Donald Trump lost his marbles years ago, but has he now lost his hearing? That’s the question after the president somehow interpreted the loud booing of his attendance at a showpiece basketball game as a sign of appreciation.
On Monday, Trump became the first sitting US president to attend the NBA finals, watching the New York Knicks lose 111-115 to the San Antonio Spurs in game three in the series.
The president’s attendance was not widely welcomed, the intense security it involved meant that frustrated ticketholders had to wait for hours in queues. The streets around Madison Square Garden were closed to foot and vehicle traffic, crippling trade which would normally have made it a bumper night for the area’s bars and restaurants. In addition, metal barriers were put up at each block, as fans faced an airport-style gauntlet of security.
Fans showed their appreciation for the commander-in-chief, greeting his appearance on the arena’s big screens as the Star Spangled Banner played out with a loud chorus of boos, eventually drowning out the rendition.
Not that it bothered Trump, who just assumed the denizens of the heavily Democratic city were saluting a favourite son. “I thought it was amazing, actually,” the increasingly loopy president told the press corps in one of his impromptu in-front-of-a-helicopter press briefings.
“You mean where they had the camera on me? I thought it was very good, yeah, It was certainly amazing, it was… it was mostly cheers. It was loud and it was very enthusiastic.”
Suggested Reading
Tetchy Trump storms out of ‘crooked’ NBC interview
To be fair to Trump, perhaps he had just woken up, as the president had chosen a four-point ball game in the NBA finals featuring a team he professes to support to have one of his naptimes. Clips showing him dozing off next to James Dolan, the team’s owner, were published by the Lincoln Project, an anti-Trump conservative group, which called it “the most expensive taxpayer-funded nap”.
The reaction, though, was possibly most embarrassing for Jesse Watters, the conservative Fox News commentator and host, who had assured his viewers that Trump would receive “love” from the Knicks fans.
“When they put his face on the Jumbotrons, he’s gonna get love,” he predicted. “If they put [New York mayor Zohran] Mamdani on the Jumbotron, you’re gonna hear boos.” Mamdani wasn’t put on the Jumbotron, possibly because he paid for his own ticket and wasn’t in the owner’s box.
Perhaps it was all fake boos?
Still, it was brave for Trump to attend a packed-out Madison Square Gardens with almost 20,000 people packed into a tight, confined space – particularly as the official line is that he’s currency building a gaudy ballroom attachment to the White House precisely to avoid such gatherings!
Most popular
I’m 34, with £1,600 in my pension. When can I retire in comfort?
The shocking lesson of the BBC’s Brexit: A Very British Civil War
The coming collapse of music streaming
Screen scandal: How Ofcom lets GB News get away with it
