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With her signature stiff arm and red lip, Ilona Maher rules Olympic rugby and TikTok
Ilona Maher celebrates the U.S. women’s rugby sevens win over Australia for the bronze medal in Paris on Tuesday.
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Cameron Spencer/Getty Images
NPR is in Paris for the 2024 Summer Olympics. For more of our coverage from the games head to our latest updates.
Ilona Maher is hard to miss.
The U.S. women’s rugby sevens center has emerged as one of the stars of this year’s Olympic Games, whether she’s charging down the pitch in red lipstick or goofing around on TikTok with her teammates.
Maher helped Team USA win its first-ever medal in women’s rugby on Tuesday, defeating Australia in nail-biting fashion. Afterward, she spoke emotionally about the importance of growing the sport.
“We wanted to do this to show what rugby could be in America,” Maher said. “We say in rugby a lot that we want to ‘pass the jersey.’ … I think today really made the jersey better so that other young girls can grow up wanting to play rugby, wanting to be professionals, wanting to live the life we live where we travel the world and go to the Olympics.”
The 27-year-old Vermont native has been an athlete to watch — both on and off the playing field — since the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, when she charmed the world with her honest review of the controversial cardboard beds, blunt takes on the Olympic Village social scene and other behind-the-scenes looks at the highly-restricted pandemic-era Games.
Maher’s social media star has only grown in the years since. She’s used the platform to bring attention to women’s rugby and spread messages of body positivity, including popularizing the hashtag #beastbeautybrains (her sister Olivia, by the way, is the creator of #girldinner).
Just days into the Paris Olympics, Maher officially became the most-followed rugby player on Instagram with 1.4 million followers, a number that’s since grown to 2 million. She has 1.9 million and counting on TikTok.
So far, Maher has fangirled over Snoop Dogg, converted retired NFL player Jason Kelce into a U.S. women’s rugby hype man (a la Flavor Flav), tested the beds again and posted about looking for love at the Olympic Villa in a spoof of the reality show Love Island.
She’s also clapped back at negative comments about her weight and muscular stature (“every day I get called masculine, I get called manly” she said in one 2022 TikTok).
In a now-viral video response posted earlier this month, 5-foot, 10-inch Maher, who holds a degree in nursing, pointed out that BMI is a flawed measurement, especially for athletes.
“I do have a BMI of 30. I am considered overweight,” she concluded. “But alas. I’m going to the Olympics, and you’re not.”
In another much-liked TikTok, posted from Paris, Maher encouraged people to take note of all the different body types of the athletes competing in the Olympics.
“All body types are worthy, from the smallest gymnast to the tallest volleyball player or rugby player to a shotputter and a sprinter,” she said. “All body types are beautiful and can do amazing things, so truly see yourself in these athletes and know that you can do it too.”
Maher’s videos have racked up hundreds of thousands of likes and admiring comments from grateful viewers who credit her with getting them interested in the Olympics and women’s rugby.
After Tuesday’s win, Maher acknowledged that social media does come with added pressure to perform, something she said she talked about with her sports psychologist “at least every day” leading up to the Olympics.
“I want to show people that I can be good at social media and I can do a lot of social media but also be a very good rugby player,” she said. “And that was important to me.”
The rise of Ilona Maher
Ilona Maher, pictured in an April 2024 portrait, has dominated the Paris Olympics on the pitch and on social media.
Mike Coppola/Getty Images North America
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Mike Coppola/Getty Images North America
Maher was an all-around athlete at Burlington High School, where she played hockey, basketball and softball. While her dad was a college rugby player, she didn’t check out the sport until age 17.
“My senior year I just wasn’t really that into softball anymore, so I looked at some things and saw that there was a local rugby team at South Burlington High School,” Maher told Vermont Public in 2018. “My dad’s played rugby for a while … and so I tried rugby and found I was pretty good at it, and it just kind of started to roll from there.”
Maher played rugby at Norwich University for a year before being recruited to Quinnipiac University. There, she won three championships in the National Intercollegiate Rugby Association (NIRA) and was named to NIRA’s All-American team all three years.
In 2017, she received the MA Sorensen Award, which is given to the nation’s top collegiate women’s rugby player.
