The Vances attend opening ceremonies of the Milano Cortina Olympics.Andreas Rentz/GETTY
Vice President JD Vance, standing alongside Second Lady Usha Vance, was met with a chorus of boos at Friday’s Winter Olympics opening ceremony in Milan. As team USA entered San Siro Stadium, the crowd cheered—but that was cut short when the Vances came on the big screen.
As the New York Times reported, “Their appearance on the screens lasted for only a few seconds,” but the boos “were audible despite the loud music playing for the parade.”
Hours before the ceremony, hundreds of protestors took part in a student-led demonstration against the presence of US immigration agents at the winter games. Officials from Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations team are in Milan to “vet and mitigate risks from transnational criminal organizations,” according to the Department of Homeland Security. Italy’s Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi has said that the ICE personnel in the country “are not operational agents.” Protestors called for the removal of ICE, along with Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who is also attending, from the games.
When asked about Vance’s icy welcome on Air Force One, President Donald Trump said it was “surprising.”
“Is that true? That’s surprising because people like him,” he said. “I mean, he is in a foreign country in all fairness. He doesn’t get booed in this country.”
Except, Vance has been booed at events multiple times in the US.
While on the campaign trail in August 2024, Vance was booed at a firefighters convention in Boston after claiming that he and Trump were the “most pro-worker Republican ticket in history.” In March, the vice president received screaming boos as he attended a Kennedy Center symphony performance. A few months later, in August, Vance, Homeland Security Advisor Stephen Miller, and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth were all heckled and booed in Washington, DC’s Union Station as they went to meet National Guard troops deployed to the city.
At the opening ceremony, some in the crowd noted that the boos appeared to clearly be directed at the Vances—and not at the athletes competing for the US.
“It was quick but noticeable,” wrote Juliette Kayyem, an Obama-era DHS official who is attending the games, of the Vances’ booing. “But,” she continued, “I want to point out that the crowd was loud and supportive when Team USA came out. It was lovely to hear. And quite a juxtaposition.”
