195. The World Cup Disaster: How Mamdani Outplayed Trump

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Explore what's possible. Ask your doctor about Tramphya today. Call 1-800-526-7736 to learn more or visit tramphyaradio.com. Welcome to The Rest Is Politics US with me, Katty Kay. And me, Anthony Scaramucci. Katty, what are we going to be talking about today? Unless you've all been living under a rock, you are probably aware that the World Cup is kicking off on Thursday this week. Very exciting. Of course, the event much anticipated. It's being held in Canada, Mexico, and the United States. But unfortunately, this has not been the great relaunch of American soft power that America might have expected or hoped for because between the ice presence at the stadiums and a big row between ice and New York Mayor Mamdani, lots of different visa issues with one African referee even being barred from entering the stadium. So, from entry into the US, empty hotel rooms, controversy, of course, around Iran's participation. This has now become an image of how closed off America is and has become rather than how open and welcoming the World Cup host nation is. So, I thought it was worth talking about that today, Anthony. When the World Cup was picked for the United States, I remember that Infantino, the head of FIFA, was going around America saying that this is going to be like four Super Bowls and it's going to be this huge economic boost for America. What did he say? There was going to be the cavalry of tourists coming to America to watch the World Cup matches. And of course, actually, it hasn't quite panned out that way. There was a report out just a couple of weeks ago saying that hotel rooms are down in occupancy, something like 80% compared to normal in the host cities. That is not what you'd expect. Flights to America are down 15%. July of this year during the World Cup compared to July of last year. And it's just turned into being, if you watch coverage around the world, it is one story after another of how America is shutting its doors to fans, to photographers, to team members, even to this one referee, a Somali referee who was named Africa's referee of the year and was given hours of interrogation, to get into the United States and was not allowed to come into the country, even though he was meant to be refereeing one of the games. So I think as a kind of exercise in soft power, an exercise in brand rehabilitation, Anthony, I reckon you could do a lot better than America is doing right now during the World Cup. What do you reckon? Well, I mean, you know, they're at zero, so I think a lot of people could do better. But Kat, I want you to go to, if you don't mind, before I chime in, go to the unions and some of the issues that are going on with some of the unions related to ice right now. So these are concession workers at the stadiums, etc. Yeah. So ice, I mean, the whole issue around ice has been super interesting because there's two different issues. You've got Tom Horman, who repeated this week on Monday that he was going to be having more ice agents than you've ever seen in New York City around the World Cup. They haven't refuted the idea that they're going to be going into stadiums and picking up workers. Well, who is it that runs the stadiums? Who is it that runs the concession stands? Who is it that cleans the stadiums? It's so many immigrants to the United States are the ones doing that. So you now have the workers unions threatening to go on strike, particularly out in California, where some of the matches are being held during the World Cup, if there is an ice presence. And what's interesting is that the administration has been given the opportunity to say, no, there won't be ice looking for people who are in the country illegally. They've been pushed on this in multiple interviews, and they have decided that actually their message is going to be, you know what, we are there for national security. But guys, if we happen to come across people who are in the country illegally, this is specifically what they've said, we will be picking them up. This is what Mark Wayne Mullen, the head of DHS has said. So I think that's the backdrop to this. And it's not just a story about the World Cup. This has become a story about whether, whether America is open to migrants, whether America is open to foreigners. And now you have the potential of disruption at some of the matches because of the ice activity. And Anthony, I was sitting at a dinner the other night with a group of people from around the world who follow American politics closely. And we were kind of playing this game about what's the most shocking thing that has happened in the course of the last year. And you know what the number one most shocking thing was? The killings in Minneapolis around ice. So the role of ice in America, is being watched carefully by foreigners, but of course, also by unions who are actually going to be responsible for making sure this actually goes off. It's the workers at these stadiums who are responsible for making sure this World Cup goes off well, right? I want you to envision Barack Obama is President of the United States, Joe Biden, George W. Bush is