Maher, who also holds a master’s degree in business administration and management from DeVry University, was selected for the U.S. national rugby team before she graduated from college.
She made her debut at a Women’s SVNS tournament in Paris in 2018 and has competed in the Rugby World Cups in 2018 and 2022 — as well as, of course, two Olympics. Rugby sevens, which made its Olympic debut in 2016, is made up of seven players playing two seven-minute halves, as opposed to 15 players playing 40-minute halves.
Maher has turned heads for her aggressive playing style, including her high-speed runs and stiff arm. She’s recently been compared to Baltimore Ravens running back Derrick Henry, who in turn shouted her out.
One thing that makes Maher even more distinct on the pitch is her signature red lip. She told “CBS Mornings” this week that she wears lipstick while playing to “stick it to the man.”
“It doesn’t take away from your athletic ability if you wear makeup,” Maher said, adding, “I feel that I can be a beast and can play this very physical, aggressive sport while also keeping my femininity while I do it.”
The rise of U.S. women’s rugby
Team members for the United States — including Maher in the center of the top row — and New Zealand pose at the medal presentation ceremony for the Rugby Sevens in Saint-Denis, France on Tuesday.
Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi/AP
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Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi/AP
Maher has spoken about using TikTok to have fun and promote her sport — both to potential viewers and future players.
“I think it just doesn’t get the attention it deserves,” she told Vermont Public in 2021, adding that she and her team are working to get more girls interested in rugby.
“Because we have some of the best athletes in the U.S.,” Maher added. “And if we could get people really into rugby, I think we could be a powerhouse in the world.”
Women’s rugby has grown increasingly popular worldwide and in the U.S., with the consultancy Elite Rugby Scholars saying in 2022 that participation levels had doubled “each year for the past five years.”
The USA Rugby Women’s Premier League, founded in 2009, is the top annual American women’s rugby union competition (as opposed to rugby sevens, which is what Maher plays) — but the players are not paid.
The sport took its first step towards professionalism in April of this year when Women’s Elite Rugby (WER) announced it would hold its inaugural season in 2025.
WER is planning between six and eight teams with roughly 30 players each and bankrolled by private investment, according to ESPN. On Wednesday, it announced its first three cities: Boston, Chicago and Denver.
And American women’s rugby dominance at the Olympics seems poised to draw even more support — financial and otherwise — for the sport at home.
Just after Team USA’s win on Tuesday, American businesswoman Michele Kang — who owns the Washington Spirit as well as soccer clubs in France and England — announced she would donate $4 million to the U.S. Women’s Rugby Sevens team over the next four years, to help “grow the support and provide improved resources to its players and coaching staff” ahead of the 2028 summer Olympics.
In a statement, Kang described 2024 as a “banner year for women’s sports with record-breaking attendance and viewership,” including rugby. She highlighted a few key players, Maher among them.
“This Eagles team, led by players like Ilona Maher and co-captains Lauren Doyle and Naya Tapper, has captivated millions of new fans, bringing unprecedented attention to the sport,” she wrote. “As corporate sponsors and broadcast networks increasingly see the value and enthusiasm for women’s sports, now is the moment to unlock the full potential of these incredible female athletes and inspire generations to come.”
NPR’s Juana Summers contributed reporting from Paris.
One observer of the current Senate race in Louisiana noted that Sen. Bill Cassidy could lose his reelection bid.
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Annie Flanagan for NPR
Sen. Bill Cassidy lost Saturday’s Louisiana Republican primary according to a race call by the Associated Press.
Cassidy, who served two terms in the Senate, was one of seven Republican senators who voted to convict President Trump after the January 6th insurrection at the Capitol. That vote put him at odds with Trump and his MAGA coalition, ultimately leading Trump to push Rep. Julia Letlow to run against Cassidy.
Cassidy’s bid for a third term was viewed as a test of Trump’s grip on the party–and of what voters want from their representatives in Washington. The primary pitted Cassidy, a veteran lawmaker, former physician and chair of the powerful Senate health committee, against Letlow, a political newcomer and a millennial MAGA loyalist.
A detailed view of a hat that reads, Run Julia Run, is seen at a campaign event for Rep. Julia Letlow (R-LA) on May 6, 2026 in Franklinton, Louisiana.
