Hi everybody, I'm Audie Cornish, and this is The Assignment. And obviously this week there were prime ministers and bankers and business types gathered in Switzerland for Davos, the world economic forum. But with all the tensions with the U.S., needless to say, there was a lot of people talking economic smack. So can you imagine what it's going to be like when the Olympics kick off?

The United States is very much this. They're the bad guys pretty much across the board right now.

That's Will Leitch. He's a contributing editor at New York Magazine covering sports and film, and the Winter Games are coming up February 6th in Italy. That means it's less than three weeks away. So Will is joining me today to talk about not just the athlete stories, but also the geopolitical tensions at play. I promise it's fun. Stay with us.

All right, so Will Leitch, thank you so much for being here. Almost a year ago, I remember seeing a lot of news stories around how things were playing out between this big hockey game, between Canada and the US. I'm reducing it to the basics, where people were like started booing at the national anthem, right? When you heard the US national anthem because of Trump's sort of, we can now effectively call it saber rattling at Canada. And at that time, you wrote, this could be the beginning of something. Like this was not a fluke. And you have been right. I just have to say, well, I'm sure you love hearing that. It has turned out to be right. So put me in the way back machine when Canada was first mad at us and where this surfaced.

'Yeah, I would certainly love to be wrong about this, unfortunately, but yeah, here we are. So basically, the tournament you're referring to is the NHL's Four Nations face-off tournament a year ago. It was a big hit, I think, until Heated Rivalry. That was like the big hockey thing for casual fans for a long time. It was very fun tournament. Had Finland, had the United States, had Canada, the United States and Canada played each other in this very high stakes game. This was March of last year this is when Trump was first kind of tossing out the 51st state business and this added an extra level of intensity to the rivalry. But remember, this was happening across the board as well. This was happening at Toronto Raptors games. This was happening at hockey games during the, during the national anthem. When an American team would play in Canada, there would be booing, there'd be frustration. One of the biggest—

Just to slow you down for a second, there was also an election happening in Canada. So like the conversation around we as Canadians, who are we going to be? How do we stand up to our neighbor? Oh, wait a second. Do we have to stand up to our neighbors like that was a very present conversation. And Carney, who had been like a very huge banker in international trade circles, ended up winning precisely because of this like nationalist fervor that was ginned up by Trump.

'Yep, this was even happening in professional wrestling. The WWE had an event in Toronto and the national anthem was booed. And that actually crossed over to American audiences sometimes in a way that hockey didn't. So it became a really big thing. And what I found interesting too about that was you might notice one major country that was missing from the four nations face-off. Russia has been like basically banned from the world stage for basically since the Ukraine invasion and I kind of posited the idea that like is there a time where the U.S. If things continue on the way they're going they start to become kind of the pariah on the global sports stage the way that Russia has.

Right. Or global villain. I like that term. I really like that term because so much of international sporting events, they're just storytelling, right? Because they're trying to get you interested if you are a person who doesn't care about that particular sport. It's like you don't care that much about judo. Sorry, judo, plenty of people do. But if you don't there might be an athlete who has a back story. That's very dramatic, and you're going to get involved in all the storylines of it. And I think that's why I was so interested, because you and I are roughly the same age. And I feel like we were raised on a story that was Russia is the villain, like Rocky movies.

Right. Right, right. The United States is very much this. They're the bad guys pretty much across the board right now —

Really? Is it official? Because I have to admit, I didn't think about this. I thought about your article immediately when Davos was happening. And all of a sudden you have, of course, Canada, again, the prime minister getting up there and talking in not so veiled terms about the U.S. And as a bully. And also you had even Macron of France, right? In sunglasses for reasons that were medical slash. aesthetic.

He looked good.

He was also...he was very French. It was very french. Even having that that moment where they were talking about, you know, they're dealing with something else. The potential collapse of NATO and with it, the world's sense of the global order in which the U.S. Is the good guy or good cop that doesn't just police disputes or things like that, but upholds the international institutions. And without. With that feeling of that being pulled away with Trump, you can see all of these nations. I won't say panicked, Greenland's probably panicking, but there's this sense of like, wait a second, is this the bad place?

Yeah, and I really think you kind of can't underrate how big of a factor that FIFA World Cup draw was at the end of last year when Trump, when he was awarded the FIFA World Peace Prize, which apparently was not satisfying enough in that regard.

Well, because it was made up, right? I know, well, yeah.

Yes, yes, but you know that event is one of like, the Olympics are a big deal. The World Cup globally is like everyone is watching, keeping an eye on the World Cup soccer is the biggest sport in the world. Everyone was watching that and the World cup draw is a huge deal that lets you know who's going to play when they're going to be playing that we know this big events coming up. To have Trump put himself not just at the middle of that, but in a, in a that of global villain sort of way where the entire world was watching basically FIFA and everyone hand this man a little trophy so he'll feel better about himself and let him go on stage and and and do all of his eccentricities for the whole world to see kind of got everyone being being like wow there's like a lot of global events coming up and is he going to be at the center of all of it and I think that's actually a part of this too we in America have gotten quite used to already, that whatever part of American life is going on, Trump is going to put himself at the center of it. We are very accustomed to that. I think this is, when global sports is not a lot of things that everyone is looking at it once across the world. The Olympics are one of those, and the World Cups are one those. Trump has put himself at the center of all of this, I think has been striking to a lot of people. As American, I wanna be like, yep, see, he's inescapable, right?

