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This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I\u2019m Amy Goodman, with Juan Gonz\u00e1lez.
\nThe worlds of sports and politics collided here in New York on Monday night, just blocks from our studio, as President Trump attended Game 3 of the NBA Finals at Madison Square Garden. The San Antonio Spurs beat the New York Knicks. It was a Knicks\u2019 first loss since late April.
\nDue to Trump\u2019s appearance, authorities shut down the area around the Garden, and ticket holders were asked to arrive hours early and go through TSA-style security. Trump watched the game from a suite surrounded by bulletproof glass. During Avery Wilson\u2019s performance at the national anthem, many in the crowd booed when Trump was shown on the jumbotron.<\/p>\n
AVERY WILSON: Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight\u2026<\/p>\n
CROWD: (booing)<\/p>\n
AMY GOODMAN: The New York Times reports the New York crowd booed Trump more than they booed the Spurs when they took the floor. Trump was also loudly booed at watch parties in the city. After the game, Trump downplayed the incident.<\/p>\n
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: It was, I think, mostly cheers. It was \u2014 it was loud, and it was very enthusiastic.<\/p>\n
AMY GOODMAN: To talk about this and more, we\u2019re joined by Dave Zirin, sports editor for The Nation magazine, host of the Edge of Sports podcast, his new article headlined \u201cNot Even Trump Can Ruin the Knicks\u2019 Moment.\u201d This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I\u2019m Amy Goodman, with Juan Gonz\u00e1lez. The worlds of sports and politics collided here in New York on Monday night, just blocks from our studio, as President Trump attended Game 3 of the NBA Finals at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5231,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[677],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5230","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/daiilynews.cu.ma\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5230","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/daiilynews.cu.ma\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/daiilynews.cu.ma\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/daiilynews.cu.ma\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/daiilynews.cu.ma\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5230"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/daiilynews.cu.ma\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5230\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/daiilynews.cu.ma\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5231"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/daiilynews.cu.ma\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5230"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/daiilynews.cu.ma\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5230"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/daiilynews.cu.ma\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nReally? Can you talk about what happened last night?
\nDAVE ZIRIN: Yeah. First and foremost, I was wrong. Donald Trump absolutely ruined the Knicks\u2019 moment last night. I believe he is the reason why they lost. The game lasted about half an hour to 45 minutes longer than a usual game. It was an absolute slog. You mentioned the two- to three-hour wait to get in there, the TSA-style screenings to get into the game. It definitely had an effect on things, especially because this was supposed to be a day about the Knicks. It was supposed to be a celebration of New York. And instead it was about one authoritarian, malignant narcissist. I mean, it\u2019s actually not a good thing that there were more boos for Trump than the Spurs, because it shouldn\u2019t have been about Trump at all. We shouldn\u2019t even be talking about him right now.
\nAnd I got to say something about the boos, because I was at a watch party in Brooklyn. The boos were cacophonous.
\nAMY GOODMAN: Where?
\nDAVE ZIRIN: At a bar called Chilo\u2019s in Bed-Stuy.
\nAMY GOODMAN: Which you just took over.
\nDAVE ZIRIN: Which I just took over. We\u2019re turning it into a place for the people, a dive bar for the people. And we had an amazing event. The boos were out into the streets. And we weren\u2019t the only bar where you could hear it. You could choose where to hear the boos.
\nAnd to me, that was important, because it was a reminder that New York City\u2019s relationship to Donald Trump isn\u2019t just about contemporary politics or the last three election cycles. It\u2019s about a 50-year abusive relationship that this city has had with this man, from his refusal to rent to people of color in the ’70s to him whipping up racist violence due to the Central Park Exonerated Five case, to his desire to, quote-unquote, \u201cdevelop\u201d our parks with his tacky buildings. This city does not like this man, and we’ve been warning the country about him for, frankly, decades. And maybe last night was the most powerful audio and visual representation of that relationship.
\nJUAN GONZ\u00c1LEZ: The players who are \u2014 who were on the court felt about this, especially, we know, for instance, Josh Hart, back in 2020, one of the key figures on the Knicks, tweeted back before the November election, \u201dYESSIR!!!! GET TRUMP\u2019S DUMB (expletive) OUT THE WHITE HOUSE!!!!!!\u201d How do you think they felt about what was going on?
\nDAVE ZIRIN: Well, I think, for the Knicks \u2014 and I know this a little bit from trying to talk to people on the team \u2014 there was a bit of a resentment, because this was supposed to be a night about them, about their hard work. They\u2019re coming in off a near-record 13-game winning streak in the playoffs. It was \u2014 it\u2019s been the equivalent for the city of going to 13 movies and having them all be awesome. And it created a great vibe in the city. You walk in the city, it\u2019s orange and black everywhere \u2014 I\u2019m sorry, orange and blue everywhere, the royal blue wherever you see. And it\u2019s been \u2014 it was supposed to be the beautiful culmination. It was the first home game in an NBA Finals for the Knicks since 1999 and their chance to go up three to nothing, which would effectively have ensured them the championship for the first time in 53 years, longer than I\u2019ve been on this Earth. And this is the team of my youth. This is the team of my heart.
