New York Knicks fans in Madison Square Garden received President Trump , a longtime fan and once one of their own, the same way they welcomed the visiting San Antonio Spurs ahead of Game Three of the NBA Finals.
A chorus of boos rained down when the president appeared on the jumbotron saluting from a private box during the national anthem. It wasn’t unexpected given New York City is a liberal enclave. But it comes as Trump’s grip on the culture shows signs of slipping.
“It is ridiculous that he is coming to this game,” said ESPN analyst Stephen A. Smith in complaining about the tightened security and lengthy lines Trump’s presence created around the stadium. “If it causes the New York Knicks to lose tonight, I’m blaming him.”
The celebratory air that Trump brought to the party has dissipated ever since his cultural cachet hit its zenith around his second inauguration. Country music superstar Carrie Underwood sang at the ceremony after rapper Snoop Dogg performed at a ball days before it. Podcasters and influencers, who propelled him into office, cheered him unabashedly while professional athletes celebrated big plays with “the Trump shuffle.”
Now Trump’s influence in entertainment circles shows signs of waning. Several artists recently pulled out from a semiquincentennial concert series—organized by the Trump-aligned group Freedom 250—over concerns about its political ties. Trump’s takeover of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts hit a wall. A judge last month ordered his name stripped from it and halted his plan to close it for renovation. The snag prompted the president to retreat and say he would turn the center over to Congress.
Trump’s setbacks on the culture front come amid a dip in his approval ratings and growing concerns over his handling of the economy. Several high-profile podcasting allies have turned on Trump over the war in Iran and his administration’s handling of the Epstein files, among other issues.
“I can’t imagine going out there singing ‘Easy like Sunday morning’ basically at a MAGA rally when I look at what’s going on,” said Brent Carter , the co-lead singer of the funk and soul group the Commodores. The band originally signed on to perform at the Freedom 250 concert series and pulled out, Carter said, after seeing backlash online.
Trump still has several high-wattage events on his summer calendar, namely an Ultimate Fighting Championship match in a massive structure on the South Lawn set for his 80th birthday Sunday. He has also arranged for a Freedom 250 Grand Prix IndyCar race on the streets of downtown Washington, D.C.
Despite the boos, Trump achieved a historic first at Madison Square Garden: The league says he is the first sitting president to attend the finals.
After artists backed out of the Great American State Fair on the National Mall, which included the 250th birthday concert series, Trump stepped forward to headline the kickoff , scrapping the remaining lineup. In doing so, he described himself in a Truth Social post as “the man who gets much larger audiences than Elvis in his prime, and he does so without a guitar.”
The challenge for Trump, some observers say, is that the countercultural draw that MAGA once offered is more difficult to harness from inside the White House, where Trump’s at the center of the system he campaigned on rebelling against.
“The culture is antiestablishment and he’s acting like he’s part of the establishment,” said Rachel Janfaza , founder of The Up and Up, a nonpartisan research firm focused on Gen Z.
The White House bristled at the suggestion that the president has lost cultural potency. It is the Democratic brand, said Trump spokesman Davis Ingle , that “remains in the toilet because they are weak, woke, and consistently put the American people last.”
A spokeswoman for Freedom 250, which is organizing the celebratory concert, brushed off criticism that the fair had become overtly political, stressing that it is a celebration of American exceptionalism. “This has never been about performers or celebrities,” Danielle Alvarez said.
What happens next at the Kennedy Center is less clear. A spokesperson says the center is “evaluating all legal options.”
Others say that fractures in Trump’s coalition, especially over his foreign interventions, are what have dampened MAGA’s air of celebration.
Cocktail parties made Raquel Debono famous in Republican circles, specifically her singles mixers in Manhattan’s East Village for right-leaning 20- and 30-somethings looking for love in a liberal city. She trademarked “Make America Hot Again,” a tagline for a self-described young, attractive and cool subset of the conservative constellation.
The list of things that Debono wanted from Trump 2.0 includes: more deportations of immigrants in the U.S. illegally and “literally being safe on the subway.” What she said she feels she got instead: a new war in the Middle East. “I’m just like, what the hell, why are we at war?”
A group chat she keeps with other conservative young women recently lit up. “One of the girls goes, ‘Do you guys think that you’re America First or MAGA?’” she recalled, “and I’ve been thinking about that a lot.” Among the questions she’s asking herself: “Am I allowed to like Megyn Kelly now?” The popular podcaster campaigned for Trump and then split with him over the Iran war.
The result of all this, said Debono, who still supports Trump, is that the MAGA movement isn’t as much fun as it once was. “Everyone literally went crazy.”
On the football field, displays of MAGA pride aren’t garnering the same reception that they once did. After diving into the end zone last October to give the Detroit Lions an early lead against the Washington Commanders, wide receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown pointed to the upper deck and began the unmistakable low-fisted, hip-shifting shuffle known as “the Trump dance.” Watching from a private suite, Trump beamed before sharing a clip on social media.
At least half a dozen other NFL players followed suit that season, prompting the NFL to release a statement saying that the league took “no issue” with the political shuffle.
But those dance routines came when the president “hadn’t yet had to make big decisions that rubbed people the wrong way,” said Lynden Blake, a sports analyst with the conservative Daily Wire.
Blake doesn’t believe Trump has lost sports culture though. “I don’t think a bunch of Nascar fans all of a sudden are going to turn liberal,” she said. Yet within the NFL, embracing Trump is generating some fresh resistance.
New York Giants quarterback Jaxson Dart found himself at the center of a cultural maelstrom after appearing on stage with Trump in upstate New York last month. A teammate called out the second-year quarterback online, and the Giants locker room reportedly addressed the aftermath internally to help cool the tensions.
NBA Commissioner Adam Silver defended the presidential Knicks game cameo during ESPN preprogramming, noting that before politics Trump was “a genuine Knicks fan” who could often be seen courtside in years past. The commissioner acknowledged the “inconvenience” of the added security for the fans but noted that the stadium was packed well before tipoff.
“He’s welcome to be here,” Silver said of Trump, who was invited by Knicks owner and GOP donor James Dolan. “What makes sports so special, especially when there’s so much that divides people, is it’s something that we have in common, and we should look for those things that we have in common and build off that.”
Write to Philip Wegmann at philip.wegmann@wsj.com , Sabrina Rodriguez at sabrina.rodriguez@wsj.com and Elias Leight at elias.leight@wsj.com
