Trump Getting Booed At The U.S. Open Has Everyone Talking

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President Donald Trump’s recent appearance at the U.S. Open sparked multiple loud boos, jeers and occasional cheers from the crowd. And one American studies professor says there’s a lot to take away from the icy reception.

Trump made his first appearance at the U.S. Open as a sitting president on Sunday afternoon to watch the match between Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz. The last time Trump attended the tennis tournament was in 2015, when he was a candidate for president.

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There were several times on Sunday when Trump didn’t exactly receive a resoundingly warm welcome at Arthur Ashe Stadium in his native New York City borough of Queens.

The president faced a mix of boos and cheers when he briefly appeared at the stadium about 45 minutes before the match began — and when the stadium was still mostly empty, the Associated Press reported.

Trump was later met with loud boos and some cheers when he was shown on the jumbotron during the national anthem. And he faced more boos for a longer period of time when he was featured again on the big screen at the end of the first set, the AP reported.

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While the president has since appeared to focus solely on the positive reception he received from people at the stadium (he later told reporters that he thought the U.S. Open fans were “great”), many people on social media have been celebrating the audible boos heard in clips making rounds on the internet.

Others accused the U.S. Tennis Association of censorship after it was reported that the organization directed broadcasters to “refrain from showcasing any disruptions or reactions in response to the president’s attendance in any capacity.”

A USTA spokesperson later told The Athletic that the organization regularly asks their broadcasters “to refrain from showcasing off-court disruptions.”

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“Trump getting booed is exactly what America needed to see today!” one user wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

“Listen to the boos in the Crowd as Trump arrives at the U.S. Open stadium. America is catching on,” wrote another.

“Trump claps for himself at the #USOpen — stadium erupts in boos. Broadcasters told not to air protests. Democracy on mute,” one X user added.

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Kari J. Winter, a professor of American studies at the University at Buffalo, told HuffPost that the president getting booed at the U.S. Open was significant because “freedom of expression is the essence and foundation of democracy.”

“Our right to voice our opinions is enshrined in the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution,” she said.

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There’s one big reason why clips of Trump getting booed at the U.S. Open are resonating.

“The booing makes people happy because it demonstrates how many of their fellow Americans share their dismay at what is happening in the U.S.,” Winter said. “A growing majority of Americans as well as our friends abroad are horrified to witness the way the Trump administration is eroding democracy.”

Indeed, despite Trump routinely touting his administration’s successes in his second term as president, polling continues to suggest that a majority of Americans disapprove of the president’s job performance overall.

“Because the U.S. Congress and Supreme Court are failing in their duties to provide checks and balances and to uphold the rule of law, our only hope as a democracy comes from widespread public resistance to the Trump administration’s escalating war on everything good in American society,” Winter said.

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Winter then pointed to Trump’s infamous 2005 “Access Hollywood” interview, in which he was caught on a hot mic making obscene remarks about grabbing women by the genitals, as an example to emphasize that the president “is a bully who derives gratification from imposing his will on vulnerable people and staging spectacles of violence.”

“He makes it clearer with every passing day that he will continue escalating his assaults on people, on the rule of law, on the economy, on decency as long as we let him do it. He has no moral compass,” she said.

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And as it relates to the USTA, Winter said that the organization’s reported efforts to suppress reactions to Trump at the U.S. Open is “anti-democratic,” “cowardly” and “sycophantic.”

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“What does the USTA think it will gain by censoring that reality?” she said, before later adding: “The sustained jeers and occasional cheers constituted a remarkable, memorable component of the event. To attempt to censor that reality is a form of white-washing history while it is unfolding. It is a form of truth-denial and disinformation.”

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