Former The Apprentice host turned two-time US President Donald Trump has announced his latest distraction: a four-day competition between high school athletes called the “Patriot Games,” taking place next year.
Set for Fall 2026, the concept of the athletic event sounds suspiciously like The Hunger Games — without the battle to the death. Trump said the competition will feature “the greatest high school athletes, one young man and one young woman from each state and territory.” Naturally, he made sure to turn the announcement into culture war fodder, promising, “There will be no men playing in women’s sports.”
The Patriot Games are part of “Freedom 250,” a series of national events meant to “unite Americans across all 50 states and territories in honoring the nation’s past” for the country’s 250th anniversary. After all, what’s more American than pitting states against one another? Maybe we should have listened more closely when Trump kept comparing himself to Abraham Lincoln.
