{"id":693589,"date":"2026-06-09T14:07:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-09T14:07:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/693589\/"},"modified":"2026-06-09T14:07:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-09T14:07:08","slug":"trump-fires-back-at-stephen-a-smith-over-knicks-nba-finals-loss","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/693589\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump fires back at Stephen A. Smith over Knicks\u2019 NBA Finals loss"},"content":{"rendered":"

Queens, N.Y. natives Donald Trump<\/a> and Stephen A. Smith <\/a>are involved in a war of words over the Knicks.<\/a><\/p>\n

The ESPN personality said ahead of Game 3 that he would blame Trump if his presence at Madison Square Garden Monday night – which was greeted with boos<\/a> – snapped their 13-game playoff winning streak.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIf it causes the New York Knicks to lose tonight, I\u2019m blaming him,\u201d Smith said Monday<\/a>. \u201cI\u2019m blaming the President of the United States! And damnit, I hope the GOP loses votes because of it if we lose tonight!\u201d<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cThis president has no business showing up in New York City…it is ridiculous that he is coming to this game.\u201d<\/p>\n

With Trump sitting in Knicks\u2019 owner James Dolan\u2019s suite, the Knicks did lose the game, 115-111, and now lead the series 2-1 heading into Game 4 on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Trump fired back at Smith when asked about his comments before boarding Air Force One on his way back to Washington, D.C.<\/p>\n

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Smith had been linked to a potential 2028 Presidential run <\/a>before pulling out earlier this year.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think he\u2019s a nice guy, but you need a certain aptitude to run for president,\u201d Trump said<\/a>. \u201cYou need a high IQ. I\u2019m not sure that Stephen has that. I don\u2019t think he does, actually.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meantime, Rev. Al Sharpton took a shot at Trump while appearing Tuesday on \u201cMorning Joe.\u201d<\/p>\n

MORE BY<\/p>\n

ADAM ZAGORIA<\/p>\n

Trump reacts to MSG reception: \u2018I thought it was very good\u2019Jun. 9, 2026, 7:50 a.m.<\/a><\/p>\n

Charles Barkley says Knicks must answer: \u2018Why are we getting punched in the face first?\u2019Jun. 9, 2026, 7:03 a.m.<\/a><\/p>\n

Sharpton was among the celebrities courtside for the game, along with Ben Stiller, Larry David, Jay-Z, Timoth\u00e9e Chalamet, Derek Jeter, Fat Joe, John Turturro, Jon Stewart and John McEnroe.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI think the President was the only one who got any negatives as they showed all of us,\u201d Sharpton said. \u201cNobody else really got booed. I think people were celebrating this being in New York.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read the original article on NJ.com<\/a>. Add NJ.com<\/a> as a Preferred Source by clicking here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Queens, N.Y. natives Donald Trump and Stephen A. Smith are involved in a war of words over the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":693590,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[12,25169,15050,355,99,3692],"class_list":["post-693589","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-donald-trump","tag-knicks","tag-madison-square-garden","tag-nba","tag-sports","tag-stephen-a-smith"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/693589","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=693589"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/693589\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/693590"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=693589"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=693589"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=693589"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}