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Tyler Kaufman/Getty Images
A former college administrator, Letlow won a special election in 2021 for the House seat her late husband, Luke, was set to assume before he died from COVID in 2020.
In Congress, Letlow sponsored a bill to collect oral histories from the pandemic and has focused on education and children. She introduced the “Parents Bill of Rights Act,” which would allow parents to review classroom materials like library books and require schools to notify parents if their child requests different pronouns, locker rooms or sports teams.
She also serves on the powerful appropriations committee and has embraced Trump’s agenda.
Letlow, who came first in Saturday’s primary, will face Louisiana state Treasurer John Fleming in the runoff on June 27. Cassidy came in third.
The election result is a victory for President Trump who has put Republican loyalty to the test on the ballot so far this year in Indiana state senate primaries and in Cassidy’s race.
Another major test of Trump’s influence comes in Kentucky’s primary on Tuesday when Republican Rep. Thomas Massie, who has found himself at odds with the president, faces a challenger endorsed by Trump.
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Brass bands in Beijing make way for sticker shock at home as Trump returns to escalating inflation
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump returned from the spectacle of a Chinese state visit to a less than welcoming U.S. economy — with the military band and garden tour in Beijing giving way to pressure over how to fix America’s escalating inflation rate.
Consumer inflation in the United States increased to 3.8% annually in April, higher than what he inherited as the Iran war and the Republican president’s own tariffs have pushed up prices. Inflation is now outpacing wage gains and effectively making workers poorer. The Cleveland Federal Reserve estimates that annual inflation could reach 4.2% in May as the war has kept oil and gasoline prices high.
Trump’s time with Chinese leader Xi Jinping appears unlikely to help the U.S. economy much, despite Trump’s claims of coming trade deals. The trip occurred as many people are voting in primaries leading into the November general election while having to absorb the rising costs of gasoline, groceries, utility bills, jewelry, women’s clothing, airplane tickets and delivery services. Democrats see the moment as a political opportunity.
“He’s returning to a dumpster fire,” said Lindsay Owens, executive director of Groundwork Collaborative, a liberal think tank focused on economic issues. “The president will not have the faith and confidence of the American people — the economy is their top issue and the president is saying, ‘You’re on your own.’”
The president’s trip to Beijing and his recent comments that indicated a tone-deafness to voters’ concerns about rising prices have suggested his focus is not on the American public and have undermined Republicans who had intended to campaign on last year’s tax cuts as helping families.
Trump described the trip as a victory, saying on social media that Xi “congratulated me on so many tremendous successes,” as the U.S. president has praised their relationship.
Trump told reporters that Boeing would be selling 200 aircraft — and maybe even 750 “if they do a good job” — to the Chinese. He said American farmers would be “very happy” because China would be “buying billions of dollars of soybeans.”
“We had an amazing time,” Trump said as he flew home on Air Force One, and told Fox News’ Bret Baier in an interview that gasoline prices were just some “short-term pain” and would “drop like a rock” once the war ends.
Inflationary pain is not a factor in how Trump handles Iran
Trump departed from the White House for China by saying the negotiations over the Iran war depended on stopping Tehran from developing nuclear weapons. “I don’t think about Americans’ financial situation. I don’t think about anybody. I think about one thing: We cannot let Iran have a nuclear weapon,” Trump said.
That remark prompted blowback because it suggested to some that Trump cared more about challenging Iran than fighting inflation at home. Trump defended his words, telling Fox News: “That’s a perfect statement. I’d make it again.”
The White House has since stressed that Trump is focused on inflation.
Asked later about the president’s words, Vice President JD Vance said there had been a “misrepresentation” of the remarks. White House spokesman Kush Desai said the “administration remains laser-focused on delivering growth and affordability on the homefront” while indicating actions would be taken on grocery prices.
But as Trump appeared alongside Xi, new reports back home showed inflation rising for businesses and interest rates climbing on U.S. government debt.
His comments that Boeing would sell 200 jets to China caused the company’s stock price to fall because investors had expected a larger number. There was little concrete information offered about any trade agreements reached during the summit, including Chinese purchases of U.S. exports such as liquefied natural gas and beef.
