Trump Wants To Go For The Gold. Does La?

LOS ANGELES — California officials are hoping Donald Trump’s longtime enthusiasm for the Los Angeles Olympics will help secure federal support to rebuild from wildfires that have leveled parts of the city.

Trump pushed for Los Angeles’ bid to host the Summer Olympics the last time he was president-elect, according to an aide for former Mayor Eric Garcetti.

Matt Petersen remembers being in the room when Trump called Garcetti in December 2015 to say he’d put in a good word for the city with the International Olympic Committee.

“He's going to want the Olympics to come off without a hitch,” said Petersen, Garcetti's former chief sustainability officer.

The episode illustrates why Gov. Gavin Newsom has been messaging the 2028 Summer Games to Trump as a post-fire rallying cause — and why Trump's longtime support for the made-for-TV mega event is a potential lifeline for the city's rebuilding.

“President of the United States, Donald Trump, to his credit, was helpful in getting the Olympics to the United States of America, to get it down here in LA,” Newsom said on Meet the Press. “This is an opportunity for him to shine, for this country to shine, for California and this community to shine.”

Newsom's strategy was borne out Wednesday.

"These are America's Olympics," Trump, according to Axios, told Casey Wasserman, the chair of L.A.’s Olympics organizing committee. "These are more important than ever to LA and I'm going to be supportive in every way possible and make them the greatest Games."

Trump's embrace of the Olympics comes in sharp contrast to his rhetoric on the wildfires that have killed at least 25 people and destroyed over 12,000 structures. The president-elect, who has yet to announce concrete plans to visit LA, has repeatedly and misleadingly lambasted state and local officials over the fires. He has accused Newsom of “gross incompetence,” writing on Truth Social “the incompetent pols have no idea how to put them out.”

Congressional Republicans are now following the lead he set last year in threatening to withhold federal fire aid to California by seeking to impose conditions on disaster aid.

Trump spokespeople didn't respond to a request for comment on whether his pledge to be “supportive in every way possible” means delivering on disaster relief or more narrow Olympic-related spending like security, which the Secret Service is already covering, and public transit, where Los Angeles officials already have a $3.2 billion ask out to his administration.

But making the city whole for the Olympics is now a stated goal for the real estate-developer-turned president, who frequently mentions his local golf course and other waterfront properties when discussing the tragic fires. Trump also regularly touts his support for L.A.’s hosting, saying in 2020 that "from the day I took office, I’ve done everything in my power to make sure that L.A. achieved the winning bid."

“If you put it in the frame of the rhetoric of the Trump administration, this is success, this is victory, we've won the Olympics,” said Petersen. “To get there now, we need the additional funding for the rebuilding and making sure that people who lost their homes, who are working class families, have the ability to rebuild and stay here,” he said.

The Olympic bidding process wasn’t exactly competitive — after Boston dropped out for 2024 it was only Paris and LA vying to host, and the Games were awarded in a double allocation, with L.A. agreeing to go second in 2028. Trump has also championed other cities getting the Olympics, including New York, which lost out to L.A. in 1984. “He was not there as far as I know,” said Bill Burke, the longtime organizer of the L.A. Marathon, who served as tennis commissioner for the 1984 Games.

While none of the venues or major host locations for the 2028 Games have been destroyed in the flames, the city is grappling with entire neighborhoods that have been demolished.

Wasserman said he’s banking on Trump’s support for both fire recovery and the Olympics. “As a lifelong Angeleno, I shared our sentiments for President-elect Trump's continued support in Los Angeles amid the devastation in our region," he said in an email. “We are grateful for his unwavering commitment to LA28 and his leadership in bringing the Summer Games back to the United States for the first time in more than 30 years.”

But not everyone sees Trump’s boosterism for the Olympics as something that will benefit Angelenos affected by the fires.

Conservative commentators have seized on the city’s fire response to argue the Games should be moved “to a red city where you know things are going to be run properly,” as Newsmax host Rob Finnerty put it Wednesday.

Many on the left also have reservations, though for different reasons.

"If we’re going to host the Olympics in 2028, we need to make sure that it’s actually going to benefit our residents, who are reeling from losing their homes, jobs and livelihoods," said L.A. City Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martínez, a former organizer with the group NOlympics LA, which has long called for the city to cancel the Games. "This event could bring in billions of dollars into our local economy, but who will benefit — our residents, or multinational corporations?"

Mike Bonin, a former city councilmember who voted to approve the Olympics in 2017, said his concerns about cost overruns have only grown since then. The Games are supposed to be independently funded by the city's Olympic committee, which has a $7 billion budget, but Los Angeles and the state are on the hook if it goes over. “Putting on the Games at a time when the city, even before last week, was broke, is already a heavy and complicated lift,” said Bonin.

He said Trump’s involvement increases his fears that the Games, designated a “National Special Security Event,” will accelerate gentrification, homeless encampment sweeps, and a more militarized police presence in the city.

“The more Donald Trump is engaged in it, the more afraid I am of Los Angeles being put in the position of being a big agent of deportation, of being an agent of displacement of people who are unhoused,” said Bonin, who voted against the Olympics’ security agreement in 2021 partly on concerns that federal immigration officials would be involved.

Trump’s vision for the Games may not align with what city leaders had in mind, including finding 2,500 electric buses to transport attendees, upgrading metro stations, and building out bus-lanes and bike share hubs for a “transit-first” event. In November, transit officials wrote to Trump asking him for $3.2 billion for transportation projects ahead of “the largest and most spectacular sporting event held in American history.”

“There's been some belief that Trump will be supportive,” said Petersen, now president of Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator, which has developed clean energy plans for LA to meet by 2028. “Will he be supportive to get as many electric buses and bikes as possible? That's a big question mark. I’m dubious.”

Paul Krekorian, a former city councilmember whom Mayor Karen Bass appointed L.A.’s liaison for the Olympics and the 2026 World Cup in December, said there’s no reason to believe the fires will impact preparations and painted a picture of a city rising from the ashes, inspired by the Games.

“In the face of significant challenges, our 1932 and 1984 Games were phenomenally beneficial,” Krekorian said in a statement. “We intend to ensure that the 2028 Games will again inspire the world, uplift the people of Los Angeles, create enormous economic opportunity for all in our region, and leave a lasting legacy that will benefit generations of Angelenos still to come.”