November 3, 2019

Trump Is in Denial About Getting Booed Again, This Time at a UFC Fight

Also not accepting reality? Fox & Friends.

Evan Vucci/AP

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Depending on where you were standing in Madison Square Garden last night when President Donald Trump walked in for a UFC fight, you might have heard overwhelming boos from the crowd around you. Or a smattering of cheers and applause. Or just blasting music from overhead.

However, following the deeply satisfying videos of the boos that greeted Trump’s appearance at Game 5 of the World Series last Sunday—and the wall–to–wall media coverage, including our own—determining the precise mix of boos versus cheers in the crowd is now a high-stakes feat of political analysis, and the verdicts following Trump’s UFC appearance are mixed.

Here are some videos that you can judge for yourself:

The president, for his part, has decided that entering the Garden was a “little bit like walking into a Trump rally,” he tweeted. “Great energy,” he added.

And, accordingly, the Fox News spin machine whirred to life this morning to guard the ego of their number-one viewer. “The president got a big reception,” Fox & Friends cohost Pete Hegseth put it. “This is a crowd that appreciates the brawler style of a brawler president.”

“There are some media outlets saying they heard mostly boos,” cohost Ed Henry chimed in. “This has become so juvenile. If you actually listen to the video and the audio, there clearly were a ton of cheers.”

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DONALD TRUMP & DEMOCRACY

Mother Jones was founded to do things differently in the aftermath of a political crisis: Watergate. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after, and go deep on, stories others don’t. And we’re a nonprofit newsroom because we knew corporations and billionaires would never fund the journalism we do. Our reporting makes a difference in policies and people’s lives changed.

And we need your support like never before to vigorously fight back against the existential threats American democracy and journalism face. We’re running behind our online fundraising targets and urgently need all hands on deck right now. We can’t afford to come up short—we have no cushion; we leave it all on the field.

Please help with a donation today if you can—even just a few bucks helps. Not ready to donate but interested in our work? Sign up for our Daily newsletter to stay well-informed—and see what makes our people-powered, not profit-driven, journalism special.

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