part of the country. The U.S. Military Central Command says over 80 targets were hit and it strikes. They say the majority of those targets were small, fast boats used by Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard to harass shipping in the region. Meanwhile, we've had missile sirens go off in both Bahrain and Kuwait. Now, this is what we've seen previously in rounds of violence that have shaken the interim deal. The Americans and the... Iranians are trying to negotiate a permanent end to the Iran war. That would include a deal over Iran's nuclear program and other issues like the Strait of Hormuz. That's John Gambril. The Danish Prime Minister Meta Fredrickson said today that Greenland is not for sale during the annual NATO summit being held in Ankara Turkey. The remarks came after President Trump renewed his call for the Danish territory to be brought under U.S. control. Fredrickson said Denmark would defend Greenland and called on fellow NATO countries to come to Denmark's aid if Greenland is attacked. Iceland's Prime Minister said in remarks today in Ankara that Greenland's people do not wish to be part of the U.S. and that NATO allies should focus on the threat from Russia.

European leaders at the annual summit are trying to show increased military capabilities as the U.S. focus shifts from defending Europe. Also, today, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said that overnight U.S. strikes on Iran were necessary. Officials say Russian drone and missile attacks across Ukraine have killed four people, including two in Kiev, as Moscow kept up its pressure on the capital in the latest phase of the four-and-a-half-year-old war. Charles Della Desma has more. Ukraine's State Emergency Service says the Russian attack damaged several administrative buildings and warehouses, as well as a garage complex and several city trams. Ukraine's Air Force reports Russia fired 169 long-range strike drones and seven missiles, including five ballistics at the country last night. Air defences shot down or jammed 139 of the drones, while all five ballistic missiles and 20 drones inflicted damage at 15 locations. Meanwhile, on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Ankara, Turkey, President Volodemir Zinensky has met with Italy's Premier Giuliani. During the meeting, Giorgia Meloni reaffirmed Italy's support for Ukraine and for a just and lasting peace in the conflict with Russia. I'm Charles Dilithesma. More Democrats are pulling their support for main Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner amid new allegations of sexual assault with a former romantic partner. Should Graham Platner drop out of the race, Democrats will have to find a new candidate. Hyapangwani reports. Graham Platner won the Democratic nomination last month, setting himself up to face Republican Senator Susan Collins. The primary campaign arm of Senate Democrats called on Graham Platner to drop out and said it would spend no money on the race if he's the nominee. Ken Martin, the party chair, said Maine Democrats should select a new nominee. Arizona Senator Ruben Gallego and Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren both announced that they were pulling their endorsements and called on Graham Platner to drop out. Democratic leaders of Maine's legislature and top officials at the State Democratic Party did the same. In a video statement Monday, Graham Platner denied the allegations, but said he'd consider the next steps for his campaign. Regardless of the inaccuracy of the reporting, but mindful of the political reality it will inflict. We are taking the time to reflect on the best path forward. I'm Hayup and Johnny. A former Wisconsin judge will soon learn her sentence for felony obstruction for helping an immigrant evade federal officers. Hannah Dugan resigned her Milwaukee County Circuit judgeship after her conviction in December amid threats of impeachment from Republican state lawmakers. Her lawyers argued that the Trump administration sought to crush her in an effort to ensure judicial compliance with its sweeping immigration crackdown. She faces up to five years in prison today after turning immigration agents away from her courtroom and then ushering a Mexican immigrant out through the jury door. The man was later arrested outside the courthouse and deported.

A new study of early rate filings shows that Affordable Care Act insurers are proposing another year of double-digit premium increases. According to a report out today, the median proposed increase for 2027 is 14%. The findings come from KFF, a health care research nonprofit. The group found that insurers blamed the increasing premiums on rising health care costs, federal regulatory changes, and the expiration of pandemic-era subsidies. Though the analysis focused on the marketplace, similar trends are expected in other private plans, such as employer-sponsored ones. Thousands of California licensed to drivers who already pass their tests are receiving letters from the DMV, saying their licenses are about to be canceled. The DMV confirms 11,000 drivers have received the letter, saying the written test results from these drivers showed irregularities. Recipients of the letter are warned that they must retake the written test within 30 days or they'll lose their license. Sunny today in the Bay Area, highs in the 70s, lows in the 50s, and the Central Valley. Sunny today, highs in the 90s, lows tonight in the 60s. Those are the headlines. I'm Max Pringle on KPFA. 708 in the morning shows up front. My name is Brian Edwards Teakert. We are two weeks out from twin earthquakes hitting Venezuela's coast. The death toll yesterday topped 3,500. The government is starting to face a reckoning over its response. Thousands are still missing, they're now presumed dead over the rubble. It's a disaster on a scale that is hard to fathom in a country that was already reeling from decades of economic crisis and sanctions. This is in a country that our president now says he's running. This is about the time when emergency rescue operations stop and turn into body recovery operations, and we start to take stock of social and political... consequences. So we've invited back on Miguel Tinkarsalis, who is Professor Emeritus of History at Pomona College, author of several books about Venezuela, including the enduring legacy oil culture and society in Venezuela. Thanks very much for speaking to us again. Good morning. How are you doing? Maybe you could start with some kind of political geography for us to describe the region that was hardest hit by the earthquakes. La Guayra, the coastal plains of Venezuela, are an area that has seen crisis multiple occasions. Your listeners may remember in 1999 when there were vast floods right on the heels of Chavez's electoral victory in 98. So it's an area that is interspersed with luxury. condominiums, but also working class neighborhoods. A lot of people who worked in the service industry lived in La Waida and in the coastal region of Venezuela. It's also home to the nation's largest airport, its main airport, Simon Bolivar International Airport. It's also home to, it's one of its largest ports, the port of La Guaida.

