Olympic Organizers Working With White House On Trump Golf Tournament

Organizers of the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics are working with the Trump administration to put on a tournament at the Trump National Golf Club Los Angeles right before the Summer Games, according to two people familiar with the planning.The event, which would pair professional golfers with amateur participants in a format commonly known as a "pro-am" tournament, is not expected to be an official Olympic event.

But it is being considered as a high-profile kickoff to the Games in a sport and location that Trump values. The prospect of holding a marquee Olympics-adjacent event at a golf course owned by the presidential family’s Trump Organization highlights the extent to which organizers believe maintaining a productive relationship with the White House is essential to delivering a successful Games.

The discussions underway between the LA28 organizing committee and the White House were confirmed by two people granted anonymity to discuss plans that remain fluid and still subject to change. A LA28 spokesperson declined to comment.

While the Olympics are formally organized by local and international sports bodies, staging the Games requires extensive federal involvement on everything from security and transportation to immigration and visa processing for athletes and visitors.

The LA28 committee is supporting requests that Los Angeles Metro CEO Stephanie Wiggins and California lawmakers have made for financial support from the federal government, including roughly $2 billion in transportation funding for Los Angeles Metro projects. So far, the House Appropriations Committee has approved $875 million for Olympic operations in its fiscal year 2027 transportation funding bill.

The Olympics committee has also created, at the State Department’s request, a portal for visa processing for Olympic athletes and officials that has already been used to bring a small number of LA28 support staff into the country. The process would allow U.S. authorities to exempt athletes and officials applying for entry from countries covered by Trump’s travel ban, said one of the people familiar with Olympic planning. The State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Since the United States earned co-hosting rights for this year’s World Cup, soccer executives have appealed to Trump to apply such exemptions to permit entry for qualifying teams. President Gianni Infantino of FIFA, the soccer governing body that stages the World Cup, has met with Trump more than a dozen times since the president returned to office.

In the run-up to the tournament, so-called “edge cases” concerning tournament personnel seeking entry have been sent by the Departments of State and Homeland Security for review by the White House FIFA World Cup Task Force, POLITICO has reported. Many who would have otherwise been denied entry have received additional consideration because of their participation in the World Cup, said task force czar Andrew Giuliani, but Trump’s immigration and border policies have nonetheless kept a variety of people — including a World Cup referee and countless fans — from entering the United States.

Much of the Olympic outreach to Trump has been led by LA28 Chair Casey Wasserman, a talent executive and longtime Democratic donor who visited the White House in August of last year when Trump signed the executive order establishing a separate task force dedicated to Olympic planning.

Wasserman faced severe criticism when newly released Department of Justice documents revealed decades-old flirtatious email messages that he exchanged with convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. Wasserman, who has not been accused of wrongdoing, has said he regrets the correspondence, which took place before Maxwell’s crimes were publicly known. LA28 executive board has so far stood by Wasserman despite calls for his resignation from the Los Angeles City Council, Mayor Karen Bass and state lawmakers from the area.

While Trump did not attend the opening match of the World Cup on American soil, in which the U.S. defeated Paraguay, a tournament scheduled for his Rancho Palos Verdes, California, golf course just before the Olympics would increase the likelihood he participates in the opening ceremonies.

While heads of state typically have an official role in Olympic ceremonies, President Herbert Hoover did not attend the 1932 Olympics. Vice President Charles Curtis went in his place.