President of the United States, the dollar is down 12% against the Euro versus the Euro in the last year. I just want you to think about the magnitude of that. So you're making the point that America is a cheap place to come on holiday. Exactly. So America is a lot cheaper for tourists, but I would say the July booking numbers are down 14% vis-a-vis 2025, and we've got the World Cup here. Europeans, specifically, Katty, year over year, down 14 and a quarter percent. Just think about the magnitude of this stuff. Now, of course, 80% of the hotels are saying the same thing, way under, Kansas City is the worst. Roughly 85% of the hotels in Kansas City are reporting lower than expected bookings despite the high profile matches in the Kansas City Chiefs Stadium. So to me, I find this stuff shocking, but also telling that there's a protest going on. This is not about anything other than this is Trump's America. You've made it brutally hard for us. You didn't give the team from Iran the visas until last Friday. And oh, by the way, some of their personnel, you rejected their visas flat out. They can't even enter the country. Well, they can't even train in Arizona, which is where they were planning to train. They're having to train in Mexico. Yeah, they're going to be in Tijuana. It's crazy. So it's embarrassing for the United States. I mean, it's a terrible thing to say. I'm an American, and so I'm going to say it, and then I want you to react to it. Russia got banned from the World Cup as a result of the Ukraine invasion. Why isn't the US getting banned? Why isn't the US getting banned here? They were the aggressor in Iran. Why are they not getting told us all in Davos, there are multiple different rules in the rules-based order. And there is a rule for the big countries and a rule for the small countries. And America has been tipped. This is the first time ever, interestingly, that a host country has been at war with one of the playing countries. I found that remarkable since the 1930s when the World Cup was launched. It's never actually happened before, which is why you've got this issue around the Iranians. But I don't think America needs to be banned. I think the world is banning America for it. I mean, I think that is the reaction that you're seeing, Antony, to this World Cup. I think the stadiums will have decent attendance. Friends of mine who are buying tickets last minute are saying you can now pick up tickets for a hundred bucks to some of the smaller games. A Swiss friend of mine is just about to fly up to San Francisco to watch the Qatar match, the Switzerland-Qatar match, and he got the tickets pretty cheaply. So some of this was FIFA, meddling with the prices. But this is also the case that there are not very many foreigners. So you're going to have Americans in the stadiums. I do think you'll have more Americans, hopefully, once the games start, traveling to see them. But it shined a bright spotlight between these crazy visa restrictions, this Somali referee. I don't know if you've seen this video of the Senegalese players that's gone completely viral all over Africa. Yeah, of course. So this is video of the Senegalese. They're on the tarmac. They're being frisked. It's embarrassing. And the video went viral in Africa with the caption, you know, this is how America is treating the African players who are arriving. It actually turned out the Senegalese soccer team put out a statement saying, actually, this was meant to expedite transfer from Raleigh to San Antonio where they're playing. It was actually quite a useful screening process. This was not as they were arriving at the San Antonio stadium. But in a way, it didn't matter. Because the damage was already done. Because people are, that is the perception of America already. The reputation has already done the work. The U.S. doesn't need to humiliate international players. And there are lots of African countries coming. As we know, Donald Trump called them shithole countries, right, in his first term. It doesn't need to humiliate them because the reputation of America is already done. And this stuff spreads like wildfire, whether it's accurate or not accurate. Not that he's a bellwether or anything like that. But Alistair Campbell, when I saw him in Hong Kong two weeks ago, told me this will be the first World Cup. He hasn't attended in three decades worth of World Cups. I think there's something going on, Caddy, that I want to sort of explain to American listeners. I mean, I think the European listeners and global listeners have a handle on it. But this is a perfect storm where policy pursued by a right-leaning political coalition has landed untold unforeseen political costs on people that really didn't have a seat at the table. Okay. These are union workers, bellhops, barmen, concession stand workers. Hotel workers. Hotel workers. This says local restaurants, the sort of ecosystem that would support a Super Bowl or a World Cup, okay, has been hit by these policy restrictions. And, again, it's been hit by the xenophobia. And so, to me, it's reckless. To them, because, again, we want to be objective here on this podcast. To them, it's principled. They're like, hey, yeah, that's exactly what