{"id":179985,"date":"2026-03-05T23:38:19","date_gmt":"2026-03-05T23:38:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/179985\/"},"modified":"2026-03-05T23:38:19","modified_gmt":"2026-03-05T23:38:19","slug":"messi-and-inter-miami-were-wallpaper-for-trumps-whims-in-their-white-house-visit-mls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/179985\/","title":{"rendered":"Messi and Inter Miami were wallpaper for Trump\u2019s whims in their White House visit | MLS"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nine minutes and 43 seconds. As Inter Miami\u2019s players stood behind the dais at the East Room in the White House with club owner Jorge Mas stood to the left and Lionel Messi to the right; with MLS commissioner Don Garber sat alongside Fifa World Cup 2026 task force executive director Andrew Giuliani in an audience replete with celebrities and sports stars, it took nine minutes and 43 seconds for US president Donald Trump<\/a> to talk about why any of them were there.<\/p>\n

Inter Miami won the 2025 MLS Cup; a solid win in an exciting final that merited this traditional visit for champions of US pro sports leagues. But in those minutes and seconds before it was acknowledged, Trump did as he did with Juventus players<\/a> in an Oval Office appearance during last summer\u2019s Club World Cup: he made sports figures the wallpaper for his political and cultural aims. Trump provided an update of sorts on his administration\u2019s sudden and ongoing war against Iran<\/a>, alluded to a potential conflict with Cuba and offered his own glowing assessment on the supposedly booming US economy. All the while, Luis Su\u00e1rez, Messi and every other Miami player gazed blankly from behind him.<\/p>\n

In some ways, the phrases Trump used in his opening remarks felt familiar to these sorts of team visits: totally demolish \u2026 they\u2019re tough \u2026 they fight \u2026 the greatest thing anyone has seen. But Trump\u2019s platitudes weren\u2019t directed towards Miami. He was speaking about a military operation that has claimed the lives of Americans and Iranians alike.<\/p>\n

Messi himself strode into the East Room walking alongside Trump, a visual that felt bizarre even by the completely warped standards of the current administration, one which has welcomed luminaries like Kid Rock, Ted Nugent, the MyPillow guy, and of course Messi\u2019s greatest rival, Cristiano Ronaldo<\/a>, to the White House.<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t Messi\u2019s first opportunity to attend a White House event; in January 2025, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest honor the US can bestow upon a private citizen. Messi, Inter Miami<\/a> said at the time, told the White House that he was \u201cdeeply honored\u201d and called the award a \u201cprofound privilege\u201d. Then he told them he had other plans, and didn\u2019t attend the award ceremony.<\/p>\n

Trump seemed to take pleasure in that absence, and maybe credit for Messi\u2019s attendance as well.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s my distinct privilege to say what no American president has ever had the chance to say before,\u201d Trump said. \u201cWelcome to the White House, Lionel Messi!\u201d<\/p>\n

Messi entered the East Room slightly behind Trump and Inter Miami owner Jorge Mas. Photograph: Jonathan Ernst\/Reuters<\/p>\n

Miami have one of the most diverse rosters in Major League Soccer and as they stood behind Trump, one couldn\u2019t help but reflect on their presence given some of Trump\u2019s past remarks. David Ruiz and Fafa Picault are of Honduran and Haitian descent respectively, \u201cshithole countries,\u201d as Trump called them early on in his first term, while also accusing Haitian immigrants in the United States of eating dog meat. Venezuelan midfielder Telasco Segovia stood behind Trump only months after Trump deposed the president of his home country. Former Barcelona greats Jordi Alba and Sergio Busquets have both moved on from Miami and were absent just days after Trump called their native Spain a \u201closer\u201d for refusing to aid the US in its ongoing war with Iran.<\/p>\n

For his part, Messi \u2013 whose mastery of the English language is frequently debated \u2013 nodded and smiled. He continued to do so as Trump brought up his son\u2019s infatuation with both Messi and Ronaldo. Trump, whose interest in professional soccer started with Pel\u00e9 and the New York Cosmos in the mid-1970s, asked Messi\u2019s own teammates whether they rated him higher than the Brazilian legend. Again, Messi simply nodded and laughed.<\/p>\n

It was deeply unsurprising. Messi has famously never publicly aligned himself with any particular political stance, and has usually declined visits to heads of state, perhaps seeking to avoid even an inadvertent attachment. Even at Barcelona \u2013 a team that has never hesitated to align itself with politics \u2013 Messi never weighed in on the subject of Catalan independence, leaving the talking to other club legends like Johan Cruyff, Pep Guardiola and Gerard Piqu\u00e9. Even Messi\u2019s comments on the use of the Catalan language seemed apolitical: \u201cthe more languages a child knows, the better.\u201d<\/p>\n

There are other ways to be, of course, even amongst Argentine legends of the game. Diego Maradona, Messi\u2019s boyhood idol, never got a White House invite, having been a staunch critic of US foreign policy during and after his playing career. Maradona, who bore a tattoo of Argentina-born Cuban revolutionary Che Guevara on his calf, was denied entry to the United States in 2018 after calling Trump a chirolita \u2013 Latin American slang for \u201cpuppet.\u201d<\/p>\n

Messi, and each and every player, have their own reasons for attending the event. So did Jorge Mas. As he mentioned in his remarks, Mas is the son of Cuban refugees who came to the US \u201cseeking freedom\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to express what an extreme honor and privilege it is to be in the people\u2019s house,\u201d said Mas, \u201cled by you, celebrating in the presence of champions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mas offered Trump the same finely honed backstory he\u2019s given many times, about the club\u2019s \u201cfreedom to dream\u201d. Then he offered his own non-sporting messages, about fleeing communism and tyranny, about sitting at the dinner table with his parents and about making a \u201cglobal difference\u201d.<\/p>\n

Trump has been referred to at times as America\u2019s first \u201csoccer president\u201d. He was in his first term when the US, Canada and Mexico won their joint bid to host this summer\u2019s World Cup and he\u2019ll be in office when the tournament kicks off in a little over three months. He\u2019ll also apparently be presenting the trophy to the tournament champions, having created a close relationship with Fifa president Gianni Infantino. The two of them are frequently seen together at events, and Trump, of course, is the inaugural recipient of Fifa\u2019s Peace Prize<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Yet nobody seems to be able to find any evidence that Trump actually cares about the soccer itself. Even after those initial 10 minutes of occasional warmongering, Trump only spoke about Miami for a few more before rambling on about baseball\u2019s New York Yankees, their long-dead owner George Steinbrenner, Andrew Giuliani\u2019s golf game or his plans for Cuba.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, Miami became the latest team to serve as window dressing for one of Trump\u2019s unhinged rants, standing uncomfortably behind him, before retreating to the Oval Office.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nine minutes and 43 seconds. As Inter Miami\u2019s players stood behind the dais at the East Room in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":179986,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[123,125,124],"class_list":["post-179985","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-miami","tag-miami","tag-miami-headlines","tag-miami-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179985","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=179985"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179985\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/179986"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=179985"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=179985"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=179985"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}