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Spain fans rejoice in World Cup win, but some say Trump photo-bombed team

▶ Watch Video: “Disrespectful”: Spain fans react to Trump lingering during team’s World Cup trophy celebration

Barcelona — On the streets of Barcelona’s historic Gothic Quarter, locals had a lot to celebrate Monday following Spain’s 2026 World Cup victory over Argentina. But there were mixed opinions over President Trump lingering on stage around the winning team as cameras snapped shots of the victors hoisting their trophy at the stadium in New Jersey.

“Here in Spain, we have a lot of disagreements in general with the policies and the politics of Trump, but I guess that it’s normal that if you are hosting the World Cup that you were there on the stage,” Barcelona resident Roger, who declined to give his full name, told CBS News. 

“I think it was good for the geopolitics, because I know Trump didn’t want Spain to win, and then, bam! In your face!” he said with a smile.

Others, however, failed to see any humor in the president’s prolonged presence alongside the Spanish team. After walking on with FIFA boss Gianni Infantino to present Spain’s trophy, he then remained on the stage as the players posed for photos. Despite what appeared to be gentle nudging from Infantino, Mr. Trump remained in place just next to the team, smiling and clapping.

Spain v Argentina: Final - FIFA World Cup 2026
Rodri #16 of Spain lifts the trophy while President Trump and FIFA President Gianni Infantino look on during the trophy ceremony on July 19, 2026. Spain beat Argentina, 1-0, in the 2026 World Cup final.

Jean Catuffe/Getty

“I think it was kind of disrespectful,” one young man, who declined to give his name, told CBS News. “The moment is just for the team, for the players, for the trainers, and he just kind of destroyed it.”

“It was quite sad, why would you steal the show or want to show yourself,” said another fan, who gave his name as Damiano. “Let the players celebrate on their own. You had the World Cup in your hands, that’s enough.” 

While Mr. Trump’s lingering caused some consternation, Spaniards remained on a high Monday following their national triumph. It was, after all, only the second time Spain’s team have been crowned FIFA world champs. 

Spanish officials said they expect up to a million people to descend on the capital Madrid later Monday to witness the team’s open-top bus parade with the trophy. 

Spain FIFA World Cup 2026 Parade
Rodri of Spain lifts the 2026 World Cup trophy, alongside Spain Football Association president Rafael Louzan, as the Spanish team arrives back in Madrid on July 20, 2026.

Pablo Blazquez Dominguez / Getty Images

In the diverse, working class town of Rocafonda, home of Spain’s teenage superstar Lamine Yamal, a community watch party for the final match on Sunday was capped by flares and fireworks following the Spaniards’ extra time win over Argentina. 

The celebrations continued into the night in Barcelona, where a significant number of the Spanish international team play at the club level. Thousands descended onto the city’s central Catalunya Plaza and danced and sang into the early hours of Monday morning. 

“We are so proud, it’s the best feeling in the world,” one local said. 

Supporters cheer for the Spanish national team during the 2026 World Cup final
Supporters cheer for the Spanish national team during the 2026 World Cup final on July 19, 2026, at a viewing event in in Castrelos, Spain.