we're doing. And we're going to have ICE agents everywhere and we'll arrest you if we think you're doing something illegal. But it just puts this chilling effect on everybody. And you know the president, at least in the House, hasn't cleared the Senate yet, got $70 billion for his new, new secret police program, whatever that is, in terms of the fortification of ICE and the fortification of these different para-police forces that the president wants to enforce the immigration laws, but also to hand-check people in these cities. And, again, it's mostly blue states, mostly blue cities. And the great irony there is that these blue state, blue cities have pretty low crime rates. You know, the red states have, per capita, higher crime than some of those blue state cities. That's the big irony of the whole thing. So, to me, I'm just going to say, if you're coming, there's a very large part of the Americans that welcome you, certainly want you in our hometown in New York. But if you're not coming, it's also understandable. But I hope somebody brings it up and has some type of reckoning with the administration over what they've wrought. Okay. So, talking of New York, and I want to talk about the Knicks in just a second, because that was another not great sporting moment. But I want to talk about the Knicks in just a second, because that was another not great sporting moment for President Trump. But you know who has made this a blinder of a World Cup for himself and has done a kind of masterful job on rolling out the welcome mat? And that's Zoran Mamdani. I don't know if you, have you been watching some of his stuff? Anthony, I think I sent you some of the videos that he's done. Super telegenic, great communicator. And he's done this welcome video, it's worth watching, that he's put out on X, where he is all around the city explaining how New York City works to visitors, telling everybody they're welcome to the city, explaining the city. And I think that's a really good thing. I think that's a really good thing. system and the buses. He's also managed to get FIFA to drop the prices of a lottery with $50 tickets for 1000 New Yorkers every day, trying to make it more accessible to New Yorkers to get around some of these high prices. But in a way, what he's done that is so masterful is he's juxtaposed Trump making America look closed and frankly, un-American with himself as a politician, rolling out the welcome mat and saying to the rest of the world, actually, this is America. He got into this great exchange with Tom Homan, because Tom Homan did this thing on Monday, saying that he was going to flood the zone in New York City with ICE agents. And Mamdani shoots back a tweet the next day. They've got really into it this week in the run up to the Open of the World Cup. And he says, listen, the soccer world would not exist without immigrants. Six of the US men's national team are immigrants. And he makes the point that, you know, the coaches and the stadiums are all run by immigrants, exactly what we've been talking about. But he's found a way to make Trump not look just wrong on this, but to look like he's not what America should be on the global stage. And here is Mamdani citing the US men's national team as a way to say, okay, this is actually what America is. America is a country of immigrants. And I think it's that, it's not just good politics. It's kind of, I think it's a template for how Democrats need to start responding to what's going on in the country around ICE. Well, listen, I think the number one thing that he's doing, which I think is brilliant is, yes, all the media stuff is brilliant. And he's very telegenic. He's got a great smile. He has the best smile in American politics since Barack Obama. Since Barack Obama, I was going to say that. Multi-billion dollar smile. Barack Obama carried him and many other of his assets carried him into the presidency. But Mamdani's got all of that. But I'll tell you something he's doing that I think is brilliant. He's running the city. And he's running the city as a moderate. And I want to contrast that to Donald Trump because Donald Trump actually is a lunatic. And he talked like a lunatic during the campaign. He reversed some of his policies, like he's now running forever wars and he's not going to disclose the Epstein files. But all of the right wing rhetoric and all of the atavistic xenophobia Donald Trump has executed on, Donald Trump has executed on, Donald Trump has pursued. And so this is the contrast. If Trump had talked like a nut, but just ran the things like a moderate, he'd actually be reasonably popular. Mamdani gets the joke. Yes, I have a coalition of democratic socialists, but you know what? I got to run the city. He's made one major mistake. Okay. And that was the mistake. And I'm not going to mention the name because I don't want to put the guy in harm's way, but the billionaire whose house he went in front of. And he said, blah, blah, that was a mistake. I'm going to give you these numbers. Okay. So he starts out two months in, he's at 49% versus 31. That's like Mayor de Blasio. But today in the two most populated congressional districts, New York seven, which is Bushwick, Williamsburg, Long