Ronny Chieng jokes Trump knows pardons, not soccer red cards

As host of The Daily Show on Comedy Central, Ronny Chieng used a World Cup controversy to needle Donald Trump, saying: “But you know what he did know? How to get a guy a pardon.” The joke turned a soccer disciplinary call into a late-night reminder that Trump can still muscle his way into sports talk, even when the underlying issue is a routine red card.

Folarin Balogun was sent off in the United States’ 2-0 win over Bosnia-Herzegovina on July 1 after a VAR review. The dismissal automatically suspended the U.S. forward for the round-of-16 match against Belgium, and FIFA said there was no route to appeal the red card itself. Balogun still could face additional suspension beyond the automatic one-match ban.

The call immediately drew attention because the United States still advanced despite playing with 10 men. The red card became controversial in part because it changed the lineup for the next knockout round and raised questions about how much a single officiating decision could shape the path of the team. Chieng’s line worked because it collapsed that on-field dispute into Trump’s familiar off-field image: a president whose name tends to travel farther than the subject at hand.

Trump had already been inserting himself into the 2026 World Cup well before Balogun’s dismissal. He created a World Cup task force in March 2025, then in October 2025 suggested he could move matches away from cities he considered unsafe. FIFA’s position remained unchanged: it, not any government, decides the host venues.

The Daily Show’s July 7 preview said Trump “personally intervened” to challenge a red card in the FIFA World Cup, giving Chieng a fresh target and a clean setup. The segment showed how a real sporting controversy, one with a clear rules consequence and no appeal path, quickly became raw material for comedy once Trump’s name entered the frame. In that sense, the joke was less about soccer than about the way Trump continues to dominate nonpolitical news cycles and turn even a VAR ruling into a political story.