{"id":143858,"date":"2026-02-11T16:02:47","date_gmt":"2026-02-12T00:02:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2026\/02\/11\/jd-vance-tells-olympic-athletes-to-play-sports-not-pop-off-about-politics\/"},"modified":"2026-02-11T16:02:47","modified_gmt":"2026-02-12T00:02:47","slug":"jd-vance-tells-olympic-athletes-to-play-sports-not-pop-off-about-politics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2026\/02\/11\/jd-vance-tells-olympic-athletes-to-play-sports-not-pop-off-about-politics\/","title":{"rendered":"JD Vance Tells Olympic Athletes To \u2018Play Sports,\u2019 Not \u2018Pop Off\u2019 About Politics"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ed. note<\/u>: Welcome to our daily feature,\u00a0Quote of the Day<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

My advice to them would be to try to bring the country together, and when you\u2019re representing the country, you\u2019re representing Democrats and Republicans. You\u2019re there to play a sport, and you\u2019re there to represent your country and hopefully win a medal. You\u2019re not there to pop off about politics.<\/strong><\/p>\n

When Olympic athletes enter the political area, they should expect some pushback. But most Olympic athletes, whatever their politics, are doing a great job, and certainly enjoy the support of the entire country, and I think recognize that the way to bring the country together is not to show up in a foreign country and attack the president of the United States, but to play your sport and represent the country well.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u2014\u00a0Vice President JD Vance<\/a>, in comments noted by USA Today<\/a>, concerning Olympic athletes who are speaking out about U.S. politics while at the Olympics in Italy. Vance was defending President Donald Trump\u2019s criticism of freestyle halfpipe skier Hunter Hess<\/a>, who said he had \u201cmixed emotions\u201d<\/a> about representing the U.S. \u201cright now,\u201d and that \u201c[w]earing the flag doesn\u2019t mean I represent everything that\u2019s going on in the U.S.\u201d Trump went on to call Hess a \u201ca real Loser,\u201d\u00a0which prompted Hess to respond<\/a>, \u201cI love my country\u2026 but there are always things that could be better. One of the many things that makes this country so amazing is that we have the right and the freedom to point that out.\u201d Relatedly, Rich Ruohonen<\/a>, a Minnesota lawyer on the curling team, recently went on to refer to the shocking killings of U.S. citizens by ICE agents as \u201cwrong\u201d<\/a> during a press briefing. <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

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Staci Zaretsky<\/a>\u00a0is the managing editor of Above the Law, where she\u2019s worked since 2011. She\u2019d love to hear from you, so please feel free to\u00a0email<\/a>\u00a0her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on\u00a0Bluesky<\/a>,\u00a0X\/Twitter<\/a>, and\u00a0Threads<\/a>,\u00a0or connect with her on\u00a0LinkedIn<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The post JD Vance Tells Olympic Athletes To \u2018Play Sports,\u2019 Not \u2018Pop Off\u2019 About Politics<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Ed. note<\/u>: Welcome to our daily feature,\u00a0Quote of the Day<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

My advice to them would be to try to bring the country together, and when you\u2019re representing the country, you\u2019re representing Democrats and Republicans. You\u2019re there to play a sport, and you\u2019re there to represent your country and hopefully win a medal. You\u2019re not there to pop off about politics.<\/strong><\/p>\n

When Olympic athletes enter the political area, they should expect some pushback. But most Olympic athletes, whatever their politics, are doing a great job, and certainly enjoy the support of the entire country, and I think recognize that the way to bring the country together is not to show up in a foreign country and attack the president of the United States, but to play your sport and represent the country well.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u2014\u00a0Vice President JD Vance<\/a>, in comments noted by USA Today<\/a>, concerning Olympic athletes who are speaking out about U.S. politics while at the Olympics in Italy. Vance was defending President Donald Trump\u2019s criticism of freestyle halfpipe skier Hunter Hess<\/a>, who said he had \u201cmixed emotions\u201d<\/a> about representing the U.S. \u201cright now,\u201d and that \u201c[w]earing the flag doesn\u2019t mean I represent everything that\u2019s going on in the U.S.\u201d Trump went on to call Hess a \u201ca real Loser,\u201d\u00a0which prompted Hess to respond<\/a>, \u201cI love my country\u2026 but there are always things that could be better. One of the many things that makes this country so amazing is that we have the right and the freedom to point that out.\u201d Relatedly, Rich Ruohonen<\/a>, a Minnesota lawyer on the curling team, recently went on to refer to the shocking killings of U.S. citizens by ICE agents as \u201cwrong\u201d<\/a> during a press briefing. <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\n
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<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Staci Zaretsky<\/a>\u00a0is the managing editor of Above the Law, where she\u2019s worked since 2011. She\u2019d love to hear from you, so please feel free to\u00a0email<\/a>\u00a0her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on\u00a0Bluesky<\/a>,\u00a0X\/Twitter<\/a>, and\u00a0Threads<\/a>,\u00a0or connect with her on\u00a0LinkedIn<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The post JD Vance Tells Olympic Athletes To \u2018Play Sports,\u2019 Not \u2018Pop Off\u2019 About Politics<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ed. note: Welcome to our daily feature,\u00a0Quote of the Day. My advice to them would be to try to bring the country together, and when you\u2019re representing the country, you\u2019re representing Democrats and Republicans. You\u2019re there to play a sport, and you\u2019re there to represent your country and hopefully win a medal. You\u2019re not there […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":143859,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-143858","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-above_the_law"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/xira.com\/p\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Staci-Zaretsky-KQMEhr.jpg?fit=150%2C100&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143858","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=143858"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143858\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/143859"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=143858"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=143858"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=143858"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}