through which many of the imports and exports go through. It also was a bedroom community for many people who worked in Caracas, who couldn't afford to live in Caracas and who lived in the neighborhoods in La Guaida and in the coastal area. And the devastation has been pronounced, profound. I don't think there's anybody who has not seen or has had a person that they know either perish. or a building collapse. We're talking about entire blocks of buildings who pancakeed in ways that are not imaginable and trapped literally thousands of people under the debris. So it's a very important area. People used it as a weekend getaway from Caracas, an hour drive up the freeway down to the coast. And all that is upended now. So not only is there a loss of life, not only is there a loss of housing, there's a loss of jobs, there's a loss of transportation, there's a loss of a center in terms of a community, which has all been devastated in ways that are unimaginable. The buildings that... Pancaped. This is the actual technical term that engineers use. In U.S. coverage, these are getting described as public housing projects constructed by the Chavez government with longstanding complaints of shoddy construction. Is that accurate? Is that everything that's falling down? I don't think so. I think that you saw the Marriott Hotel not built by Chavez suffered tremendous damage and structurally not as unsound. Other buildings that date back to the 70s and 80s also collapsed. I think that there's plenty of time. I think that there's an effort to politicize the construction of housing for the poor and for the unhoused. And that's an unfortunate thing to try to exploit the crisis at this time. I think there is definitely a need. for a commission to study housing standards and construction standards. And there's plenty of time to assign blame. And I think blame should be assigned to where it merits. Venezuela has changed its construction standards after the 1967 earthquake, after the 2020 period. And I don't doubt that there's been shoddy construction. I don't doubt that there's been shortcuts. But I think that try to politicize that at this point, I think the underlying assumption is that Somehow there's a problem in building home for the people who have been unhoused. And I think that's what is the orientation that we're hearing about in terms of public housing. How would you say that the Delci Rodriguez government has handled the response?

I would start by saying that I think it would be difficult for any government to handle the response. There's no way in the world of predicting an earthquake of this magnitude and of this consequence. There's no way you have to pre-deploy all the heavy equipment. Having said that, I think that it's been short. They have not fulfilled their responsibility. I think that, but I think also there's a context for that, and that context is that the very people that need to be out in the front here, including the police, the military, the National Guard, may have had some of their own relatives caught up in that dimension of the consequences of the earthquake. So I think that they have not been sufficient. There are cries of people. claiming to hear their relatives and not having machinery, not having heavy equipment. But as you said in the very introduction, the country was already facing a crisis. And this just simply has exacerbated the crisis. And I think Delci, Rodriguez, and the government's response has exacerbated further. I mean, this is a kind of moment that just breaks government when people who don't care about politics form an indelible impression of the people in charge. If you are listening to someone you love calling out from beneath rubble that you can't get removed of them, you're not going to change your feelings anytime soon about the person you blame for that. No, of course. And the person you're going to blame is the government. That's inevitable. I mean, we saw that in the case of every major human rights crisis or human crisis, environmental crisis. You're going to blame the government. I would blame the government. I think we would be crazy not to say that or not to understand that. And the consequences is that there is Venezuela before June, June 24th and Venezuela after June 24th. It's a watershed. moment where everybody and that lived in Caracas or that lived in La White or that lived in Carvela or lived in the area will mark their lives based upon that event and that that occurrence much like like Katrina did for parts of the US when that happened in the US but I also think that that the consequences going forward. But I think that the other part of that issue is that in the middle of a crisis, what Delci Rodriguez is doing is centralizing support, centralizing her power. She faces that not only in the crisis of the earthquake, but she faces a major political crisis. The Constitution says very clearly in Articles 233 and 234 that in the absence of the president after a 90-day period, there must be elections held. It then goes further to say after 180-day period, elections must be held within 30 days. She claims to be the interim president in the absence of Nicolas Maduro, who was kidnapped by U.S. forces on January 3rd. So she faces both a crisis of...

