Micah Loewinger: When the US Women's Soccer Team was eliminated from the World Cup, fans were crushed, but some of the usual suspects were crowing.

News clip: The team has shown more interest in being activists and fashion icons and celebrities than winning.

Micah Loewinger: On this week's On the Media from WNYC, we examine the emptiness of the Go Woke, Go Broke sloganeering. Also, on the show, five months after the two open letters to The Times criticizing the paper's coverage of trans issues, has anything changed?

News clip: Over 200 New York Times contributors have published an open letter criticizing The Times recent coverage of stories involving transgender, nonbinary, gender-nonconforming people.

Jules Gill-Peterson: What has all this coverage so far amounted to? We've endangered an entire vulnerable minority and played into the hands of a pretty aggressive political movement.

Jake Silverstein: Once we hit publish, we don't control how readers of any kind are going to use our stories, and I don't know that we should.

Micah Loewinger: It's all coming up after this. From WNYC in New York, this is On The Media. Brooke Gladstone is out this week. I'm Micah Loewinger. In the wee hours of Sunday morning, when most Americans were still asleep.

News clip Wow. Sweden wins.

News clip: A devastating loss, knocking the US Women's National Soccer Team out of the World Cup.

Micah Loewinger: It was heartbreaking for us, fans, considering the US Women's Team had won the last two World Cups back to back, but not everyone was mourning the loss.

Laura Coates: Some posts called them entitled, ungrateful, woke pieces of trash.

Megyn Kelly: I'm thrilled, they lost. Good. I'm glad you went down. You don't support America, I don't support you.

Alex Abad-Santos: This game is at five in the morning, eastern time. The only people are up at this time are diehard soccer fans.

Micah Loewinger: Alex Abad-Santos is a senior correspondent at Vox. In a piece he wrote this week, he tracked the early morning schadenfreude.

Alex Abad-Santos: Former President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social. He said, "Many of our players were openly hostile to America. No other country behaved in such manner or even close. Woke equals failure. Nice shot, Megan. The USA is going to hell." Megan is in reference to Megan Rapinoe, who is one of the stars. She missed a penalty kick.

Micah Loewinger: The right-wing influencer Benny Johnson had a pretty funny post that you pulled apart in your Vox piece.

Alex Abad-Santos: In giant caps, it was, "BREAKING: Woke US Women's Soccer Humiliation. After winning back-to-back World Cups the heavily favored Team USA has been ELIMINATED by Sweden in the 16th round. Team USA's downfall was delivered by anti-America, anti-woman activist Megan Rapinoe's EMBARRASSING free kick. There is no 16th round at the Women's World Cup. There is no 16th round at any World Cup."

Micah Loewinger: He's referring to the round of 16, right? The number of teams left in the tournament.

Alex Abad-Santos: Right, right. Completely off base. The free kick that he's referring to is actually a penalty kick. It's just like littered with errors, but I think that wasn't really the point of it. It was mostly to get a reaction from someone reading it. Like, "Megan Rapinoe sent us all to hell with her progressive values."

Micah Loewinger: We heard a sort of similar kind of schadenfreude from Fox & Friends over the weekend as well.

News clip: The team has shown more interest in being activists and fashion icons and celebrities than winning. That's a fact. Now, they've reaped it.

Alex Abad-Santos: Someone who got dragged over the coals a little bit was Alexi Lalas. Alexi Lalas is a Fox commentator. He used to be on the national team. He is a soccer expert. He had posted on X, which is formerly known as Twitter, "The US Women's National Team is polarizing. Politics, causes, stances, & behavior have made this team unlikeable to a portion of America. This team has built its brand and has derived its power from being the best/winning. If that goes away, they risk becoming irrelevant." Then his critics quickly pointed out, this man has never, ever been in any danger of winning a World Cup.

Under his own terms, you could argue that, well, the Men's National Team is irrelevant since it's never won. The general message is, "These unlikable women hate America. It's good that they lost even though they represent America."

Micah Loewinger: Let's just talk a little bit about the actual game for a moment, which so easily gets lost in this. Because of the time difference as you mentioned, it was on at like, 5:00 AM my time. I didn't watch it, but I saw the highlights, and they looked pretty solid in their game against Sweden. I mean, Alex Morgan had a few really close chances. There were a lot of great shots on net, but Sweden's goalie was just kind of a brick wall. After extra time, it went to a penalty shootout. After 120 minutes of play, it was gut-churning and heartbreaking, depending on who you were rooting for. For those who haven't seen it, can you describe what happened?

