Trump appears to doze off during controversial trip to watch NBA Finals in New York

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President Donald Trump may have fallen asleep as he watched game three of the NBA Finals at Madison Square Garden in New York City on Monday night.

Social media commenters claimed they spotted the president snoozing on a video feed of the private box where Trump sat with Knicks owner James Dolan and watched the game.

Critics were quick to criticize the president, who has faced numerous accusations of falling asleep during public appearances, enough so that Democrats have called him “the Commander-in-Sleep.”

The anti-Trump Lincoln Project advocacy group called Trump’s Monday MSG visit “the most expensive taxpayer funded nap” in a post on X.

“OMG, after ALL THAT, Trump is sleeping at the Knicks game!” activist Amy Siskind wrote in a post on X.

open image in gallery President Trump appeared to fall asleep on Monday night as he watched the NBA Finals live from Madison Square Garden ( AP )

“Couldn’t he have saved everyone the trouble and ‘watch it on television?’” she added, a reference to Trump’s recent comments telling Americans to catch the game on TV if they couldn’t afford tickets, which ran as high as $8,000 per seat.

“Trump so evil...came to ruin the fan experience just to sleep at the Knicks game,” another commenter on X wrote.

In a social media post, New York congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez responded to the clip of Trump nodding off with a blunt, “WAKE TF UP.”

Soon basketball observers were blaming Trump’s appearance for the Knicks losing at home on Monday night after a lengthy winning streak.

“So the Knicks win 13 playoff games in a row, a historic run!” basketball journalist Molly Knight wrote on Bluesky. “Then Donald Trump shows up to their first NBA finals home game this century, falls asleep, and they promptly lose.”

The Independent has contacted the White House for comment.

open image in gallery Fans in- and outside Madison Square Garden booed Donald Trump when he appeared at the NBA Finals ( Getty )

The administration has previously denied that Trump falls asleep on the job, even when presented with video footage that appears to show just that.

Even before the alleged sleeping incident, the president’s Finals appearance was controversial.

Extra security precautions caused hours of delays getting into the arena, and the crowd booed Trump when he flashed onto the jumbotron as the match-up started.

Trump’s appearance also caused the Finals organizers to cancel the watch parties that were expected outside the Garden, where New Yorkers are rallying behind a Knicks team making its first Finals run in decades.

The president was joined by family, friends and White House colleagues at the historic game.

He was spotted alongside his granddaughter Kai Trump, as well as Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin and Deputy Chief of Staff Dan Scavino.