of dealing with the environment and the crisis of the earthquake. But she also faces now a political crisis in terms of how, and she, interesting enough, her main supporter behind this is Donald Trump, who recently made an, did an interview in the U.S. saying that Venezuela is not ready for elections, where there's pressure building for elections from both the right and the left, because both are critical of Delci Rodriguez's leadership. Donald Trump, not exactly coming to a rescue. USA to date has been about $300 million. I was just reading in the New York Times. The aid we gave to Haiti after its earthquake in 2010 was 10 times that. Yes. And he says he's running Venezuela and pocketing their oil money. He's not only pocketing their old money, he's taken in $8 billion and given Venezuela $300 million so that the U.S. has taken responsibility for Venezuela's economy, for Venezuelan's oil. initially was going to an account in Kuwait, then it was transferred to an account in the Treasury run by Donald Trump so that he has become responsible and increasingly in the eyes of many Venezuelans, he is the blame. So the US is being drawn into this because of the very nature. It's a neo-colonial relationship. Venezuela is not a sovereign country. It does not have control over its own internal affairs. The irony of all this is that The U.S. Marines have landed in Venezuela for a second time. The first time was January 3rd. Now there's close to 1,000 Marines in Venezuela. They are delivering some aid. Interesting enough, they're delivering aid from Chile because USAID was canceled during the Doge enterprise. Trump started in his second term. So then there's a classic image of a Marine delivering a package, but it says product of Chile instead of the USAID stamp on it. But yeah, Donald Trump has made, has also said that Maria Corina Machado, the right. leader of the segment of the opposition should not return to Venezuela so that there is an open conflict now with Maria Corina Machado on the one side, open support for Delci Rodriguez, and openly saying that Venezuela is not ready for elections and that he will decide when it's ready. This is the same president who said Venezuela should become the 51st state and now calls Venezuela a third world country after a major earthquake that collapsed much of the coastal region.

What's left of the like grassroots infrastructure of the Bolivarian movement, the Bolivarian committees, the local committees for supply and production, the collapse. Are they playing any role in the disaster response? We saw them play a role. We saw them play a role in the very first hours after the earthquake, after the collapse. It was the residence. There was all this argument that Venezuela's social fabric had defrayed, that there was not a level of solidarity. What we saw was solidarity. What we saw was a social fabric had held together and many members of, members of residents of neighborhoods and members of buildings that were collapsed all joined in. it took hours and hours for the military or the Venezuelan government to make his presence felt and had it not been for the work of the communities organizations that went into action trying to remove the debris trying to find their relatives trying to find their their loved ones the collapse the cost the human costs may have been even higher so i think we saw an exhibition of that clearly and we also see a left opposition building, as I said to you previously, groups like Komunas and other groups that are organizing support for families because the crisis is not over. As you mentioned clearly at the very beginning, it's a body recovery period. It's a period of clearing the debris. But the cost of this, the dimensions of this will be greater and greater when people don't have work, they don't have social services, they don't have access to hospitals. There's been a tremendous international support as well. Chinese community, Chinese delegations, Japanese delegations, Chilean, Salvadorian, Mexican have all been present and have all been participating in the effort bringing medical services, hospital services, etc. So where are the people who got out of those collapsed department blocks living now? Where are they being sheltered? There's being sheltered in parks. They're being sheltered in stadiums. They're being sheltered. Some of them are staying right next to their homes. And one of the demands that's coming from the neighborhoods is that they're not leaving. What they're concerned about is that their property will be taken over by developers. Again, some of this is prime coastal property that is on the Caribbean Sea. And many residents are afraid of what happens in the kind of the shock doctrine, that their homes are devastated, that people sell out, that they're now expected to survive further and further away from where their homes used to be. So there's a tremendous level of tension that's going to develop. On the other hand, there's the issue of do you rebuild in the same way?