Alex Abad-Santos: Megan Rapinoe, Kelley O'Hara, and Sophia Smith missed their penalty kicks.

News clip: Rapinoe, right foot over the buck. Missed the net. O'Hara, off the post.

Alex Abad-Santos: If any of those players had actually clinched it, we probably would have won, but if you ask soccer experts what was happening, the US has had a lot of troubles in recent years because they're basically in a transition phase of having old players and having new players and veterans and mixing. There was nothing going right for the US at the beginning of this World Cup.

Micah Loewinger: Not to mention all of the injuries.

Alex Abad-Santos: Yes, so many injuries. A roster that was depleted, a coach that people now are saying was in over his head and wasn't making the best decisions. All of these are valid criticisms of the US team. You could talk about that all day. Donald Trump was not interested in that. Benny Johnson was not interested in that. Alexi Lalas, whose job it is to be interested in explaining to us why our offense looks so bad, was not interested in that.

Micah Loewinger: This loss is just one flashpoint of many that the US Women's Team has faced over the last few years, maybe most notably starting with the team's fight for equal pay that kicked off in 2016. Can you give us the short history of how this team found itself at the center of the culture wars?

Alex Abad-Santos: Back in 2016, they were saying, "We aren't being treated equally." From pay to the hotels that they're staying at, they said, "We're the best team in the world, but we're not getting, like, half the stuff that the guys are getting." They filed a complaint, and they said, "We want to be treated what we're worth." This battle goes on for six years. In 2022, they settle, and then US Soccer Federation says, "We will make the pledge to bring equality and close the pay gap." At the same time, the US Women's Soccer Team has always been an ally when it comes to LGBTQ rights.

Megan Rapinoe, again, she's out. She is not afraid to say, "Yes, I'm gay. I play sports. I'm good at it. We should be treated equally. We should treat everyone equally." Megan Rapinoe has attracted an outsized portion of disdain from the right-wing media. Why is everyone going after her all the time? Back in 2019, the US Women win the World Cup again. Basically, when you win a giant sports event like that, you get an invite to the White House, and before they even won it, Megan Rapinoe says, "No, we're not going."

Megan Rapinoe: It's my absolute honor to lead this team out on the field. There's no other place that I would rather be, even in the presidential race.

Alex Abad-Santos: That starts a whole back and forth. They win in amazing fashion. They reject the White House visit, and it just is very contentious from that point on. Earlier this year, the team puts on light blue and light pink wristbands, which is support for trans kids. When they were playing in Florida, they put on those wristbands and they said, "Defend trans lives." In Florida, Ron DeSantis has unrolled a lot of anti-trans, anti-LGBTQ legislation.

Micah Loewinger: You wrote, "The political criticism the US Women's National Team is facing isn't unlike the rhetoric used in conservative boycotts, the kind that have exploded this year." What parallels do you see?

Alex Abad-Santos: Well, being a woman is hard is essentially the core message of Barbie. When conservatives found this out, they were just like, "Oh, this isn't going to make any money. Don't go see this movie." Barbie has gone woke, so she has to go broke.

Micah Loewinger: The go woke go broke thing is really quite dumb. I mean, especially when you scrutinize it for even a second. Barbie earned $1 billion at the box office.

Alex Abad-Santos: Then if you go back even further, remember when Dylan Mulvaney, who is a trans influencer, promoted Bud Light on her Instagram page and conservatives freaked out about that. It's also like the M&Ms. They took the sexy boots off the M&M and then the right wing was like, "Why did you make the M&M not sexy? The M&M should be sexy," and you're just like--

Micah Loewinger: In America, M&Ms are hot.

Alex Abad-Santos: Is it really about the sexy M&M or is it about fanning the flames of something to be mad at and keeping a base energized? It seems to fit a pattern that we've seen from Starbucks to Target to Colin Kaepernick to LeBron James. I bet you in two weeks, we'll have something else being called woke and broke.

Micah Loewinger: Alex, thank you very much.

Alex Abad-Santos: Thank you so much for having me.

Micah Loewinger: Alex Abad-Santos is a senior correspondent for Vox. Coming up, five months after two open letters criticized The New York Times coverage of trans issues, has anything changed? This is On The Media. This is On The Media, I'm Micah Loewinger. Right-wing politicians and pundits have made it clear that publicly supporting trans rights will put a target on your back, whether you're a company or a national sports team.

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