The puck had barely stopped skittering across the ice in Milan before President Donald Trump’s phone did what it so often does: it reached for a feud. Team USA had just pulled off a 2–1 overtime win over Canada to take Olympic gold, their first in men’s hockey since 1980, and yet the first presidential impulse—at least on Truth Social—wasn’t “Congrats.” It was Barack Obama.
Donald Trump’s post didn’t even bother with subtlety. “Illinois is spending hundreds of millions of dollars in trying to BAIL OUT Obama’s badly delayed, and tremendously over budget, ‘Library.’ The neighborhood is ANGRY AS HELL. It is a total disaster!” he wrote.
And there it was: the familiar Donald Trump tell, the reflex to turn a national moment into a personal scoreboard.
On one screen, you had a clean, old-fashioned sports thrill—Jack Hughes ending it in overtime, a U.S. men’s team finally standing on top again, and a result that instantly begged for presidential pomp. On the other, you had Donald Trump thumbing his way back to the Obama years, angrily dragging an Illinois construction project into the spotlight like it had just taken a cheap shot at him.
BREAKING 🚨 President Trump just announced Team USA has won the most Gold Medals EVER at a Winter Olympics
HISTORY IS BEING MADE 🔥 pic.twitter.com/72WeRLIEqX
— Mary (@Mary8998014880) February 22, 2026
In fairness, Donald Trump did eventually get around to the hockey team. Fox News reported he posted, “Congratulations to our great U.S.A. Ice Hockey team. THEY WON THE GOLD. WOW!” Still, the sequencing is what sticks in the craw: the jab came first, the celebration second, like he couldn’t resist reminding everyone that he’d rather pick a fight than share a spotlight.
That isn’t just petty—though it absolutely is that. It’s revealing.
Presidents are supposed to be, among other things, emotional traffic cops. They wave Americans through shared moments: grief, pride, relief, shock. When the country is handed a straightforward burst of joy, the job is to meet it with something recognisably human. Instead, Donald Trump treated the win like a commercial break—time to throw punches at an old rival, then get back to the programming.
The timing also lands in a broader context: this has been a politically combustible Olympics for the United States. Entertainment Weekly reported that Vice President JD Vance was booed at the Winter Games opening ceremony in Milan, a reminder that American politics follows the delegation even when the athletes are doing everything right.
Donald Trump addresses Barack Obama’s comments about aliens being real 😳
🎥 :@cspan pic.twitter.com/AUuNO8QCC8
— HOT 97 (@HOT97) February 19, 2026
Back home, Donald Trump has had other reasons to be touchy. Just two days earlier, the Supreme Court dealt him a bruising blow on tariffs, ruling in Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act doesn’t authorise the kind of sweeping tariff regime he’d pursued. The decision was 6–3, and the majority included two justices Donald Trump appointed—Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett—an inconvenient detail for a president who prizes loyalty the way some people prize oxygen.
Donald Trump responded to that ruling with a flood of anger on Truth Social, calling the outcome “deeply disappointing” and lashing out at justices he said lacked “Courage.” He then pivoted quickly into a new tariff move, signing an order to impose a “temporary” 10 percent global tariff under Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974.
So yes, he’s busy. But that’s the point: Donald Trump’s version of busy is almost always the same posture—attack mode, grievance mode, the permanent campaign conducted in all caps.
That posture can feel energising to his fans. It can also feel exhausting, even faintly childish, to anyone who expects a president to rise to occasions that aren’t about him. Sunday handed him an easy one: a gold medal, a generational sports headline, a chance to sound expansive.
🚨 JUST IN: President Trump is ECSTATIC after Team USA just broke a new record
“The most Gold Medals ever won by Team USA at the Olympics! President DJT”
POTUS is proud of the patriots winning overseas 🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/rgjmx5EsXA
— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) February 22, 2026
Instead, he chose to sound like Trump.