on alluvial planes that are unstable and that have been shown that will collapse buildings in the way that we saw recently. So there's a big debate to be had about how do we organize social space, how do we organize human space, how do we organize that in the aftermath of a major earthquake that we know is built on alluvial soils that we saw very clearly in the 1999 flood when the hills came down on the communities and killed thousands as well. Yeah, I mean, this is a big question from Venezuela. It knows it has major earthquakes. It knows it has alluvial soils on the coast. It has a government that purported to be capable of strong central planning. It is surprising to see such widespread collapse in relatively new construction. Central planning, also mismanagement, corruption, inefficiency. Let's not forget that the head of PDVSA, the oil conglomerate, the nationalized oil conglomerate, is accused of having stolen $40 billion. So yes, the central planning, and now in the context of lack of resources, because again, the U.S. is managing Venezuela's resources. So on the one hand, what do we do now besides removing the debris? How do we rebuild? How is that rebuilt? Is there a rush to rebuild because people will need homes? do need homes then how do we rebuild do we build again 14 high story structures on alluvial soils that will that will collapse when the next earthquake hits i think that's a major challenge but i understand the pragmatic response is to build something and that's that's going to be a long-term challenge and how do you negotiate that is it through centralized authority and power and authoritarianism or is it through consultation development and discussion with the community. So the, sorry, I keep switching topics back and forth on you here, but the grassroots response that you described earlier, people who sprang into action to help get people out from under rubble to do the immediate aftermath before any kind of government response was visible. To what extent is that just, you know, people being decent, which seems to happen after every natural disaster. And to what extent is that a vindication of some of the structures of the so-called Bolivarian revolution, the grassroots experiments of the Chavez era? I think it's a bit of both. I would put most of it on solidarity among neighbors, solidarity among people. In an experience of social activism, I think is part of that. But I think that the immediate response, people aren't thinking, I got to rescue this because I belong to a comuna. They have to rescue this because that's my neighbor and that's my family that's there as well. But I think that the social activism is the underlying glue that actually informs some of their thinking, some of their actions. and some of their responses to this process. That will be tested long term because as I said, I think the worst is yet to come. Not only has there been close to 4,000 dead, but the estimates of how many people have disappeared range from 10 to 50,000. What will happen when those people are being recovered, when those bodies are being recovered?

where will the debris go? How will they build homes under what authority, under what structure? There's already efforts to rebuild existing structures, and there's been no conversation or discussion about whether or not they should be built. So in that context, I think that the horse is the head of the cart. Right. So maybe there's the grassroots infrastructure there to dig people out. It doesn't sound like there is grassroots infrastructure for popular participation in planning and development processes. I don't think there is. I don't think the government, I think the government is centralizing authority. I think it's seeing a weakness or an opportunity to centralize authority in the government, much the same way Delci Rodriguez moved to centralize her authority after Nicolas Maduro was kidnapped. She has purged largely most of Michael Maduro's loyal followers. She has put in her own loyal followers. I think she will continue that tendency. And as I said earlier, I think that the irony of all this is that Donald Trump is her main backer. and main supporter. As we've seen, as I said earlier, the U.S. presence grow tremendously in Venezuela. A thousand Marines, IDF forces from the Israeli defense forces are in Venezuela. The Marines and the military, the U.S. military is running the national airport. They're involved in running the national port. So the U.S. presence is expanding and expanding under Delsi Rodriguez. So the oil infrastructure in Venezuela was already, you know, suffering from a lot of deferred maintenance and declining output. Do we know how much of a hit it took from the earthquake? For the most most of the oil production is in the eastern Orinoco Basin area. So it is far removed from this area. This area was we're talking about is the coastal region outside of Caracas in La Guayda, in the state of La Guayra and in Caracas itself. We shouldn't forget the Caracas itself was also hit and also hit hardest in the alluvial plains areas of Altamira Palos Grandes. So again, Venezuela has to address the issue of how to build social space. political space, economic space, in an environment that is very prone to earthquakes. How long do you think Delci Rodriguez could hang on without some kind of popular mandate without a nod towards holding elections? I think the pressure is increasingly building. I think her 180 days have run out. People are calling her now the illegitimate interim president. I think that the effort to try to associate herself with the U.S. will find her even more and more isolated. On the other hand, the right-wing opposition is now also openly critical of Donald Trump, Maria Corina Machado. has been now associated with critiques of Donald Trump in ways that never had happened before. She had always seen Donald Trump as her sponsor. So you have two sides pulling at the same lever. The one hand, the right-wing opposition. On the other hand, the left's, the left opposition as well, accusing her of betraying the Bolivarian Revolution and her own constitutional crisis, which is that

