The San Siro Shout: Why the World Just Booed JD Vance and the U.S. Government

JD Vance, with wife Usha, get booed at the Winter Olympics inauguration ceremony

Yesterday, during the Winter Olympics Opening Ceremony in Milan, we saw a total “audio whiplash” moment. One second, 60,000 people at the San Siro stadium were roaring their heads off for the Team USA athletes. The next, the cameras panned to Vice President JD Vance and his wife, Usha – and the mood flipped instantly.

The cheers didn’t just stop; they turned into a wall of boos, whistles, and jeers so loud you could hear them over the parade music. It wasn’t just a “bad day” for a politician – it was a global crowd telling the U.S. government exactly what they think of the move toward dictatorship.

The “Cleaned Up” Version We Saw at Home

If you watched the primetime replay on NBC, you probably missed the whole thing. While the live afternoon feed and international channels like the CBC caught the boos (with one Canadian announcer even saying, “Oop… those are a lot of boos for him”), the version most Americans saw was sanitized.

The audio was flattened, the music was cranked up, and the commentary was scrubbed clean. It feels more like watching state-run TV in Russia or China than a free press in America. When the news “fixes” the facts to hide a protest, you have to ask yourself: what else are they hiding?

You Can’t “Olympic” Away Reality

The White House and Trump are already trying to say this was just “foreigners being foreigners,” but the crowd was reacting to very real, very scary policies. People didn’t boo the American athletes; they booed the people dismantling democracy:

ICE in Milan: People in Italy were already furious that ICE agents were on the ground for “security.” Milan’s Mayor, Giuseppe Sala, called the agency a “militia that kills” and told them they weren’t welcome. To the locals, seeing the ICE badge felt like an occupation by a force that thinks it’s above the law.
The Minneapolis Killings: The world hasn’t forgotten the horrific footage of ICE violence back home, specifically the recent deaths of American citizens Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis.
The “Mass Deportation” Agenda: International audiences are terrified of the rhetoric about using the military on civilians and the constant threats to shred our alliances. From the “NATO Freeze” to the weird obsession with taking over Greenland, the world sees the U.S. as a threat to peace, not a leader of it.

A Night of Global Disapproval

The Vances weren’t the only ones feeling the chill. Israel’s Olympic Team was also met with boos and whistles as they marched in. For the crowd, you couldn’t just “forget” the war in Gaza and the civilian death toll just because it’s a sporting event.

The Olympic committee spent weeks begging everyone to be “neutral” and “respectful,” but the Milan crowd reminded them that you can’t just turn off reality because the torches are lit. When a government pushes toward authoritarianism and ignores human rights, they shouldn’t be surprised when the world uses the biggest stage on earth to whistle them off the screen.

In Milan, the silence was finally broken by a world that refuses to look away.

Note on Video Evidence: While NBC has faced criticism for “muffling” the audio in the U.S. broadcast, unedited footage from the Canadian CBC and social media clips from fans inside the San Siro clearly capture the whistling and jeering that erupted the moment the Vances appeared on the Jumbotron. These clips continue to circulate on platforms like Bluesky and MeidasTouch despite attempts to have them removed for “copyright” reasons.

For now, you can watch it here: JD Vance MERCILESSLY BOOED at Olympic opening ceremony