Island city, he's polling at 77% approval rating. Okay. In New York 12, which is where all the rich people are. Okay. That's, that's Midtown upper East side and upper West side, 66% approval rating. At the moment in the time of politics we live in, nobody's getting that. This guy is one of the most popular politicians. I'm just saying for his delegation of people that have to vote for him, he's got very high approval ratings. People should look at what he's doing and study it. Well, yeah, the Democrats need to start looking at what he's doing. Anyway, I think this world cup is going to be defined by those two videos. It's, on the one hand you got Mamdani's welcome video. And on the other hand, you've got the Senegalese players on the tarmac being frisked. And that second one may not tell the entire story, but you put those together and one is Trump's America and one is Mamdani's America. And that is what the world is looking at. Okay. You were talking of sporting events here at the New York Knicks on Monday night. I'm sorry for your loss. Mamdani was there too, in the cheap seats, standing room only, by the way, another good look. Let me give news for the mayor. I wasn't in the front row. I wasn't in celebrity row, but I'm bougie. nouveau riche new yorker i was eight rows back behind the net okay close to the spurs uh bench you know and i brought i brought nick and james my 12 and eight year old and i'll put some pictures up of the of the event a couple things there the thing number one was the secret service and the tsa did an amazing job of getting those lines cleared and people into that arena on time and there was protective bulletproof glass in front of the president's uh suite and so whether he should have been there or not stephen a smith a famous sportscaster here for espn thinks he shouldn't have been there thinks that he's the reason why the knicks lost but i will just say that the people the new york city's finest that's what we call our police force and the people around new york did a phenomenal job of making everybody safe but what i will say is trump looked very tired he fell asleep and i imagine it was pretty noisy in there right how how easy would it have been to have a quick nap yeah so i'm going to say they're not consistent with left not not consistent with the way the left is reporting it okay when they flashed him on the screen during the national anthem i would say it was a 65 35 mix of boos and cheers it was very consistent to my ear of what's going on in the country two-thirds won the third and by the way self-selecting is a very wealthy crowd in there because they paid a pretty penny to go to the game but it was two-thirds booing and one-third and you could see the expression on his face and his you know one of the things i didn't like i didn't like his granddaughter witnessing that type of booing you know she she looked unnerved by it he knew he was going to get some of that he knew that when he went he would get some of that i mean not that he's not a knicks fan he is he always has been the mayor has it figured out he's young he's bold he's charismatic but he's governing and for all of the rich new yorkers that don't like him take a chill he may you may have an opportunity to bring the city together with this kid yeah well he is dominating this world cup at the moment in terms of politicians handling this well and if you want to know who the mayor of new york thinks is actually going to win the world cup watch the guardians bracket video it's super fun it's nine minutes i was surprised anyway and i'm hoping he's right okay let's take a break and we'll come back and talk about california are you looking for support in your weight management journey zep bound terzepatide may be able to help zep bound is a prescription medicine used with a reduced calorie diet and increased physical activity to help adults with obesity or some adults with overweight who also have weight related medical problems to lose excess body weight and keep the weight off zep bound is approved as a 2.5 5 7.5 10 12.5 or 15 milligram injection zep bound contains terzepatide and should not be used with other terzepatide containing 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basically done it still haven't started the video yet if you haven't started the video yet please haven't started hey better late than ever sell your car today on carvana pickup fees may apply welcome back to the rest is politics us we're going to talk about california which seems to be the latest target of trump's voter fraud claims raising speculation now that he's going to use this same playbook for the midterm elections because what's happened is you've had that we spoke about this last week the governor's primary and the la mayor's primary and there was a trump endorsed candidate in the la mayor's primary who looked like he was going to do well he had gone kind of viral with these ai videos spencer pratt anyway he lost the race and ever since he lost the race donald trump has just piled in to california which has this weird voting system where people can vote by mail the votes get counted so long as they arrived with a stamp postal stamp on them on election day it takes