Her 180 days have expired. Now, she tried to get around this by having the Supreme Court rule that the illegal seizure of a president is now a factor in the Constitution, where the Constitution does not say that a temporary absence can be affected by kidnapping so that she has a constitutional problem as well. Who would be positioned to mount it a credible run at the presidency, aside from Delzi Rodriguez and Carmen Maria Maria Corina Machado? Maria Corrida Maria Corina Machado. I keep confusing her with a wonderful author who we've had on the show. I know. She is, remember, she was not, she was not, Gonzales Sirrutia was the actual presidential candidate for the position. He's been sidelined totally, and she has jumped into the middle claiming that she is the legitimate leader in Venezuela, when in reality she was not elected. So she has been trying to position herself to become that leader. She did a internet media, social media post saying that people want her there to be praying with them side by side. It sounds like a media show. It sounds like a bad Venezuelan telenovela. So that there isn't one particular leader except for Maria Corrina Maria Corina Machado. She continues to have hegemony over the right wing opposition. On the left side, there is several candidates that ran in the last election that might. once again come to the forefront. But the country is, in some ways, it's ill-prepared for an election. On the other hand, the election may provide an out for the current political tension this building. Miguel Tinker's Hollis, we'll leave it there. Thank you so much. Thank you. Miguel Tinker Salas is the author of several books about Venezuela. He's Professor Emeritus of History at Pomona College. That takes us to a bit before 7.30 in the morning. The show is up front. My name is Brian Edwards Teaker. Coming up in the second half of our program, What's the Matter with FIFA? We're going to get into the ugly politics and corruption behind the world's most watched sporting event when we speak to Jules Boykoff, Professor of Government and Politics at Pacific University, and now author of the book, Red Card, the 2026 World Cup, sports washing, and the FIFA Greene Machine. That's coming up next, after the news. I'm Max Pringle with these headlines. Iran is targeted American military sites in the Gulf, after the U.S. launched strikes on several places in Iran and reinstated sanctions on its oil sales. This came after Iran fired on ships in the Strait of Hormuz. President Trump declared the ceasefire over. John Gambril has more.

contrived to create a FIFA Peace Prize to give to Donald Trump when he didn't win the real one. Then after a phone call from Trump, he intervened to reinstate a U.S. player who had been suspended for a game of the World Cup by referees. We thought this would be a good time to dive into the extremely checkered history of the organization, staging the games that so many of us are watching and enjoying right now. So we've invited back Jules Boykhov. He's Professor of Government and Politics at Pacific University. a former professional soccer player himself. And just out with the book on OR Press, Red Card, the 2026 World Cup, sports washing, and the FIFA greed machine. Thanks for speaking to us again. My pleasure. Thanks for having me back. What is FIFA? What is FIFA? Well, it is in the most general sense, the world's governing body for soccer. It is a non-profit organization that is tremendously profitable, bringing in more than $11 billion from this tournament alone. It is nestled tax-free in Switzerland. And it's run by a guy named Gianni Infantino who took over after a massive corruption scandal in 2015 that led to a number of indictments of many FIFA members. And he's taken over and basically created a new way of corruption moving forward. So if you see Gianni Infantino in the news, it might be because he's snuggling up to President Donald Trump quite frequently. He has been enabling Trump at every stage, including giving him the 2025 inaugural FIFA Peace Prize. So FIFA is supposedly a neutral political body. That's what it says in its own statutes. But it's been engaging with politics left and right, especially as it cozy is up to President Trump here during the 2026 World Cup. What are the opportunities for self-enrichment if you are in a position of power inside a nonprofit international soccer entity? The opportunities are copious. Starting with Infantino himself, he just got a raise this year. He makes $6 million a year. And trust me, he doesn't pay for his own flights. He's been flying on a private jet all around North America for this World Cup, racking up carbon miles as he goes, by the way. So there's that. There's also the FIFA Council, the powerful FIFA Council, which is 37 people that is supposed to be a check on Mr. Enfantino. But those 37 people on the FIFA Council make somewhere in the neighborhood of between $250,000 and $300,000 a year just for attending two to four meetings. So they're living the good life. They have a day job, and their second job on the FIFA Council is bringing in hundreds of thousands of dollars, giving them very little incentive to speak out. Now, if we were talking to Mr. Infantino himself here, he would make sure to say, oh, we give out the money to all these football associations. or soccer associations around the world. And it's true. They do give out millions to these football associations so they can carry out their efforts.

But one, there's no transparency, or very little transparency as to where that money goes. And two, it sets up this patronage network where you have all these countries that have zero incentive to speak out when Infantino does crazy things like wear a Maga style hat at the Board of Peace meeting with President Trump or go to the Melania opening of the film or you name it. They just want to get their money and make it keep coming. So, you know, the previous era of FIFA that before the big corruption scandal was like the money stuffed in a suitcase era, this is different. This is refined. This is sort of legalized corruption in the form of a clientalistic patronage network. There's a separate kind of corruption track, which is the emergence of these online betting markets, where you can place bets not just on the outcome of games, but I am sure there are bets that have been placed on whether or not suspended players would be reinstated. They create a lot of opportunities for people who know more than the rest of the public about what's going on to bet on things they have influence over. Yes, that's a great point. I wish more people were talking about this issue of how sports gambling has really invaded the sports space in a way that is negative. It's a negative force for players who now are all of a sudden getting all sorts of flack from fans saying, oh, you lost me money because of this and that. But also players, unfortunately, some of them appear to be engaging in malfeasance, like match fixing, you could say. And a number of players have been banned over time recently. You'd think that FIFA, the world's governing body for soccer, would want to steer clear of this and then sort of corruptive elements that come along with sports gambling. But instead, recently, just ahead of this 2026 Men's World Cup, FIFA signed a big agreement with ADI Predict Street, this prediction market specialists. If you haven't heard of it, you weren't alone because nobody had really heard this. It was a shadowy entity run by a guy who had just paid a big settlement for engaging. in the legal activity and nobody had heard of it you could probably heard of kalshi or you know the poly market and when they started doing this predict street adi predict street market prediction for this world cup nobody was going to their corporate sponsor and so part way through the world cup that we're watching right now FIFA signed on as a sub-partner, Kalshi. And that's why your listeners will sometimes see the word Kalshi, the big betting behemoth along the boards on the side of these sports venues. And of course, what this all does is it normalizes sports gambling at a time that we should really be taking a close look at regulating it much more strictly. I want to talk about the politics of the games taking place in North America. Most prominently, the team representing Iran was not allowed to stay in the United States while it was playing in the United States because of the peak of the Trump administration, I get. What do you think it means from the world to see the games being played here?

