This year, for the first time since 1994, the United States will host the 2026 FIFA world cup, with an estimated 1.24 million international tourists visiting during the tournament.
BlazeTV’s Sara Gonzales calls it “a weird time.”
“As we're talking about libs just hating this country, hating Donald Trump … you have all of these tourists coming here for the World Cup, and they are, like, beside themselves. … They can't believe how awesome this country is,” she chuckles.
To illustrate her point, she then plays a video that has gone viral on social media capturing Japanese tourists in Texas.
“What do you think of America, of Texas?” the reporter asks the group.
“Texas is good! Everything is big!” one tourist excitedly shouted.
Sara loves the unabashed excitement about America. “It’s so sweet. It's so humbling to see all of these people come in here, and it's just, like, the little things that you just don't even realize are a novelty or a big deal to other countries,” she says.
Sara then displays numerous social media posts from tourists visiting America delighting in the funniest things — like school buses, “wild squirrels,” cardboard drink coasters, Waffle House, Taco Bell, Raising Cane’s, and, of course, the phenomenon that is Buc-ee's convenience stores.
One tourist’s mind was blown when he visited a Bass Pro Shop.
“That’s how we do it in the South, Freddy,” laughs Sara.
Freddy is a German tourist who has gone mega-viral for posting his route through the United States, lavishing praise on America and Americans.
“As wholesome and adorable and heartwarming it is to see these people just come in and love everything that America has and does and stands for … CNN, actually, they're about to, I don't know, ‘America-splain’ why Freddy is wrong and this country sucks or something,” scoffs Sara.
She plays a recent CNN clip from “The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer and Pamela Brown” in which Christine Brennan says, “I saw some conversation, Wolf and Pamela, about how the rest of the world is looking at the United States and feeling that we are — it's a foreboding image and that we are inhospitable, and here is a German tourist, and others as well now on social media, saying no, no, no, the Americans are great, so what a shame that that's the image that the world has — many have of us.”
“Do they? ... It sounds like everyone's having the time of their lives coming here,” says Sara.
To see more tourist reactions to the U.S., watch the video above.
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