a long time to count all of the votes they're super assiduous about checking all of the signatures so it takes a long time it took six days you didn't have a result for it and and that time donald trump piles in and says the california election must have been rigged because spencer pratt my guy was ahead anthony on election day and then he lost the primary so what's happening in california why did it take so long and is that the problem because when you have a vacuum it seems to me that's where mischief can be made right yeah listen i mean the problem is it's a compelling story that trump is telling it's not a true story but this is the problem with donald trump he is maligning the integrity of our elections and so what caddy just said i want to overemphasize they are signature verifying every single mail-in ballot and if you look at the statistical anomalies there are very few i either would be turnover over 100 percent or there would be totally miscued districts and he tried to say that he said oh there's a 43 percent of the vote came in for the democrat and zero came in for the republican which is impossible it's not even a true statement that he said but he's trying to rile people up and he's trying to malign the electoral integrity of the system and i will say this though caddy people do believe him and that's the thing that worries me the most yes i don't believe him you don't believe him normal people that are looking at it that understand process wouldn't believe him even the homeland security people that are permanent governmental officials do not believe him but guess what as he said to leslie saw if i say a lie over and over and over again i can get enough people to believe the lie you know billy bush tells a great story about trump saying that i'm number one in the apprentice and billy said well you haven't been number one in five years i'm number one i'm number one and then when the show's off he says you know billy if i say it enough you know there's a lot of people that believe that i'm number one do you remember when we did our series on trump from the 1980s that was the message he learned from roy cohen you say a lie enough people will actually end up believing him okay talk about mike johnson the speaker of the house your favorite politician at the moment with a very very strong spine of steel that mike johnson seems to have decided that it's his role to tout this idea what do you say he said i'm not saying it's rigged i'm saying it stinks to high heaven and everybody knows that then he's pressed about the evidence what's your evidence mr speaker that the california election is rigged and here's his answer anthony tell me if you're satisfied some of these efforts are so diabolical and so far upstream that's it that it's impossible to prove but i think everybody knows instinctively something is wrong here does knowing something instinctively constitute evidence of election fraud to you no but remember what mike johnson is doing because mike johnson gets criticized that he's not trumpy enough and you remember there was a hit or a potential revolution on mike johnson before trump even re-ascended to the presidency that the president himself had to put down and he had to render some support to mike johnson so every once in a while the maga people i see mike johnson you remember that rocky thing with the then when you hit the bag you know and you're and it kind of keeps bouncing back at him yeah yeah that's mike johnson's face with these MAGA people so they keep hitting them and she's like shit I gotta get out there and say something right now remember he did get caught on a hot mic as we pointed out the last episode I think we pointed it out on the medical episode that Trump is batshit crazy he got caught on the hot mic he had to walk it back and so this is him trying to get back in the flow of pro MAGA the best line though caddy the best line you ready gone impossible to prove impossible to prove that is the best line yeah okay so listen it is fraud but you know what caddy it's so diabolical and it's so sinister it's impossible to prove okay and that goes into Donald Trump's ear like a corkscrew you know it's like those ringworms that he's allowing now on our meat products from the FBA they're just going you know it's like those ringworms that he's allowing now on our meat products from the FBA inside his ear and eating his brain with this sort of propaganda nonsense but I'll tell you it's very bad for the country Mike Johnson is implanting screw worms into Donald Trump's brain is what you're suggesting the Republicans have got to figure out a better strategy in California the strategy that they have right now is not going to work in that state by the way Bruce Blakeman the Republican that's running against Kathy Hochul is running the same MAGA playbook guys these are blue states you're a Republican the last Republican to run New York was Governor Pataki that's 20 years ago he left office in 2006 guys wake up this strategy that they're deploying is MAGA MAGA MAGA and can you give me some more MAGA is not going to work in those areas and you talk about this caddy you've talked about like the Swiss army knife approach yeah you've