Well, the treatment of Iran by the U.S. government was arguably the shabbiest treatment that anyone has received at a World Cup ever. I mean, I can't think of a previous example where the host went so far out of their way to treat a team as second-class citizens in the tournament. And that goes very much against what the host agreement was stated. You know, the U.S. signed on to treat everybody equally. making them stay in Mexico, although they ended up having a beautiful relationship with the people of Tijuana, the Iranian team did, and not allowing them to stay overnight after the matches, thereby allowing their muscles to sort of regenerate and get ready for the next match. This was part of a larger picture of exclusion. I mean, I think the Trump administration chose to exclude numerous people from this World Cup. And, you know, even Markwayne Mullin, the head of the Department of Homeland Security, was mean-spirited after the Iranians had the bad fortune of not making it to the knockout round. He said he did a happy dance when he heard that. I mean, that's just like mean, strange trolling, punching down in ways that really don't fit the spirit of the tournament, but definitely fit the spirit of the Trump administration. and the messages that they're trying to send to their local domestics, you know, the Maga masses, they're trying to say to them, look, we don't like these foreign people here for the World Cup and we're going to treat them shabbily with cruelty and all that. Don't you worry your pretty little head about it. I want to talk a little bit about kind of the symbolic politics of the games. I am not extremely fluent in sports. One dynamic in the world comp that seems to make it pretty exceptional is that a lot of professional players playing for teams in wealthy companies choose to play for the teams of their nation of origin. You see players leaving teams in England or in Europe to go play for teams from Africa or Latin America, and there seems to be this kind of... strong anti-colonial undercurrent to the resulting dynamics. Am I reading that right? You're reading it exactly right. I mean, there is always an anti-colonial undercurrent at the World Cup. This year at the 26 Men's World Cup, around a quarter of the players are playing for countries where they were not born. This is the diasporic World Cup in a major way. And a lot of people pick the teams that they're cheering for based on politics, based on colonial politics that you're bringing into the conversation. And I think it makes it more interesting, quite honestly, and allows people to root for the underdog, the decolonized underdog in ways that are fascinating. So something that a friend was explaining to me, because again, I'm not fluent in sports, is that you're only like in the World Cup allowed to switch teams once. If you're going to play in multiple World Cups, you're basically locked into the team you've chosen to play for if you have multiple nationalities.

Yeah, once you play at the national team's highest men's level, then you're locked in. That's typically the way it goes. But you might have played for a youth national team for another country, and you can still switch over at that point. You know, a good example of kind of how this can work is the United States star forward, Fuller and Balagoon, who generated quite a bit of controversy only because President Trump intervened to have his red card rescinded. But Mr. Balagoon, is of Nigerian descent. And his parents were living in London and came to the United States where his mother was not allowed to travel home because they deemed her to be too pregnant. So she had Fuller and Balagoon. She had him here in the United States. And so he was a birthright citizen or what we, you know, we've ever called just a citizen. But anyways, then they went back to England and they lived their life. And he grew up in England playing football, soccer there. and became a superstar, and he was eligible to play for Nigeria. He was eligible to play for the United States, and he was eligible to play for England. And he chose the United States. And as I said, he's considered to be a birthright citizen of the United States for sure, protected under the 14th Amendment of the Constitution. Wouldn't that have been something if partway through the tournament, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned birthright citizenship just a couple days after Mr. Balagoon scored some key goals for the United States, that would have been an absolute mess. I mean, it already was a mess, and it was only a five to four ruling. But that just shows how politics and soccer are so thoroughly intertwined. And, you know, in the book that you mentioned at the top, Red Card, I very much make the argument that sports or politics by other means. And looking at the sort of nationality and who you choose to play for at this World Cup is one example of that. So, Balakun, He's the player at the center of the most recent controversy, which is he was suspended. He got a red card, which means you are out of the rest of the game in which he received the red card and can't play in the next game under soccer rules because he allegedly like stepped on another player's ankle. This is something that first was incredibly controversial among fans reviewing the footage and then Donald Trump made about him by calling Gianni Infantino, the head of FIFA, the person who had contrived to invent a FIFA World Cup prize to give Donald Trump and claim credit for getting FIFA to reverse the suspension. I am like only totally conversant with the Trump side of this controversy. I don't fully understand the underlying sports dynamics. How clear was the original call that gave Balogun red card? Well, you know, as a soccer person myself, I thought it was a red card. I know there's intelligent people on both sides of the divide here who really do know the sport of soccer, but he raped his boot down the back of the guy's calf and then inadvertently it appeared, stepped on his ankle in a pretty brutal way. I mean, a piece of tone, as they'll say in Spanish-speaking countries.

