President Trump was loudly booed at Madison Square Garden in New York on Monday night, June 8, 2026, before Game 3 of the NBA Finals between the Knicks and the San Antonio Spurs, the first time a sitting president has attended an NBA Finals game. The boos erupted when Trump was shown on the jumbotron during the national anthem, seated with Knicks owner James Dolan in Dolan's suite; the jeers turned to cheers when the camera cut to Knicks star Jalen Brunson on the court.
Asked afterward what he thought of the reception, Trump described it as the opposite of what happened. “I thought great. I mean, I thought it was amazing, actually,” he said, according to CNBC. “It was, I think, mostly cheers. It was loud, and it was very enthusiastic,” he told reporters, as quoted by the BBC and People (CNBC rendered the line without “I think”). The Knicks went on to lose, 115-111, snapping a 13-game playoff winning streak.
The moment, and Trump's account of it, fit a recurring pattern of the president recasting hostile public receptions as adoring ones.