There’s increasing speculation U.S. President Donald Trump will be in Milan if the U.S. men’s hockey team makes it to the gold-medal round on Sunday.
Tuesday, International Olympic Committee spokesman Mark Adams had little to say when asked if the American president was expected in Italy after sending others in his administration to represent the United States at the Milan-Cortina 2026 Winter Games.
“You wouldn’t expect me to comment on the movements of heads of state, and I’m not going to disappoint you because I’m not going to,” Adams told reporters gathered for the IOC’s daily press briefing, suggesting it was a better question for the White House.
But multiple international media outlets, including Russia’s TASS state news agency, are reporting Trump will be there if Team USA is playing for gold in men’s hockey, citing a story posted Tuesday by Milan’s Corriere della Sera newspaper.
The story declares that “Air Force One is ready” to bring Trump to Milan and that police and local authorities are already preparing for a potential surprise visit from the president, according to translations from Italian to English.
Wanted in Milan, an English-language website aimed at expats, said the area’s security apparatus is “well rehearsed” after U.S. Vice President JD Vance and U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, arrived for the Games’ Opening Ceremonies.
A trip by Trump to the Olympics “would be brief and targeted — a lightning bolt of presidential energy at the end of the Games," the website said, with the U.S. president heading directly to the hockey game in Milan and then attending the Closing Ceremonies in Verona, Italy.
“No dinners, no sightseeing, no overnight stays are expected to be on the program,” the website reported, noting the presidential visit will only occur if the U.S. men’s hockey team, currently the No. 2 seed behind Canada, is competing in the gold-medal game Sunday.
Nothing’s official yet, but Trump apparently is a fan of U.S. men’s Olympic hockey.
In December, he honored members of the 1980 “Miracle on Ice” U.S. team that brought home the gold by defeating the Soviet Union at that year’s Winter Games in Lake Placid, New York. The much-celebrated champions lit the Olympic cauldron at the 2002 Winter Games in Utah.
Last week, Trump announced the members of the presidential delegation he’s sending to represent the country at the Closing Ceremonies of the Olympics, being held Sunday in Verona’s iconic amphitheater.
Led by U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon, the members of the delegation according to a White House press release are:
- Tilman J. Fertitta, U.S. ambassador to the Italian Republic and the Republic of San Marino, and his wife, Lauren Fertitta
- Kelly Loeffler, U.S. Small Business Administration administrator
- Meredith O’Rourke, senior adviser to the president
- Bob Book, chairman of Book Capital Enterprises, LLC
- Neil Book, chairman, president and CRO of Jet Support Services, Inc.
- Trish Duggan, founder of Imagine Museum
- Diane Hendricks, founder and consulting chairman of ABC Supply Co., Inc.
- Ryan Suter, 2010 and 2014 Winter Olympic medalist, men’s United States hockey team
Vance headed up the president’s U.S. delegation to the Opening Ceremonies of the Olympics in Milan’s nearly century old San Siro soccer stadium, where some in the crowd booed when he briefly appeared on stadium screens during Team USA’s entrance.
Trump has been a focus at the Milan-Cortina Games after criticizing Team USA freestyle skier Hunter Hess for telling reporters in Italy that he had “mixed emotions” about representing his country.
The controversy came up at a news conference in Milan about Utah’s next Winter Games, in 2034. Utah Gov. Spencer Cox told reporters there that they should be asking athletes about sports, not politics.