Bulwark Takes - ICE Patrols at FIFA Club World Cup? Trump’s Fear Agenda Keeps Getting Worse

Episode Date: June 12, 2025

Tim Miller and Pablo Torre discuss Donald Trump’s unprecedented call for ICE and DHS agents to patrol the FIFA Club World Cup in Miami, and how his escalating fear tactics impact both players and fans. Subscribe to Pablo Torre Finds Out on Youtube

Hey everybody, Tim Miller from the Bulwark here with my buddy Pablo Torre of Pablo Torre Finds Out. You should go subscribe to his YouTube and this one if you haven't. He is our unofficial sport correspondent here at the Bulwark. And he is coming at us with kind of the Gen Z angle on the phone selfie, which I like, which I apologize. There's a truck. I'm on the sidewalk, potentially dodging ice agents who are undercover.

It's, it's okay. The truck's beeping is done. Thank you for having me. Thank you for doing this from the sidewalk. It's important whenever we talk, it's cause something important is happening and you know, we just have to just get you where we can get you. Um, here's, here's this one. I saw this new story about how DHS has confirmed that ICE and border patrol

agents will be on site for security at the start of the FIFA world cup at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami gardens. the central agents will be on site for security at the start of the FIFA World Cup at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens. ICE has reminded non US citizens to carry proof of legal status. So, carry your papers if you're going to the soccer game. They also had a

since deleted post that said that their officers will be suited, booted, and ready to provide security. So, we've got self-described Jack sat jackbooted officers demanding people's papers outside of soccer match. Um, I want your take on that, but before we get to your take on just like whether this about the, the, uh, appropriateness of this behavior from our government, like FIFA, the world cup has started. Like I don't understand what's, I don't, I don't do soccer. I'm a

basketball man. I don't, so I don't even understand. Is the World Cup happening? No, these are the right questions to ask. So the FIFA Club World Cup is the event in question. The FIFA Club World Cup is a fascinating venture because it's not the World Cup, but it's run by the people who run the World Cup and it's the clubs meaning that they invited the best clubs in the world to participate in a tournament that I can tell nobody really wants to participate in because it's not the world. When you say yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah Manchester United all of these world famous clubs from around the world's the highest well as, you know, random club teams in other countries. Um, the premise there is that, uh, you can make money, uh, by charging rights fees to air this thing, but it's not, it's a first of its kind new event. And it is most notable in the political context, as you may recall from three

months ago, when, uh when the head of FIFA, who is no stranger to outright corruption, was a visitor to the White House and presented Donald Trump himself with a trophy that I believe you might have some of the visuals on. Yeah, Trump loves a trophy. And we love doing trophy content, you and me together. We famously did the JD Vance dropping the trophy content. So let's just pull this up real quick.

Okay, Trump's oohing and aahing here. He's oohing and aahing. There's like a spinner rim dynamic to this golden beautiful thing that they're also saying it'll live in the White House, this trophy, until we have to award it, and then it'll be back in the White House again. So all of which is to say that this is a money earning

venture for FIFA, a famously globally corrupt institution that they are selling in partnership with Donald Trump will keep the literal trophy at the White House. And the people who lose in this, I had thought were going to be certainly the players who have to show up for this fake event and pretend like it matters because it has the words world and cup in it. But the new losers are the people who are, I mean, frankly, foolish enough to hate who want to attend this, because now you might get arrested depending on whether or not you are part of, I don't know, one of the most common demographics

for soccer interest. So when I say this is public-private partnership, I mean, public-private corruption with an added layer of police state, which is a lot. It's just a straight, I want to get to the ice stuff, but it's just the trophy thing because I didn't follow this. I thought it was, again, as a non-soccer person, I thought that this was a thing that existed before. We just kind of created a, we being the World Cup, just created a fake trophy.

And they're like, Donald Trump likes gold things and likes trophies and the World Cup is going to be an American 2026. And it's like, this is a little suck up like to them. Like we just, we just give like, like him a little trope because we knows he likes all his fake golf club victories. We're just going to give them a little trophy. That's what happens. Well, the tournament is real.

It's just the fake World Cup. So they call it the World Cup. So everyone presumes it's the World Cup. It's not. World Cup. So they call it the World Cup. So everybody presumes it's the World Cup. It's not. And the trophy is actually it seems gold and means nothing because it's never existed before. But Trump isn't interested in whether any of this is real. Yeah, right. He's interested in the trophy. So it's like we are a boy that gets trophies. My nephew loves the trophy a little. He's seven. It's a nice trophy. It's a nice trophy, Tim. The inter Miami is in the match against Egypt's Al Alfi club. And so again,

to your point, it seems like this would be attractive to people who are in Miami, who are not American citizens, like the types of people that'd be interested in this tournament. Maybe they're visiting, maybe they're on a tourist visa, maybe they live in Miami, they have a mixed status family. So the idea that they're like, no, bring your fucking papers seems particularly relevant for this event, maybe more than anything else in the country. It feels like this is where the interests of FIFA might be in conflict with the interests of this government. The government, who by the way, of course, is using LA as this case study in

police state disappearances, given that, oh yeah, 48% of LA is Hispanic or Latino. Pretty sure the percentages of people who'd want to attend an event like this in South Florida might be along those lines. So the question of like, why would you do this speaks to now the way in which sports get used by a government that is not interested in sports doesn't give a shit about the integrity of a competition, let alone the people attending. They want the scouts, they want the circus, they want the commercial they're gonna film off of this. And that's where I'm like, let alone the fake World Cup, what's the real World Cup gonna be like?