talked about the Swiss army knife approach and you've talked about the Swiss army knife approach and you've talked about the Swiss army knife approach and you pull out the right blade for the right district in the right state you don't try and take a sledgehammer in a in a state that needs like a screwdriver it doesn't work for you I mean look you talked about Spanberger's race in Virginia being a very different race than Mondani yeah you know and look at what's going on with Platner that's like another whole whole other thing but the Republicans have decided we can't deviate from Trump we're gonna get ourselves in trouble so let's triple down on MAGA and Spencer Pratt by the way is running a full MAGA campaign to try and become mayor of Los Angeles in a city that is only 17 percent Republican that's why Spencer Pratt lost the mayoral primary it wasn't because there was something nefarious going on he's the wrong candidate in the wrong city they can't run like that I think you're right Mike Johnson is just there trying to get the screwworm of acceptability into Donald Trump and MAGA's ear but I think there is a difference Anthony between Trump 1 and Trump 2 Trump 1 you've got an attorney general and you've got an attorney general and you've got an attorney general in Bill Barr who is prepared to say that the idea that the 2020 election was stolen is quote bullshit this time around who do we have we've got Kash Patel we've got Todd Blanche we've got Bill Pulte just about to go and run the Department of National Intelligence and they are all election deniers so Trump has really fed election deniers into the system these are all the people who are going to be charged with securing the midterm elections in November and I think we're setting up a very different election than we're setting up a very different election than we're setting up a very different group of people with a very different set of ideologies compared to what you had in the first Trump administration and that's why people are worried about what Trump is doing now and the kinds of things that he's saying when he says it's not possible for Spencer Pratt to have lost LA that America's like a third world country with rigged elections and that there's big cheating going on he did this in the first he did this in 2020 he lays the groundwork for people to believe that there is some kind of fraud I actually think it's not just that the Republicans have got to get their act together and they've got to get their act together and they've got to get their act together in California and run the right candidates in California in particular they have to do something about how long it takes to count the votes they've got to change this system Anthony because yeah when there's a vacuum in a world of social media guess what conspiracy theories dive into that lovely warm water and they swim around and they metastasize and then you get rigged election claims well I think I think I think it's very well said they should do that they likely won't do that I want to take you to the tarmac after the next election I think it's very well said they should do that they likely game where Trump was accosted by the journalists. I knew we were going back to the Nick game. We were going back to the Nick's game. And I said, hey, you know, Stephen A. Smith says that they lost because of you. And Trump said, what did he say? Stephen A. Smith has low IQ. He can't be president. And then they turned to Lee Zeldin, who's the EPA guy. He did run for governor unsuccessfully a few years back. He's the EPA administrator. And Lee Zeldin was talking, and I am going to show you, okay, because we have props here. Watch me. This is Trump, okay? And if you're listening, I'm moving, and I'm bending, and I'm moving. And Trump was like, dude, five words out of your mouth is five too many. I want that microphone back in my face. And Trump was moving back and forth like this. And finally, he cut Zeldin off, and he got himself back into the mix with the reporter. Okay. I was just loving. Loving the body language between these guys, okay? And Zeldin looked very stressed, man. And he was trying to get some words in with the press. Do not get between Donald Trump and a microphone. He was not having it. It's a very dangerous place to be. Okay, guys. We're going to leave it there. We will be back next week, of course, with more news. And if you would like to hear the second part of our series on Donald Trump's health, talking of the president falling asleep at the Knicks game, and what can be done. In America, if we feel that a president is not fit for office, we've got that episode dropping this week for our founding members. You can sign up at therestispoliticsus.com to become a founding member. We interviewed a doctor who I was pretty surprised by what he said. So if you want to find out the truth about Donald Trump's health, it's a good series to listen to. Thanks so much for listening, guys. We'll see you next week. Thanks, guys. Shag here. What's it like to buy a car? You can buy a car from Carvana 100% online and get it delivered to your door. Let me tell you. Your car is here, Mr. Shag. 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