I know. So context has changed. Number one, the conversation with Canada had somewhat cooled, you know, not it's not perfect, but it's somewhat cooled. And now in the last month, the conversation about Greenland has ramped up to the point where you have massive street protests there. I mean, as massive as it can be, because it's very small country. You have, you know Denmark kind of in a panic, you have France and other countries moving actually like positioning for military exercises near Greenland or in Greenland, and then you have the seizing of Maduro out of Venezuela. Now, most people around the world are not trying to back Maduro, right? But the Greenland thing has really triggered something internationally. How does that contribute to the global, the sports villain of it?

I mean, we saw, to go back to the Russia idea, we saw what happened when they invaded Ukraine. They were immediate pariahs on the global sports stage. If you watch any time you...To this day, if you watch a tennis event, the flag will be blacked out. When you watch the Olympics, the Winter Olympics, they're called individual neutral athletes—

Wait, go back to the tennis thing. They're doing what with the flag?

So you don't see the Russian flag. You'll see the American flag on like the little score bug, but you will not. The Russian flag is blacked out. It has been like that since Ukraine. They're not a part of the global stage. Russia was not allowed to even qualify for the World Cup this year. They have been a true pariah on the global state since the invasion of Ukraine. The parallels here are difficult to miss at a certain level, right? The idea, the world's reaction to, again, the United States has not yet invaded Greenland, but if they were to do so, the reaction that we saw to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, if they're being consistent, I would say, at a certain level, what the U.S. Would be doing, the Greenland would not be dramatically different than what Russia did to Ukraine, which led to a ban on Russian athletes that's still extended to today.

We're gonna take a quick break when we come back more with Will Leitch.

You know, I was thinking about what you said about not being able to escape the American politics this year. Also, because you're gonna have the Summer Olympics in LA, right? And that's dovetailing in the moment when we're also gonna be celebrating the 250th anniversary of the U.S. We know that the administration wants to really celebrate that, even with sporting events, like they've been talking about doing a UFC fight, like Octagon at the White House. So it's like this, Trump likes sports, right? And he likes spectacle, but how is it complicated by like the LA event, right, cause he also doesn't like California, doesn't Like LA.

You know, the World Cup is a, like one of the reasons that FIFA has been leaned so much toward Trump is this, it just makes so much money. It is bigger than the Olympics. The World Cup is the biggest global sporting event on the planet and people want to come from outside the country to come watch those games. It is a bucket list event for really any sports fan. And you literally saw Kristi Noem, you saw JD Vance saying. We're happy to have people come here, but you better get out of here as soon as the games are over. You're going to have to talk to Christie over here. And sports are supposed to be this welcoming thing, this place to come in. There have been reports about how the Department of Homeland Security, when you apply for visas to come watch the World Cup, they want to see your social media history.

For five years, let me just say that. They wanna see five years of social media history for your visit to the U.S. to watch soccer.

Honestly, if you are a, how much you want to watch Brazil or you want watch your team, how much of is it like, forget it, I'll watch it on TV. Like this is supposed to be a big global event. You think of 1994, that was the last time the United States hosted the World Cup. It was considered the launching point for the America's American soccer and how it became all the corporations embraced it. It's become like a massive thing across the world. That was considered a launching event. We've talked for years. Oh. Wait until it comes back. This is going to be a wonderful thing. We're going to show off what, how America has evolved in sport, in soccer, how much bigger it's come, how they can host this stuff. And now you basically have people in the administration saying, don't come.

Right, or if you come, make sure you have your documentation, basically. You will not be immune from our mass deportation effort that is going on right now.

And listen, to be fair, the World Cup has been hosted by Russia and Qatar. So the idea, but even those like for, like they made a, they made a special dispensation to be like, we're hosting the World Cup, a lot of the things that we ordinarily might have going on here. We're going to loosen because we want people to come. We want to show off who we are. But listen, you know, the idea of someone boycotting a, a World Cup or an Olympics, it's a little late to do it for the World Cup, but...

I was going to say, I've heard little murmurings like, oh, well, maybe we shouldn't go or maybe we should pull our teams. But I have to admit, I just feel like, you know, the trade conversation in a way, it's about us, like you and me, the way we shop is part of US's power in the world, right? Our kind of consumer economy. And just people don't, I don't know a country that wants to give up the market that is the U.S. And they'll kind of, as we can see with Trump put up with a lot to maintain that access.

I agree, I don't think any European teams are not going to come to the World Cup, but I think a lot of their fans aren't going to. And I think that is an issue.

I was looking at your medium and your sub stack, you are very progressive, very liberal. You are very upset with how this administration is behaving. The reason why I'm bringing this up is because how does that complicate things for you as a sports fan? Are you ready to be the villain?

