{"id":260120,"date":"2026-06-09T03:37:16","date_gmt":"2026-06-09T03:37:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/260120\/"},"modified":"2026-06-09T03:37:16","modified_gmt":"2026-06-09T03:37:16","slug":"vibe-killer-trump-heads-to-new-york-to-ruin-nba-finals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/260120\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Vibe-killer\u2019 Trump heads to New York to ruin NBA finals"},"content":{"rendered":"

President Donald Trump is attending Game 3<\/a> of the NBA Finals Monday evening, when the New York Knicks play their first home game of the series against the San Antonio Spurs.<\/p>\n

And as expected, his selfish decision is ruining the experience for the actual Knicks fans who have waited more than two decades for their team to make the finals, and more than 40 years to see their team win a championship.<\/p>\n

Due to security constraints ahead of the presidential appearance, the area around Madison Square Garden\u2014which sits atop New York\u2019s Penn Station, a commuter rail hub for more than 600,000 people daily\u2014is a fortress<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A tall fence blocks anyone without a ticket<\/a> from entering the area, which has in turn prevented fans who couldn\u2019t afford the multi-thousand-dollar game tickets from gathering outside<\/a> for watch parties.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"SecurityAPSecurity is set up outside of Madison Square Garden in New York on June 8 before Game 3 of the NBA Finals between the New York Knicks and the San Antonio Spurs.<\/p>\n

In fact, the area around the arena will be closed to all vehicular and pedestrian traffic<\/a> starting four hours before the game, which will also hurt local businesses who cannot serve customers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, employees working the game waited in a more than hour-long line<\/a> to enter the arena where they work\u2014so one can only imagine the lines that await the 20,000 fans with tickets to the game.<\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t the first time Trump\u2019s attendance at a sporting event has caused problems for fans.<\/p>\n

Last September, Trump went to the men\u2019s tennis final at the U.S. Open tournament in Queens. His presence not only delayed the start of the match, but it also left thousands of fans waiting in such long security lines that they missed the first set of the match<\/a> they paid hundreds\u2014if not thousands\u2014of dollars to see. In fact, the stadium was half empty for much of the game due to the long security lines.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverybody is pissed off and there was a lot of booing in the beginning. People from all over the world are standing here because they came to the U.S. Open to see tennis,\u201d Leah Gomberg, who missed part of the match due to Trump\u2019s attendance, told NBC News at the time. \u201cNow it\u2019s half-empty in there, although all the famous people are there, and of course Mr. Trump is in there, but not the people who paid a lot of money for their tickets.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Trump doesn\u2019t think about anyone other than himself, so he didn\u2019t care.<\/p>\n

Ironically, Trump was asked over the weekend about the optics of his attendance at Monday\u2019s Knicks game, as everyday Americans can\u2019t afford the hefty ticket prices as high as $8,000.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, I know, but they can watch it on television,\u201d Trump said<\/a> aboard Air Force One. \u201cIt\u2019s sort of semi-free to watch it on TV. But that\u2019s the way life is.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reporter: “The cheapest price for the Game 3 you’re going to is $8,000. Everyday Americans can’t afford these sporting events.”Trump: “They can watch it on television. It’s sort of semi-free to watch it on television. But it’s the way life goes.”<\/p>\n

\u2014 The Bulwark (@thebulwark.com)<\/a> 2026-06-05T18:04:37.193Z<\/a><\/p>\n

Funny\u2014he, too, could watch the game on television. That\u2019s what he spends most of his time doing when he\u2019s not playing golf on the taxpayers\u2019 dime. But instead, Trump is spending hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars he says are too scarce to help Americans afford the cost of living so he can go to a basketball game and make life harder for everyone else.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, it\u2019s unclear why Trump even wants to go. He has repeatedly trashed the NBA<\/a> for being too woke and has never hosted a championship team at the White House.<\/p>\n

The boos he\u2019s likely to receive should be so thunderously loud that the arena will literally shake.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Related | Trump\u2019s next thing to ruin: The NBA finals<\/a><\/p>\n

And if the Knicks lose, he will be blamed for being the distraction that ended the team\u2019s stunning and historic 13-game playoff win streak<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI can tell you, like, as a politician, I\u2019ve gone to my fair amount of sports games, they are just some things that like\u2014you don\u2019t want to go either to jinx it or just in general,\u201d Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) said<\/a> Sunday, calling Trump\u2019s presence a \u201cvibe-killer.\u201d<\/p>\n

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, who represents New York City, said he also doesn\u2019t understand why Trump wants to go, as Trump is barely a Knicks fan.<\/p>\n

Jeffries: “It’s not clear to me that Donald Trump is a big Knicks fan. I mean, does this guy even know the difference between Karl Rove and Karl Anthony Towns? I don’t think so. He’s just injecting himself.”<\/p>\n

\u2014 Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com)<\/a> 2026-06-08T18:40:56.476Z<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cI mean, does this guy even know the difference between Karl Rove and Karl Anthony Towns?\u201d Jeffries said at a news conference on Capitol Hill. \u201cI don\u2019t think so! He\u2019s just injecting himself into the NBA finals because he always has to bring the MAGA circus into down. And that\u2019s unfortunate.\u201d<\/p>\n

\tWe’ll get straight to the point: The financial hardships that Daily Kos is facing this year are tough.<\/p>\n

We continue to be paywall-free. We continue to be supported by our readers, not billionaires or corporations. But we need to bring in more revenue. We are leaning on our community more than ever to help make ends meet.<\/p>\n

\t\tPower matters.<\/p>\n

Sign up for our daily top stories newsletter so you don’t miss how it’s being used\u2014and what comes next.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"President Donald Trump is attending Game 3 of the NBA Finals Monday evening, when the New York Knicks…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":260121,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[88106,101147,9,24,55,54,12,26318,101148,56],"class_list":["post-260120","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-donaldtrump","tag-nbafinals","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-city-headlines","tag-new-york-city-news","tag-news","tag-newyorkcity","tag-newyorkknicks","tag-ny"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260120","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=260120"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260120\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/260121"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=260120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=260120"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=260120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}