A columnist for the Los Angeles Times has issued a call for the city of Los Angeles to pull out of its hosting duties for the 2028 Olympics, over concerns that President Trump will use L.A.’s hosting in the international sporting event to advance his agenda.
Gustavo Arellano specifically highlighted the president’s role on the 2028 Summer Olympics task force as a particular point of concern.
Arellano said that naming Trump as the head of the organizing committee task force was akin to offering the city a “giant whoopee cushion.”
The writer did not spare other Trump officials who are involved with preparing Los Angeles to host the Olympics.
“On Trump’s right was a rash of L.A. haters, some of whom played a prominent role in Southern California’s summer of deportations, including Vice President JD Vance and Department of Homeland Security head Kristi Noem,” Arellano wrote. “Not present, but hailed by Trump during the presser as an ‘MVP candidate,’ was Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, who has made it his life’s mission to crush the multicultural metropolis that birthed him.”
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to reporters after signing an executive order during a ceremony in the South Court Auditorium in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on August 5, 2025, in Washington, DC. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)
Arellano also called out organizing committee chair Casy Wasserman for fawning over Trump.
“I haven’t seen such a suck-up since the last time I vacuumed my dad’s pool,” he wrote. “And you definitely don’t entrust kiss a– like Wasserman — I’m still not sure what he did to deserve his powerful LA28 gig, except being the grandson of the late Hollywood mogul Lew Wasserman — with calming down someone like Trump.”
Arellano acknowledges that the federal government was always going to be involved in hosting the Games, but Trump’s involvement is what makes the whole thing worse.
“The federal government was always going to play a role in providing security for the 2028 Olympics, just as it has for previous Games in the U.S. But Trump, as the head of the task force, now gets to personally oversee our own siege,” he wrote. “With the Games happening in a presidential election year, Trump would love nothing more than to traipse around an L.A. radically transformed by his deportation blitzkrieg to proclaim his mission accomplished and broadcast his conquest to the world.”
Arellano then specifically used the Spanish language slang term for immigration officials – La Migra – to reference how he doesn’t want his tax dollars enabling Trump’s “goon squads” to further “terrorize L.A.”
“I don’t want my money going toward something that Trump will use to bolster his noxious legacy. I’m not going to cheer on Wasserman as he chums up Trump while la migra continues to terrorize L.A., possibly for months, if not years.”
He added, “I don’t want to support an event where footage of an occupied L.A. might be as front and center as the Coliseum or badminton. What true Angeleno would?”
The White House responded to the blistering opinion piece on Thursday.
“It’s a shame that LA Times ‘columnists’ are so filled with Trump Derangement Syndrome that they would turn away such a unifying event as the Olympics, which are expected to generate $18 billion in economic activity,” White House spokesperson Anna Kelly told Fox News Digital. “With world-class showman President Trump at the helm of the White House Olympics Task Force, these games will effectively bring the country together and showcase all that makes America great.”
The 2028 Summer Olympics will be held from July 14 to 30.
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