Trump Attends Knicks Final
Boos and disruption ensue.
AP (“Donald Trump booed by the crowd during the anthem prior to Game 3 of the NBA Finals“):
Donald Trump was booed loudly by fans inside Madison Square Garden when he was shown on video screens during the national anthem as he became the first sitting president to attend an NBA Finals game.
Chants of “U-S-A! U-S-A!” echoed through the arena as Avery Wilson sang “The Star-Spangled Banner,” but they they gave way to boos moments later as Trump was displayed on the jumbo screens giving a military salute. The jeers ended when the U.S. flag followed him on the screens, and fans cheered when New York Knicks players were shown. Mentions of the San Antonio Spurs also elicited vociferous boos.
The president was unfazed. “It was, I think, mostly cheers,” he told reporters after the game before boarding Air Force One to return to Washington. “It was loud, and it was very enthusiastic.”
Trump watched Game 3 from Knicks owner James Dolan’s suite, along with granddaughter Kai, personal adviser Boris Epshteyn and Cabinet secretaries Lee Zeldin, Sean Duffy and Doug Burgum. He sat next to Dolan for the first quarter and spent part of the second talking to NBA Commissioner Adam Silver and Republican gubernatorial hopeful Bruce Blakeman.
Trump’s Marine One helicopter flew from his home in New Jersey and landed near Wall Street before his motorcade made its way up through Manhattan and to the arena roughly an hour before tipoff. He encountered a handful of people making rude gestures, and outside the area, one group held signs saying “Trump must go.”
[…]
During the afternoon before Trump’s arrival, the New York Police Department and the U.S. Secret Service set up a large perimeter surrounding Madison Square Garden. Fans lined up to get inside the arena more than four hours before tipoff, in a scene more closely resembling New Year’s Eve in Times Square than the usual leadup to a basketball game.
They were required to provide a ticket or pass to get past various checkpoints, along with going through a Transportation Security Administration-style magnetometer. Secret Service personnel and police were positioned at every corner and in large numbers. Daily commuters, tourists visiting Manhattan and fans were all confounded at various times as they tried to maneuver the security.
Politicians getting booed is a fact of life, even when they don’t have disapproval ratings in the 60s. Who can forget the heartwarming Let’s Go Brandon! cheers under the previous administration?
It didn’t help that Trump’s attendance caused considerable inconvenience. It’s not the first time.
This is the latest major sporting event Trump has attended during his time as president, and the security measures have created major hassles for fans.
Thousands of fans missed the start of last year’s U.S. Open men’s singles final between Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner because of lengthy security lines. Even though the U.S. Tennis Association pushed back the start of the match by a half-hour, many fans still couldn’t get in because added measures meant that they had to go through screening not only when they arrived at the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center but again in front of the steps into Arthur Ashe Stadium, where Trump watched from a suite.
It’s my longstanding view, conditioned by my time working in downtown DC and experiencing constant disruptions from official motorcades, that such disruptions should be restricted to the people’s business. It’s one thing to shut down several blocks of downtown Manhattan to ensure the President can safely address the United Nations. It’s quite another to do so for him to personally attend a ballgame.
And then Fatso fell asleep!!! Quite an expensive f’ing nap, Donnie. This cover art for the New Yorker is prescient!!!
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cover-story/cover-story-2026-06-15
He looks like a hugely over-inflated blow-up doll in that pic.
How much more the-emperor-has-no-clothes can it get?
Once upon a time, we were supposed to laugh about people like this.
But the sycophants WILL pretend it was cheers and embrace the humiliation. And expect the rest of us to humiliate ourselves, too.
And then, whenever it suits their needs, the sycophants will turn around and complain how terrible the people are in those Democrat-run, urban hellscapes.
And we’re supposed to agree with that, too.
Without the worst kind of self-abasing bootlickers, there would be no Trump.
It is a small matter (and one that most would not observe) but one that is trending in the wrong direction. During the playing of the National Anthem, Trump is standing at attention. As a civilian, he should have his hand over his heart like all those around him. Presidents (including Trump) regularly salute the troops. It is the idea that the term Commander-in-Chief means you are the top military leader rather than the top civilian in charge of the military. Eisenhower had it right. When he went from the top General to President, he knew he was a civilian and acted accordingly. It took Reagan and his acting perspective to put on a different show. How soon will it be before Trump shows up in some kind of military garb?
@Scott:
Honestly, I wouldn’t be shocked to find out that he’d already tried or considered this. He is the most insecure person possibly on the planet, and he was sent to a military prep school for rich kids with discipline problems that he mentally equates with finishing West Point.
Indeed. This could be tagged as “In Front of Our Noses” because this kind of thing is Trump personally enjoying the power of the office because he can, and to Hell with everyone else. It is almost royal-coded. It certainly isn’t “public servant” coded.
Also telling he was too busy with Iran to go to his son’s wedding, but has time to take in a ball game (and BTW, the best excuse for not going to the wedding was logistics anyway, as the security would have been a nightmare).
One last dig: I thought he needed a ballroom because he shouldn’t be out in public.
@Scott:
My first thought was how disrespectful it was. My second thought was, “Have the backs of his hands become so grotesque that he now reflexively avoids bringing any attention to them in public?”
Called it.
He took his nap mid game.
in fairness, it was like correctly predicting the sun would set at the end of the day.
@Scott:
@Michael Cain:
But, what if he has no heart to put his tiny, bruised hand over?
What I wouldn’t give to just ignore him. But, Trump intrudes into everything.
In one of the posts yesterday I predicted that President Trump would not get a lot of boos and I was prepared to express a bit of disappointment at being wrong, however this post reminds me that any pundit who lectures the left on a lack of decorum can pound sand.
I almost forgot about all those Let’s go Brandon! chants from MAGAland and all of the sleepy Joe. Biden digs that were used to describe President Biden, not to mention how many actual members of Congress who refused to acknowledge that Biden was our President from 2020 – 2024.
Yeah. It would be more than a bit rich to get a lecture on civility from the Right in this country.