\nSo, to see it become about Donald Trump was certainly upsetting for fans, not just the people in the well-heeled tens of thousands of dollars seats in the stadium, but the watch parties, the bars. Everybody who\u2019s put their heart and soul into this team were basically slapped in the face by Donald Trump.
\nJUAN GONZ\u00c1LEZ: And, of course, for a person who claims to be a big Knicks fan, there was that photo spread on X of Trump asleep in his box in the middle of the game, so he obviously wasn\u2019t paying too close attention. But I wanted to ask you about also another issue with the Trump administration, which is the World Cup, the treatment of the Trump administration to some of the participants in the World Cup, the exclusion \u2014 the Iranian team forced to fly in and fly out of the country from Mexico, when they\u2019re going to be playing games on the same day, and also the recent exclusion of a referee chosen by FIFA from Somalia who was denied entry into the United States.
\nDAVE ZIRIN: Yeah, I\u2019ll just say I\u2019ve been covering the World Cup in person, and at times, when it\u2019s been in authoritarian countries, remotely, and this is the first World Cup that I would ever describe as joyless. It\u2019s always been a celebration, a party, no matter what country that has hosted it, whether a liberal democracy or an authoritarian regime. But this is the first time that travel warnings are being issued to fans coming here. Even warnings are being issued to people who live in the United States by immigration groups because of the threats of ICE being at the stadiums. There\u2019s a joylessness. It\u2019s supposed to be the party that unites the world. And like the Knicks game last night, this looks to be something that Trump is using his reverse Midas touch to ruin.
\nAMY GOODMAN: And one more question on what happened last night, that image of President Trump in Dolan\u2019s box.
\nDAVE ZIRIN: Yes, James Dolan.
\nAMY GOODMAN: James Dolan. And for a global audience who doesn\u2019t know about the significance of the man who owns both Madison Square Garden and the Knicks?
\nDAVE ZIRIN: Yeah, James Dolan is someone who made his money the old-fashioned way: He inherited it. That\u2019s one of his commonalities with Donald Trump. They have a very close relationship, going back decades. Dolan and his son were both married at Mar-a-Lago. Dolan has given Trump untold amounts of money for his political campaigns. Dolan wants to lead a push to rename Penn Station, over which he has a lot of influence because of the presence of Madison Square Garden there. He wants to rename Penn Station after Donald Trump. They have had meetings about that.
\nBut that\u2019s not all they share. They share accusations of sexual assault and sexual battery and having unsafe work environments for women. That\u2019s something Dolan has paid a price for. Racism allegations, of course, plague both men, although calling them allegations for Donald Trump is a stretch, to say the least. And as I said, both children of wealth. So they have a tremendous amount of commonalities, but, basically, they\u2019re the commonality that exists when you have \u2014 I don\u2019t know how else to put it, but \u2014 two rich jerks who were born on third base and act like they hit a triple.
\nAMY GOODMAN: And Dolan developing Madison Square Garden, the deals that have to be made, and this is with Trump?
\nDAVE ZIRIN: This is with Trump. The idea is to move Madison Square Garden to be actually on top of Penn Station and to rename Penn Station after Donald Trump. That\u2019s the big plan. They have had meetings about this. This is not rumor. This is what Trump wants: people coming into Trump Station. And that\u2019s the authoritarian playbook if there ever was one. He needs to name as many things as possible after him now, because after he leaves, like with the Trump Kennedy Center, people are going to want to take those names down.
\nAMY GOODMAN: Well, I want to thank you, Dave Zirin, sports editor for The Nation magazine, host of the Edge of Sports podcast. His new article is headlined \u201cNot Even Trump Can Ruin the Knicks\u2019 Moment,\u201d though he\u2019s reconsidered that.
\nDAVE ZIRIN: Recanting.
\nAMY GOODMAN: And you\u2019re doing a live podcast tonight \u2014\u00a0
\nDAVE ZIRIN: Yes.
\nAMY GOODMAN: \u2014 at Chilo\u2019s, your new bar in Brooklyn?
\nDAVE ZIRIN: Yes, in the Bed-Stuy neighborhood of Brooklyn. I\u2019m doing a great event with 11-year NBA veteran Etan Thomas, where we\u2019re going to talk about all things sports and politics. So, come out ot Chilo\u2019s if you want to have a good ol\u2019 time.
\nAMY GOODMAN: So, Dave Zirin, who has now really nearly relocated to \u2014 well, to New York, though he\u2019s in Washington, as well. And we\u2019re going to be looking more at the World Cup in the coming days here on Democracy Now!
\nThat does it for the show. After tomorrow\u2019s show, I\u2019m headed to Sheffield to the film festival in England. We\u2019ll be broadcasting from Sheffield Live!, that broadcasts Democracy Now! every day, and has done so for years. And then we\u2019ll be at the Ireland Docs, Docs Ireland, the first film to show there. That\u2019s in Belfast. Then we\u2019ll be in Vermont on the weekend of Juneteenth, on June 18th in Burlington, and then we\u2019ll be in Brattleboro at the Latchis and in St. Johnsbury at Catamount Arts Center. Check our website at democracynow.org. I\u2019m Amy Goodman, with Juan Gonz\u00e1lez, for another edition of Democracy Now!
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