The World Cup is healing us
6/29/202626 min
The World Cup is showing what Trump can’t destroy about America.
This episode was produced by Ariana Aspuru and Kelli Wessinger, edited by Amina Al-Sadi, fact-checked by Gabriel Dunatov, engineered by David Tatasciore and Patrick Boyd, and hosted by Sean Rameswaram.
US fans at the FIFA Fan Festival at LA Memorial Coliseum after the US scored their first goal against Paraguay. Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images.
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First 90 secondsSean Rameswaram· Host0:00
No one could blame you if you thought this Men's World Cup was gonna be a disaster. [upbeat music] The President of the United States isn't exactly a welcome mat for the world, and there have been plenty of embarrassing stories for the country. There was the mom of Cape Verde's goalkeeper who wasn't let into the United States to watch her son play until the team started doing well and people clamored for her entry. The team from DR Congo hadn't made a Men's World Cup in 52 years, and hardly made this one because the United States was supposedly worried about Ebola even though no one on the team had Ebola. If you were watching Senegal-Norway last week and were wondering where all the Senegalese fans were, they weren't let into the country, but you probably noticed we let in, like, a million Vikings. [chanting] I wonder what's different about their fan bases. Oh, and who could forget we're literally bombing one of the countries that, up until Friday, was playing here.
Speaker 3· Soundbite0:49
Missiles aren't the problem. Miss- But, but somehow the vibes at this World Cup are mostly positive.
Sean Rameswaram· Host0:55
The World Cup might just be healing us, on Today Explained from Vox. Support for this show today comes from Anthropic, the team behind Claude. Claude is the AI for minds that don't stop at good enough. It's the collaborator that actually understands your entire workflow and thinks with you. Whether you're debugging code at midnight or strategizing your next business move, Claude extends your thinking to tackle the problems that matter. With deep research, Claude's research capabilities go way deeper than basic web search. Comprehensive, reliable analysis with proper citations, turning hours of research into