Adrian Irago/Europa Press via Getty Images

AI isn’t the biggest cybersecurity problem. People are

By CNN
(CNN) — Cases of AI escaping the lab, infiltrating other companies and trying to deceive people have all made headlines in recent weeks. And in one case, AI models even worked together to break free from their test environments.Does this mean the machines are taking over? Not quite.AI isn’t the mastermind behind today’s most widespread cyber threats; it’s people who can use AI nefariously – and for nefarious purposes. AI has given bad actors massive power, allowing them to create malicious software, research targets, create convincing schemes and automate attacks at an unprecedented pace.One in four data breaches were driven by AI from February 2025 to March 2026, according to an IBM report. And Americans lost more than $893 million to AI-related scams last year, the FBI says.But experts say real-world threat actors – that is, people – are still the ones pulling the strings. AI agents have only perpetuated existing attack methods, like phishing and malware scams, rather than creating wholly new ones.“It’s the humans that we need to watch out for,” said Oren Etzioni, professor emeritus at the University of Washington and former CEO of the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence. “AI is just the tool.”AI going rogueSome recent incidents have shown what AI is capable of in the real world, not just in theory, igniting fears about whether the technology is advancing too quickly.In July, OpenAI test models escaped their constraints and hacked into other companies’ systems during an internal evaluation.Days later, Anthropic said it discovered its AI models had breached three companies during testing.In a separate test, Anthropic’s most advanced model used fake identities to try to deceive real people, researchers at Britain’s AI Security Institute said Tuesday.One of Meta’s AI models also broke into an external company, the social media giant said Wednesday.Those breaches also show how unpredictable AI can be when interpreting instructions. OpenAI’s models, for example, were trying to pass a cybersecurity test when they broke out of their test environment and breached another company, even though they weren’t told to do so.Patrick Fussell, global head of adversary simulation at IBM, compared AI to a genie.“You want to ask it a wish, but you have to be very, very specific about the details of your wish,” he told CNN. “Or it could sort of go awry.”But these instances also happened under very specific circumstances.OpenAI turned off restrictions that would have prevented its model from “pursuing high risk cyber activity.” Anthropic ran its tests without the standard safety safeguards in models that are generally available to the public. The AI Security Institute also turned off certain tools that could have “reduced the scope” of what the models were capable of.Researchers typically do this to fully evaluate a model’s capabilities.“I couldn’t go into ChatGPT or Claude or something like that, and it accidentally breaks into the FBI. That’s not going to happen,” said Adam Meyers, head of counter adversary operations at cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike. “So what we’re seeing is these are done in specific test conditions where they’re monitoring to see, ‘Does this thing do something that it’s not expected to do?”How hackers are using AIAI isn’t acting autonomously to come up with new attacks, experts say. Instead, it’s helping cyber criminals implement existing techniques much faster while being more efficient and effective.That can include things like using AI to analyze a company’s website to figure out who to target or deploying an AI agent to handle initial negotiation talks with a cyber extortion victim. AI agents can mimic human conversations through both text and even specific voices. Hackers with little expertise can now leverage AI to pull off advanced schemes.“They’re using (AI) to enhance the cyberattack methodology, essentially, in all the different stages, but it’s still kind of being run by the human,” said Jud Dressler, head of the risk operations center at cyber insurance firm Resilience.Bad actors used to hastily scrap together basic scripts – instructions for automating tasks – to achieve their goals, according to Meyers. But now they’re able to churn out higher quality work that looks like it would have taken three times as long to produce.They’re also using AI for behind-the-scenes work like generating the infrastructure needed to put up malicious websites.“With AI, they could automate that buildout, and so the cost of rebuilding became very small and that changes the game,” said Rob Lefferts, corporate vice president of threat protection at Microsoft.The bigger threatFor Etzioni, the recent incidents are a “canary in the coal mine” moment for AI and cybersecurity. And he’s not alone; Nobel prize-winning computer scientist Geoffrey Hinton, known popularly as the “godfather of AI,” recently warned that more rogue AI attacks are likely to come.The rogue AI reports underscore the importance of implementing strong cybersecurity practices, such as patching vulnerabilities, monitoring AI agents in the workplace and being wary of social engineering and phishing scams, experts say.But as advanced as AI is becoming, it’s still a program being orchestrated by a human. And those humans are the bigger concern because they’re the ones making the decisions, like conducting espionage or scamming users out of huge sums of cash, says Meyers.Tech giants are racing to make AI as intelligent as humans, a theoretical milestone known as “artificial general intelligence.” The recent incidents, however, have heightened calls for a slowdown.More than 1,200 workers at top AI companies, including Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, recently signed an open letter calling for the government to help pace AI development. The White House met with major AI companies last week to discuss a framework that would allow the government to review certain AI models before they’re released.Cybersecurity researchers have likely considered the threats of AGI because those in the field tend to be paranoid, said IBM’s Fussell. But we’re still far from a reality in which AI agents are as smart as humans, he says.“It’s like asking someone, ‘What would it be like to live on a different planet?’” he said. “You can sort of imagine, but it’s so beyond our ability to really make a plan for.”The-CNN-Wire™ & © 2026 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.
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