You know, I thought it was a fair red card. And it must be said, I mean, Balagoon himself took it in stride. I mean, we got to say, he handled himself in the most professional and indeed inspiring ways in a lot of ways at this World Cup, despite being in the pressure cooker after Trump intervened. I mean, Balagoon went. public and said that he accepted the decision of the red card and that he wasn't going to jump up and down and yell about it because he viewed himself as a role model for young people and he feels like it's important to comport yourself with dignity when things don't go your way i mean the guy couldn't have handled it much better and then trump elephant stops into the room and says things like It wasn't even a foul. It wasn't even an infraction thereby showing his absolute ignorance of the sport. Of course, that's never stopped him before with any topic. But then Trump went on to say that he thought the red card should have been rescinded. He didn't understand. He didn't even know that a red card came with a one game match suspension, which again, showing his soccer ignorance in technicolor there for all to see. But that didn't stop him from influencing Gianni and Fontino or so it appears. I mean, we don't know for sure there's no smoking gun, but Trump called his BFF Gianni and Fontino and put the pressure on him. And out of nowhere, FIFA decides to relinquish the suspension. I have to say, you know, this also added essentially an asterisk onto whatever. for Lauren Balagoon was able to achieve in that match. It not only added pressure on top of his shoulders in the match against Belgium, which of course the United States got drubbed four to one in, but it also meant that even if he were to have scored, the whole world would have been giving him flack. Like the only reason you're playing is because you're Trump's guy and all that kind of stuff. So I have to say, though, I don't know if you've seen in the wake of the match against Belgium. The Belgian players were totally trolling President Trump. In the locker room, they were playing YMCA and doing the sort of so-called Trump dance, just mocking him openly. And this will continue, you know, in the future here where we put at Donald Trump. I'm not sure we can say that on the air. So don't do that again. Oh, we're speaking to Jill's Boykoff. He's professor of government and politics at Pacific University and a professional soccer player, former professional soccer player. His new book is Red Card, the 2026 World Cup, sports washing, and the FIFA greed machine. What is sports washing? Sportswashing is when political leaders use sports to try to deflect attention from chronic social problems or human rights woes at home in order to have themselves look legitimate or important on the world stage while at the same time setting up opportunities for political and economic and diplomatic advancement. And it's a term that was only invented in 2015. It's a pretty new term.

And it's normally been used against countries like Russia. You know, Vladimir Putin hosted the 2018 Men's World Cup, where he definitely engaged in sports washing, trying to deflect attention from the problems there, anti-gay laws, for example, and look important on the world stage and set up money-making opportunities. It was also used... Four years later at the Men's World Cup in Qatar, where definitely the leaders there of that organized World Cup were trying to deflect attention from the horrific human rights problems that happened in Qatar and the lead-up where some 6,700 migrant workers died making the stadiums and other venues in the lead-in to that tournament. But the problem with the term is that it has often been used as a way of talking about those other countries like Russia or Qatar or China. And it's often been assumed by people that it couldn't possibly happen in a place that considers itself a democracy. But if you look at the definition that I just gave, why couldn't it happen in a place like the United States? And so a core argument of the book, is that it is happening right now under Donald Trump. President Donald Trump has used sports to his political advantage more than any president in the modern history of the United States. Just think about the UFC fight he held on the south lawn of the White House just three days into the World Cup. And he said over and over again that the World Cup here that's happening now and the 28 Olympics in Los Angeles are crucial to his political legacy. And when people ask, you know, does sports washing work? What they often mean is, does it work on an international audience? But with Trump, it's also about the domestic audience. I think it has very little to do with him trying to convince internationals that he's a good guy and a legitimate leader. I think it's all about the domestic audience ahead of this midterm election. So when you see that performative security theater of when Uzbekistan's team arrives and the Trump administration sends the dogs to sniff them out to make sure they're okay to come into the country, that's not about getting the Uzbekis on sides to like Donald Trump in the country or anybody for that matter who's outside the United States. That's just red meat for the MAGA base. And so that's how I read the situation in terms of sports washing. It's something that's been used in a xenophobic, ethnocentric manner in the past, but should definitely be applied to places like the United States right now. I mean, even the red card reversal we were just discussing. A, it gives Trump a chance to flex his strong man image. He's a guy who can make a phone call and bring FIFA to heal. But also, even though it's a scandal in a lot of the sports world that he says he did that, that's a better news cycle for him than a day that's occupied with headlines about how miserably things are going in the war with Iran.

