The IOC handed LA the 2028 Olympics. Now Trump is weaponizing them

When the International Olympic Committee first handed Los Angeles the 2028 Summer Olympics back in 2017, IOC president Thomas Bach called it “a golden opportunity” for all involved. Fast forward to last month when Kirsty Coventry took the reins from Bach at the IOC. So much has changed.

In January, LA was hit with deadly wildfires. That same month a different sort of natural disaster took shape as Donald Trump returned to the White House. Bach had previously praised LA for its “strong foundation”, but that foundation has crumbled under the weight of the wildfires, a citywide budget crisis and an erratic president whose marauding Immigration and Customs Enforcement look like they arrived straight from robbing a liquor store to instill fear across Los Angeles.

The LA28 Olympics are now a slow-motion train wreck.

Just ahead of his inauguration, Trump assured Casey Wasserman, the chair of the LA28 Olympic Organizing Committee, that “These are America’s Olympics,” adding, “These are more important than ever to LA and I’m going to be supportive in every way possible and make them the greatest Games.” Then, in March, speaking to the IOC, Wasserman insisted that “irrespective of politics today, America will be open and accepting to all 209 countries for the Olympics.” He added, “LA is the most diverse city in the history of humanity and we will welcome the people from around the world and give them all a great time.”

On one hand, that may be true. Trump is not likely to squander an opportunity to engage in sportswashing: using sports to self-aggrandize on the global stage while stoking nationalism, bolstering the state security apparatus and deflecting attention from domestic social problems. Trump frequently yammers about how the Los Angeles 2028 Summer Olympics and the 2026 World Cup are among the events in his second term that gets his fascist heart a-tittering the quickest. Staging the mega-events is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to appear important on the world stage. Moreover, during Trump’s first term, he assured LA28 Olympic organizers that the federal government would supply security to protect the event.

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2025/jul/04/la-olympics-2028-trump-ice-ioc-kirsty-coventry

I predict he will use the 1936 Berlin Olympics as a blueprint. It will fail horribly, like most things he does.