Jon Stewart revealed why Donald Trump’s welcome at Madison Square Garden was so shocking to witness in person, explaining that even the sound of the national anthem didn’t stop New Yorkers from booing the president.
The Daily Show host and anchor described the scene in an episode of his podcast, The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart.
“It was in the middle of a guy with a beautiful voice singing the national anthem. This was… ‘and the land of the-,’ and then it cuts away, and everyone is like ‘boo!’” began Stewart.
“It was more, I think, the juxtaposition of it that made it so much more shocking and clear,” he explained.
The podcast’s producer asked Stewart about the crowd’s reaction to Trump appearing on the Jumbotrons, saying, “Jon, some people said Trump received a mixed reaction last night when he appeared on the Jumbotron. What do you think?”
“Mixed?!” Stewart responded incredulously. “I mean, mixed in the sense that it was 90 percent booing and 10 percent confusion. First of all, I mean, it wasn’t mixed in any...I’ve been in Madison Square Garden, it was no more mixed than what the Spurs received.”
“People immediately were like ‘F--- you!’” he quipped.
Trump himself seemed unfazed by the booing from the audience at Monday night’s Game 3 of the NBA Finals. When asked about the jeers directed at him, the 79-year-old president insisted that he received a warm welcome. “I thought it was great. I mean, I thought it was amazing, actually. You mean when they had the camera on me? I thought it was very good,” Trump told reporters at John F. Kennedy airport. “It was certainly amazing. It was, it was, I think, mostly cheers. It was loud, and it was very enthusiastic.”
Of this, Stewart hypothesized, “It’s also an insight into the window of his power of reality distortion.”
“I don’t know whatever earholes he’s filtering through. I do think he genuinely heard them as cheers,” he said.
Stewart, 63, a known Knicks fan and frequent game attendee, said he doesn’t want the president “anywhere near” another game. On Monday night, the Knicks lost to the San Antonio Spurs, snapping their 13-game winning streak.
“We were on the craziest, high-vibed...we were on a run like no basketball team has ever been on. We hadn’t lost in over a month, and then he shows up...” said the host. “He put the maloik on us. That’s the hex.”
“You know what it felt like with him in the building? Like in Ghostbusters when the city opens up, and the ghouls are coming out of the thing. We needed Bill Murray to come in and him and Dan Aykroyd to zap whatever cytoplasm was getting on the court.”