That's a great point you're making about him looking like the strong man who gets what he wants. And that is exactly at the core of sports washing. That's a great point. Jules Boykoff, the politics of the games being spread across three countries on the continent of North America. Yeah, well, back in 2017, when the United States, Canada, and Mexico bid on this World Cup, if you read that document, and I've read it very closely, it's all unicorns and rainbows, kumbaya moment, oh, these countries are getting along great and we're going to continue to do so. It's only going to get better. Well, that obviously hasn't happened. Since then, the United States under Trump, has threatened to make Canada, one of the co-hosts, the 51st state. threatened to send in the military to the other co-host Mexico to root out their drug cartels, threatened numerous countries around the world, despite the fact that President Trump is a FIFA Peace Prize recipient, is engaged in war, you know, around the world, as your listeners will know as well as anyone. And so, you know, the lot has changed since that Kumbaya moment up front. And the other thing that I think is worth pointing out, is that even if all the countries were getting along well right now, this still would be a massive disaster when it comes to climate change because this World Cup is the most polluting World Cup in the history of the World Cup because it is so spread out among three countries geographically distant. There are 48 teams, so more teams than ever. The most was 32 in the last Men's World Cup in Qatar. And the U.S. train system, it doesn't allow people to make trips across the country, the distances they need to go to keep watching their team. And so everybody's flying at this thing. It is a sporty carbon bomb, despite the fact that FIFA says that they care about sustainability. It really gives the lie to that. And so there's a lot going on when it comes to the three countries hosting this World Cup. It definitely didn't turn out the way that they had planned at the beginning back in 2017 when they were putting their bid together. All right, finally, I have to ask you, as a former professional sports player, I am sure you get an adrenaline-charged thrill every time you're watching a game and hear the opening whistle. What has been your favorite match so far? Oh, wow. Well, there have been so many great matches. I really enjoyed the Mexico England match, although I wish Mexico would have won. That was just a thrilling affair from top to bottom. I've also been cheering for Bosnia in this World Cup, really enjoying their positive presence here. You know, I do want to say I've been talking in a very negative fashion about the sport that I love and dedicated a pretty significant chunk of my life to. And I will say after all that, that I do think that football or soccer is worth fighting for. And there are people that are fighting for it. I mean, I'm part of a nonprofit organization. I'm on their advisory board. It's called Fair Square. It's based in London. And we have a new campaign that anybody, any of your listeners, could sign on to. It's called rebootfifah.com. If you want to start FIFA over from the ground, you can sign your name. We're trying to make it the biggest ever class action complaint against FIFA.

We're bringing it to their ethics committee at FIFA. Yes, they actually have one, believe it or not. But we're also, I think, more importantly, taking it to the European Parliament where we've been getting a number of more than 50 MPs at this point have signed on to our proposal. So anybody can go online to rebootfifah.com. If you believe football, soccer is worth fighting for. If you believe it should remain a space of community building and even political fight back like I do, you can sign your name and continue. to get updates on what's going on there. Jules Boykoff, thank you so much. Thank you very much. Jules Boykoff's new book is Red Card, the 2026 World Cup, sports washing, and the FIFA greed machine. He's professor of government at politics at Pacific University and a former professional soccer player. That does it for Upfront this morning. We are weekdays at 7 a.m. We post information about our topics and guests at KPFA.org. You can also dig through archives of our past programs. If you'd like to give us feedback on something you heard or suggest something for us to cover or someone to interview, send an email to Upfront at KPFA.org. Send an email to Upfront at KPFA.org. Send in a question for Monday's Corona Call segment with Dr. Sportsberg. Send that email to Corona Calls at KPFA.org. A big thanks to the people who make the show are produced. is Kimya Akbri. Our engineer is Kirsten Thomas. My name is Brian Edwards Teakert. Thanks as well to Max Pringle for the news headlines. Remember if you're incarcerated and postal mail is the easier way to get in touch. You can write to Upfront, KPFA, 1929 Martin Luther King Jr. Way, Berkeley, California, 94704. Stay up. Stay tuned. Law and Disorder with Kat Brooks is coming your way in just over two minutes at eight.

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