The 2028 Olympics will open in Los Angeles in exactly three years, and the planning for the Games is racing alongside their politics.
The planning is going better, but the politics are getting harder.
The executive board of the International Olympic Committee checked off on Los Angeles’ sweeping venue plan in April, giving its stamp of approval to an effort that will unfold across the region: surfing in San Clemente, skateboarding and BMX racing in the San Fernando Valley, cricket in Pomona and baseball, of course, in Dodger Stadium. The host committee is clearly plowing forward, tackling a full range of planning issues, from venues to transportation and security.
Some pieces remain. The transportation challenge, for one, is formidable, and the plans as unveiled so far are incomplete, with early promises of a “car-free” games morphing into something less ambitious but more achievable — public transit options that will make the games accessible.
There is progress to note on this front, too: The long-missing connector between the region’s rail system and its airport is at last coming to completion. Other L.A. Metro services are coming into play as well.
IOC officials visited Los Angeles this summer and complimented the work being done, especially after early concerns about a slow start. “We have seen significant progress,” an IOC spokesperson said, adding that the “leadership was in place” and “detailed planning was advancing.”
There is plenty left to do but also time to do it, with the city, state and organizing committee all taking on responsibilities. It helps that these will be the third Summer Olympics hosted by Los Angeles, so no major venues need to be built.
That’s a challenge, but a rational one.
The politics? Not so much. President Donald Trump sees the Olympics less as a chance to telegraph unity and pride and more as one to flex his political muscle.
Earlier this month, Trump questioned the capability of local officials and positioned himself at the center of a rescue operation that no one asked for. He announced a federal task force and appointed himself as its chair.
The president even used the occasion to rehash his two-pronged falsehood that the devastation wrought by the January fires was the result of insufficient water flowing to the region from the “Pacific Northwest,” which is not true, and that he had opened up the flow of water to Los Angeles, which also is not true.
So far, it’s unclear what this task force can offer, aside from surfacing tired culture-war issues. Typical of his meandering public speeches, he took a moment to assure people that “the United States will not let men steal trophies from women at the 2028 Olympics.”
Trump also vowed that the federal government would be there to ensure safety, a promise he could not make without needling L.A. Mayor Karen Bass.
“We’ll do anything necessary to keep the Olympics safe, including using our National Guard or military,” Trump said. “Obviously, you have a mayor that is not very competent.”
We’ve seen this before, of course. In June, Trump unleashed federal forces in Los Angeles to round up noncitizens. That inflamed communities where masked federal agents started grabbing people off the street, and protests erupted Downtown. The protests were briefly violent but well within the capacity of the Los Angeles Police Department to control.
A night of clashes settled by morning, and then Trump called in the National Guard — and later the Marines — to “restore order” where there was no disorder. The effect was to stir up trouble, then claim credit when local authorities did their jobs.
The same gambit is now underway in Washington, D.C., where the president declared an emergency and dispatched the guard even though no objective measure suggests any such emergency exists or such a response is needed. In that sense, the president’s ego-driven resort to force is animated more by a desire to change the channel from his refusal to release the Epstein files or his disappointing summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin, rather than any real danger in Washington.
And so it will be with the Olympics, as Trump insists on turning every event into an opportunity to aggrandize himself. For L.A. officials, the task is to align the region’s interests with the president’s ego — no small feat. But you can feel them trying.
When confronted with Trump’s criticisms of her, Bass, who only will get the chance to host the Olympics if she is reelected, gently deflected.
“There have been presidents that were very visible during the opening and closing ceremony,”
. “I am sure that he will be here, and I am sure that he will have a big presence. But is he going to run the Olympics? No.”
By Jim Newton. This article was originally published by CalMatters.