Well, any sports fan can tell you that there's a certain compartmentalization you have to make when you're watching sports. I don't think there's any question about that. I think that certainly there are athletes, there are owners, there are teams, there corporations that are involved with your favorite team. And if you're going to say, oh, I'm not going to watch that team, then then you're not going be able to watch sports. I think everyone has kind of made a certain kind of deal with themselves on that. But I also think there is a lot of value in speaking out about this. Your sports washing, for example, has become a very big thing involving in the Middle East, in Dubai. And—

Yeah, just which for people to know that's the idea of having an event around sports because by definition, it's supposed to be about goodwill, which you use to then hope people will do more reporting on rather than on whatever human rights abuses or environmental abuses you're committing.

What's so interesting about the United States hosting all the events in the way they are right now, the sporting events are actually also looking bad. They're actually making America look worse on a global stage. I guess it's sports staining, I guess, would be the opposite of that. In a lot of ways, it's actually hurting America to have this spotlight on them at this exact time, which is the opposite of what sports washing is actually supposed to do.

I want you to tell me a sports lullaby. Okay, well, now it's your time. Tell me, what are you excited to watch? What are the Cinderella stories to come? Give me something to look forward to about the Winter Olympics.

'So there's a new event this year, it's called Ski Mountaineering, or Ski-Mo, is what they call it. It's a, I always love new events, it is a great part of the Olympics, is there's always that one or two new sports that you're like, oh, we're breakdancing now, okay, all right, sure, let's all go with it, that'll be fun. And so this year it's SkiMo, SkiMo is, it basically generally what you think of skiing, except you have to go up the hill first. And so you have to do cross-country skiing up the hill, and then once you get up there, there's no lifts. It's a timed thing. It's kind of a complicated sport. But I think people are going to love Skimo.

Are they going to put like GoPros on them? Like, are we going to feel like...? Oh, yeah.

You're going to feel... To me, I have to say, I don't understand what it is like to be able to go down a hill and be able to fly with the grace of a beautiful... I understand what it's like to trudge up a hill. Slowly. That feels like American life. At a certain level, I think that's going to be a really, really fun... Schemo, we're into it. We're into it. Okay, what else? I do think the Lindsey Vonn thing is to be a pretty exciting part of this Olympics.

Oh good, yeah.

She's older, she's 41 years old, and she of course overcomes some pretty serious injuries as well. So I think that's going to be a fun story too. And I do think one thing that's gonna be very, very fun in this Olympics that really should be noted, to get back to hockey, the professionals are back in the Olympics this year. They have not been at the Olympics since the Sochi Olympics in 2014.

Wait, on top of Heated Rivalry, there's going to be an additional excitement about hockey.

It is a hockey moment.

Get ready for the 80s back, baby, I'm ready.

It is going to be very, very fun. I do think having the pros having the best players in the world at the Olympics, again, not just on the heels of Heated Rivalry, which I totally agree, but also that event last year that became a very, big deal. I think that's going to a big part of these Olympics for I think casual fans that are just kind of ducking in.

Before I let you go, can I ask, what is the deal with Greenland? Do they field teams like through Denmark or like how does it work?

So this is actually very funny. So Greenland has they do not currently have a FIFA recognized soccer team because they're not in the World Cup. They've actually applied for they basically got a team together. They're kind of late to the game a little bit. It's hard to you know, there's a lot of ice. You can still get a Greenland kit. They have very sharp kits. If you're looking for a way to support Greenland during this time, maybe you can get one of those but they will not be the world's cup, unfortunately.

And then in the Olympics, are they going to be, are there competitions that they're very good at? I think the precedent probably assumes...Sledding?

There are some competitors in the Olympics from Greenland this year, but they're not a power because they are a very small country.

That's OK. Just there's always when they do the parade of nations, it's always fun to see the different like outfits and everything. And there is always that contingent from a country that's very small, where there's just like four people in an enormous flag. And you're just like, you go, you know.

I think in Italy, that might get an ovation this year, I will say. This is definitely going to get the most ovation I think the Greenland contingency is going to get probably in Olympic history.

Okay, well thank you so much for talking with me. Please tell people where they can find your writing, where you're writing these days.

'So I write wherever they'll have me, but I'm a contributing editor in New York magazine and I'm a columnist for the Washington Post. I also write about college football for the Athletic and baseball for mlb.com. So I-.

'Wait, are you, you're not in Substack Nation? You're not, like, doing the-

I am. I do have a substack, but it's free. It is just a way to get thoughts out of my brain on Saturdays. I would never charge people for it. It's williamfleitch.substack.com. I promise it's usually not as political as it's been the last couple of weeks.

So, okay, listen, people are going to hear free substack and they're going to say, subscribe.

Yes, subscribe! It's free. It is always free. Only once a week I will not bombard your inboxes.

No, no, that's amazing. Well, thank you so much for talking to me about this. It was super fun.

Of course, thanks for having me. Enjoy the Olympics and good luck with everything.

Thank you guys so much for listening. We will be back next week.