“Foreign policy wins can matter politically, but only if voters feel stability and affordability in their daily lives,” said Brittany Martinez, a former Republican congressional aide who is the executive director of Principles First, a center-right advocacy group focused on democracy issues.
“Midterms are almost always a referendum on cost of living and public frustration, and Republicans are not immune from the same inflation and affordability pressures that hurt Democrats in recent cycles,” she added.
Democrats see Trump as vulnerable
Democratic lawmakers are seizing on Trump’s comments before his trip as proof of his indifference to lowering costs. There is potential staying power of his remarks as Americans head into Memorial Day weekend facing rising prices for the hamburgers and hot dogs to be grilled.
“What Americans do not see is any sympathy, any support, or any plan from Trump and congressional Republicans to lower costs – in fact, they see the opposite,” Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York said Thursday.
Vance faulted the Biden administration for the inflation problem even though the inflation rate is now higher than it was when Trump returned to the White House in January 2025 with a specific mandate to fix it.
“The inflation number last month was not great,” Vance said Wednesday, but he then stressed, “We’re not seeing anything like what we saw under the Biden administration.”
Inflation peaked at 9.1% in June 2022 under Biden, a Democrat. By the time Trump took the oath of office, it was a far more modest 3%.
Trump’s inflation challenge could get harder
The data tells a different story as higher inflation is spreading into the cost of servicing the national debt.
Over the past week, the interest rate charged on 10-year U.S. government debt jumped from 4.36% to 4.6%, an increase that implies higher costs for auto loans and mortgages.
“My fear is that the layers of supply shocks that are affecting the U.S. economy will only further feed into inflationary pressures,” said Gregory Daco, chief economist at EY-Parthenon.
Daco noted that last year’s tariff increases were now translating into higher clothing prices. With the Supreme Court ruling against Trump’s ability to impose tariffs by declaring an economic emergency, his administration is preparing a new set of import taxes for this summer.
Daco stressed that there have been a series of supply shocks. First, tariffs cut into the supply of imports. In addition, Trump’s immigration crackdown cut into the supply of foreign-born workers. Now, the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz has cut off the vital waterway used to ship 20% of global oil supplies.
“We’re seeing an erosion of growth,” Daco said.
Dr. Tracy Beth Hoeg, the Food and Drug Administration’s top drug regulator, said she was fired from the agency Friday after she declined to resign.
She said she did not know who had ordered her firing or why, nor whether Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. knew of her fate. The Department of Health and Human Services did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The departure reflected the upheaval at the F.D.A., days after the resignation of Dr. Marty Makary, the agency commissioner. Dr. Makary had become a lightning rod for critics of the agency’s decisions to reject applications for rare disease drugs and to delay a report meant to supply damaging evidence about the abortion drug mifepristone. He also spent months before his departure pushing back on the White House’s requests for him to approve more flavored vapes, the reason he ultimately cited for leaving.
Dr. Hoeg’s hiring had startled public health leaders who were familiar with her track record as a vaccine skeptic, and she played a leading role in some of the agency’s most divisive efforts during her tenure. She worked on a report that purportedly linked the deaths of children and young adults to Covid vaccines, a dossier the agency has not released publicly. She was also the co-author of a document describing Mr. Kennedy’s decision to pare the recommendations for 17 childhood vaccines down to 11.
But in an interview on Friday, Dr. Hoeg said she “stuck with the science.”
“I am incredibly proud of the work we were doing,” Dr. Hoeg said, adding, “I’m glad that we didn’t give in to any pressures to approve drugs when it wasn’t appropriate.”
As the director of the agency’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, she was a political appointee in a role that had been previously occupied by career officials. An epidemiologist who was trained in the United States and Denmark, she worked on efforts to analyze drug safety and on a panel to discuss the use of serotonin reuptake inhibitors, the most widely prescribed class of antidepressants, during pregnancy. She also worked on efforts to reduce animal testing and was the agency’s liaison to an influential vaccine committee.
She made sure that her teams approved drugs only when the risk-benefit balance was favorable, she said.
The firing worsens the leadership vacuum at the F.D.A. and other agencies, with temporary leaders filling the role of commissioner, food chief and the head of the biologics center, which oversees vaccines and gene therapies. The roles of surgeon general and director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are also unfilled.
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