Barack Obama Sends New Message to US Winter Olympians Amid Their Feud With Donald Trump

Former President of the United States delivered a strong speech aimed at USA athletes who are competing at the Winter Olympics in Milano Cortina. His comments come following a war of words between specific members of the team and current leader Donald Trump.

Ahead of the 2026 Games, several US Olympians spoke out about the ongoing political and social tensions back home. Hunter Hess described how he had “mixed emotions” regarding how proud he was to represent his country in Italy, while fellow freestyle skier Chris Lillis described how he was “heartbroken” about the actions of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, following the shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti.

He said: “I hope that when people look at athletes compete in the Olympics, they realize that that’s the America that we’re trying to represent.”

The criticism from both athletes and other members of Team USA didn’t go down well with Trump, who took to social media to fire back at Hess specifically. Writing on Truth Social, he said: “U.S. Olympic Skier, Hunter Hess, a real Loser, says he doesn’t represent his Country in the current Winter Olympics. If that’s the case, he shouldn’t have tried out for the Team, and it’s too bad he’s on it. Very hard to root for someone like this.”

Amid the ongoing saga between Trump, Hess and others, Obama has continually shared messages of support with Team USA athletes. He spoke of how “proud” he was of them, just a day after Trump had shared a now-deleted racist video depicting the former president and his wife, Michelle, as apes.

The 64-year-old has now offered another message of support to athletes on social media. On Sunday ahead of the 2026 NBA All-Star game, where he was sat courtside with Michelle, Obama shared a speech where he described the power that sport to inspire unity.

Addressing Team USA in the caption, Obama said in the accompanying video: “Sports can bring the world together. Right now we’re in the middle of the Olympics, it’s worth reminding us.

“We saw it in Paris. When you watch the U.S. team play in Paris and the Serbian teams and the French teams and you’re reminded of what the dream team did to inspire all that and you saw the French fans when Steph [Curry] was hitting those threes… They’re mad but they can’t be too mad because it’s art and it’s joy. And it binds us together to see human excellence in that way.

Despite Obama’s words, it doesn’t appear that the dispute between certain athletes and the current US administration is going away any time soon. JD Vance, who was booed during the opening ceremony of the Games, recently criticised the comments made by Hess, Lillis and others.

He said: “You’re there to play a sport, and you’re there to represent your country and hopefully win a medal. You’re not there to pop off about politics.

Vance went on to say: “My advice to them would be to try to bring the country together, and when you’re representing the country, you’re representing Democrats and Republicans.”