Yeah. How do you possibly fold an event where actually the world converges on America? And this has been a question I've been asking since before this whole announcement about security, quote unquote, security procedures. Like what, why are you, you're saying don't show up basically. Right. A lot of people gotta be afraid to come

for good reason, right? That's like, what if I get hassled at the airport? You know, what if I get like, what if I get hassled at the event? Like, and you know, so that is going to be true for people that actually are undocumented, of course, in particular. But it's also got to be true of like legit visa holders. It's like, I don't want I'm not going to go to some fucking authoritarian government of some thug in a mask, shake me down. Like, I'll just chill. I'll just watch this thing on TV. If there's a political miscalculation in all of this, because we know this government loves

to target truly defenseless people who don't have the papers they demand, the political miscalculation would be, what about all the people who do, and the people that know those people, who now understand why it's terrifying to be stopped by any of these unmarked vans and agents. That's the part where it's just very reasonable to assume it's not worth the risk. It's just because Tim, it just, there's, as you know, there's no shortage of stories of them just getting it wrong. You guys have held now rallies in favor of drawing attention to those who they have unjustly disappeared. This is well, this part is incredibly well documented and the effects are going to be quite real. Yeah, this was my thing, tied back to another sports thing of like, we haven't gone full Russia.

So I don't want to be, you know, I don't want to overhype this. But like there are like legit threats and concerns and like that you see that there are parallels to other countries and you have these sports figures that go to Russia, you have the Brittany Griner thing where she gets detained. And even before that my boyfriend, the Nuggets, Will Barton joined like the Moscow team or one of the teams and I'm going, I'm like, can somebody get to Will and tell him not to join that team? Like it's just, you just become a place where people don't want to go because like, any risk of being unjustly arrested or detained, just ain't worth it. And like, the whole we're becoming.

It's the the dark irony of all of this is that in an attempt to make us more purely American, we're behaving less and less American. And I mean that from a pure branding perspective, you're right, this is third world shit. This is autocratic government shit that Americans have been terrified of because there is no due process over there. Because you can be caught with I mean, again, Brady Griner is just one example. There are many others where you're just not sure if you're gonna get paid. You're not sure if you're gonna get a passport.

You're not sure if you can get the basic things that you're entitled to as an employee, let alone a fan. And that's all where, you know, as a truck backs up in front of me, it's hard to avoid the metaphor of, do they realize what they're backing up over? Because it is, in fact, the soft power premise that America is a place that people want to live in and visit and go to sporting events inside of. It's just a massive miscalculation. All right. Two final rapid things since you got the truck in front of you, unrelated.

We talked about the Live Golf Tour, one of the last times we were together. Here in my home state of Louisiana, we are now giving a tax break to Jeff Landry to live in order to encourage the Saudi oil billionaires to hold a one weekend tournament in Louisiana. Like absolutely insane. It's like, it's one thing if you're giving a tax incentive to a, to like a stadium, to a rich person to build a stadium that will be there, that will be there for mixed purpose. Like we're having a one weekend spin-off golf tournament for the oil despots that's undermining the American golf tournament. And the taxpayers of Louisiana are going to pay for this. It is, it is the era of fake pop up sporting events.

That is what we are finding out here today, Tim. There's money to be had in sporting events that no one gives a shit about except for the autocrats who may or may not be backing it. I'm the live golf thing, by the way, we did an episode of my show about this this week, just understand that there's an Occam's razor to all of this with Trump and golf in Saudi Arabia. Both Yasser Al R-Rumayan, who's the money man for MBS and Donald Trump, who is our president, they both are genuine golf fans who both want the thing that any golf fan wants, which is a green jacket. They want

to be members, man. They want to be in the clubs that they weren't allowed into. Now that they have all the power in the world, they still can't get it. And so they're using every lever available to them in sports to get to exclusivity that they cannot buy. And that's, it's, it's as good an explanation of why is Trump so obsessed with live golf and Saudi Arabia and any of this it's because he wants to be a member at a club it's it's bizarre. Oh, Groucho Marx. He only wants to be a member at a club that wouldn't Bizarro Groucho Marx. He only wants to be a member at a club

that wouldn't have him. Couldn't put it better myself. All right, do the Pacers actually have a chance? They're up two one. Could the Pacers be the most unlikely NBA champion in our lifetimes? Is it possible? We're at a point where superstars in the NBA

have mattered less than they ever have before because of financial regulations, because of, frankly, style of play has now incentivized depth and youth and running around. Shooting. Shooting. Like you can be down 16 and win a game because you're just firing threes and they're a three point differential, you know, like that wasn't really happening in the 90s. The Pacers are a team that is so unexciting from a brand perspective to watch

when an NBA finals, but the way they play is a, is a great TV show. It's 20 point comebacks. It's all these dudes who should be tired, but aren't, um, they're super athletic. They play in a fun way. And unfortunately, uh, fewer and fewer Americans want to watch that there aren't the brands in that in that Pacers locker room that America is tempted enough to watch. You didn't answer the question. Can they win? Can they win? Can the Pacers win? Yes. Unfortunately, Reggie Miller will be giving the choke sign to cameras all across our country.

giving the choke sign to cameras all across our country. I think that's, I think I have the thunder in six, but you know, it's very likely that I am quite raw. All right, Pablo Torre. That's my man. Go check out his show. It's so much good stuff. You can go back in the archives. It's evergreen. Pablo Torre finds out. Appreciate your brother. See you soon.