When President Donald Trump was shown on the jumbotron Monday night during the national anthem before Game 3 of the NBA Finals between the hometown New York Knicks and the San Antonio Spurs, the response from the crowd could not have been clearer. 

Trump “was thunderously booed,” Jeff Mordock, White House correspondent for the conservative Washington Times, wrote for the official pool report. “It was loud and long, but quickly changed to cheers when the camera quickly panned to” Knicks star Jalen Brunson. 

The New York Times likewise reported that “most of the crowd at Madison Square Garden burst into loud and raucous boos”; The Associated Press, Axios, and NBC News concurred that the president’s visage had been greeted with loud booing; and according to The Washington Post’s account, “The jeers were louder than the Spurs had received when they took the floor.”

But for the MAGA sycophants at Fox News, the spectacle of their beloved president facing public disapproval — even in a city that rejected him by lopsided margins all three times he faced the voters — was apparently too much to bear. Fox’s propagandists carefully shield their viewers from the historic levels of dissent Trump faces, and on social media, online, and on the air, they dutifully downplayed the Madison Square Garden crowd’s cacophonous jeers of the president.

If Trump was watching Fox & Friends on Tuesday morning, he saw the show’s co-hosts apparently trying to buck him up. Over chyrons claiming that Trump received a “mixed reception” from fans, Brian Kilmeade, Ainsley Earhardt, and Lawrence Jones took turns downplaying the crowd’s response, praising the president, and offering excuses for why those ingrates at the game were displeased with his appearance.

Kilmeade kicked things off by claiming that he was in the arena and that the response was actually “pretty mixed,” with Trump having the support of “about half the stadium in New York City, which is pretty amazing.” He added that the president “did make history there” by supposedly getting that level of approval from the New York City crowd. He added that Trump “had a great time” at the game and “loved every minute of it.”

After all three co-hosts offered or amplified testimonials to Trump’s love of sports in general and the Knicks in particular — suggesting that it was unfair for fans to boo him for coming to the game — Jones acknowledged that the New York City fans were likely overwhelmingly Democratic. 

“You don't expect anything different from the same crowd that voted for” New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, a democratic socialist, Jones said. “Did you expect there to be welcoming crowd?”

Jones then suggested that the booing fans were unpatriotic, saying, “The fact that they did it during the anthem, though, is what really shocked me.” Of course, trying to forestall such a reaction is probably why Trump was shown on the jumbotron during the anthem.

But Kilmeade took issue with Jones conceding that the crowd was overwhelmingly against the president. 

“The thing is, though, I would say it was mixed, Lawrence. There were people cheering,” he said. “I’ll challenge anybody on that — I was sitting right there.”

“But that doesn’t bother the president,” Kilmeade added. “He legitimately is there to watch the game. “

The co-host then offered some excuses for why people might have booed the president unrelated to the possibility that they are among the national majority that hates his guts.

“The other thing is, the amount of security to get in,” he said. “It was unbelievable. I mean, it took me 90 minutes to go two blocks. That's everybody. You just sat there in a herd through four magnetometers. So people were kind of worn out by the time they got there. So there were people that just maybe might have been upset about how long it took just to get into the game.”

“Once the game started, it was great,” he concluded. “It was just a fantastic atmosphere.”

Kilmeade hit many of the same points later in the program.

“There were some boos. I think some of it was because of the security,” he said. “It took us literally 90 minutes to walk because we had four separate checkpoints.”

“Number two, it reminded me more of Tyson,”  he continued, referring to former heavyweight boxing champion Mike Tyson, who served three years in prison following his 1992 conviction for rape. “When Tyson stepped into an arena, the place would erupt. I wouldn't know if it was cheers or boos; it was just like action.” 

“So the president did get a good response, but it is New York City, which goes — just voted in a socialist,” he concluded. “That is not a socialist.”

Fox also waved away the boos on social media Monday night, instead telling its followers that the crowd had chanted “USA” throughout the arena during the game, “with President Trump in attendance.”

And the front page of the network’s website on Tuesday morning likewise featured the impenetrable headline “Sold-out NBA Finals crowd reacts to Trump far differently than college football fans.” 

Readers who clicked through to the story learned in the headline that Trump had drawn a “much different reaction” at MSG than he had at the College Football Playoff; in the subheadline that he was “was shown on the big screen”; in the first paragraph that he had “received a massive reaction” from the crowd; and in the second that it was a “mixed reaction.” The third paragraph finally acknowledged that while there had been “some cheering,” the “boos … rang louder.” The article then devoted several paragraphs to reminding its apparently fragile readers that at the prior sporting event in Florida, the crowd had cheered Trump instead of booing him. 

Knicks in 5.