Morning Joe co-host Jon Lemire fears the controversial ruling allowing Folarin Balogun to play for the U.S. in Monday’s World Cup match against Belgium may impact the team’s “karma.”

In a discussion during the show’s first hour Monday, Lemire weighed in on FIFA suspending the red card that would have made Balogun ineligible for the Belgium match — amid President Donald Trump’sreported personal call to FIFA president Gianni Infantino to appeal on Balogun’s behalf.

“This certainly helps the U.S. on the field, but the karma is bad,” Lemire said. “The karma is very bad. You know, Keir Starmer, lame duck Prime Minister of the U.K., probably can’t get that red card overturned, the one from yesterday. I don’t think so, no. But President Trump can…. This U.S. run so far has been magical. This decision may help us extend it, but suddenly the feeling is a little bit off.”

MS NOW contributor Pablo Torre tackled the story from a more political angle — calling it a “political trap for Democrats.

“This is the first broadly popular thing that the president has done vis-a-vis alleged corruption that is helping people that don’t actually like him at all,” Torre said. “Because everybody has fallen in love with this team. They love this team, they love Flo Balogun… whose mom was stopped getting onto the plane back to England because she was seven months pregnant by a flight attendant and gave birth in Brooklyn to this man, the most potent scorer on the team, and therefore, via birthright citizenship, became an American. So President Trump intervening for a birthright citizen to win against Belgium is itself just like this political briar patch.”

Soccer analyst Roger Bennett, host of the Men in Blazers podcast, made clear he believes any U.S. victories going forward in this World Cup will be at least somewhat tainted.

“There will be an asterisk against every achievement this team makes,” Bennett said. “And that’s probably the most harrowing thing of all.”

“Yeah, the [initial] red card [against Balogun] was bogus,” Lemire added. “But yes, this is complicated indeed.”

Watch above, via MS NOW.

The post ‘The Karma is Very Bad’: Morning Joe’s Jon Lemire Frets About Controversial FIFA Ruling Impacting the Vibes of US World Cup Run first appeared on Mediaite.