Donald Trump tried to create a distraction with bizarre rant about soccer. It didn’t go well.

| 9:18 am EDT April 27, 2018
Dear Palmer Report readers, we all understand the difficult era we're heading into. Major media outlets are caving to Trump already. Even the internet itself and publishing platforms may be at risk. But Palmer Report is nonetheless going to lead the fight. We're funding our 2025 operating expenses now, so we can keep publishing no matter what happens. I'm asking you to contribute if you can, because the stakes are just so high. You can donate here.

Donald Trump made an astounding mess for himself on Thursday morning when he appeared on Fox & Friends and blurted out so many embarrassing and self defeating things, Fox ended up having to cut him off. Even as everyone from the media to federal prosecutors began making hay of what Trump had said, he tried doubling down by tweeting that the appearance went “great” for him. When that didn’t work, he tried creating a distraction by posting a hostile and seemingly threatening rant about soccer of all things.

Here’s what Trump tweeted on Thursday afternoon: “The U.S. has put together a STRONG bid w/ Canada & Mexico for the 2026 World Cup. It would be a shame if countries that we always support were to lobby against the U.S. bid. Why should we be supporting these countries when they don’t support us (including at the United Nations)?” The only other nation to have submitted a credible bid to host the 2026 World Cup is Morocco, so that’s his unnamed target here.

“It would be a shame” is the kind of phrase that mafia bosses use when making threats, so there are some grounds for interpreting this tweet as a threat against Morocco. Suffice it to say that the tweet didn’t go over well. One respondent fired back with “Are you kidding me. If other countries want to bid on the World Cup so be it. If we get it awarded so be it, if not oh well. Telling countries they should support our bid is just stupid and childish. We help those countries out of compassion not so that they will do things for us.” Another simply quipped “Someone forgot their meds.”

So now Donald Trump is trying to create an international incident with Morocco, a nation we guarantee he wouldn’t be able to find on a map, over soccer of all things. At the least, he seems to have figured out that his Fox & Friends interview went poorly, and that he needed to try to find a way to distract from it. But really, this is just sad.