Kathy Hochul Just Face Planted With the Stupidest Knicks Challenge to Trump

Kathy Hochul tried to embarrass Donald Trump over basketball and ended up embarrassing herself in front of the entire country.

She challenged the President's Knicks fandom on live television – and cited a championship that never happened.

Now even Democrats are piling on – and what just surfaced about Trump proves Hochul never had a case.

Hochul Asked Trump to Name the 1993 Knicks Championship Team — The Knicks Never Won in 1993

When a reporter asked Hochul what she thought about Trump calling himself a lifelong Knicks fan, she went straight for the jugular.

"I'd ask him to name the starting lineup of the 1993 Championship team and see how he does," Hochul said.

There is one enormous problem.

The Knicks did not win a championship in 1993.

Michael Jordan's Bulls swept through the postseason that year for their third straight title – and the Knicks never even made the Finals, blowing a 2-0 series lead to Chicago in the Eastern Conference semifinals and going home in May.

The last time New York won an NBA title was 1973 – when Walt Frazier, Willis Reed, and Earl Monroe beat the Los Angeles Lakers – a full twenty years before Hochul's invented championship.

She was so desperate to score a soundbite that she fabricated a Knicks championship out of thin air.

Trump Was Courtside at the Knicks NBA Finals in 1994 — Hochul Was on the Hamburg Town Board

Here is what makes this even richer.

Kathy Hochul is from Hamburg, New York – a suburb outside Buffalo near the Canadian border.

She served on the Hamburg Town Board in the 1990s.

She is Bills country, not Madison Square Garden.

Donald Trump was born and raised in Queens.

He was 27 years old during the Knicks' last championship in 1973 – the Walt Frazier era, the Willis Reed era, the dynasty that every real Knicks fan has memorized by heart.

A resurfaced NBC broadcast clip showed Trump on the floor at Madison Square Garden during the 1994 NBA Finals – the year the Knicks came closest to breaking the drought – while Marv Albert was on the call.

Trump was at the Finals before Hochul ever set foot in New York City politics.

Melissa DeRosa – a Democrat and former top aide to Andrew Cuomo – called Hochul out publicly on X.

"You don't have to like him or agree with him to acknowledge that he's likely a lifelong Knicks fan," DeRosa wrote, noting that Hochul is obviously from Hamburg while Trump was born and raised in Queens.

Donald Trump Jr. piled on next.

"Anyone who knows my father knows he probably knows more about Sports than just about any human being not in the business," he wrote on X, adding that Hochul's "failed soundbite ain't gonna land well."

Former Congressman Lee Zeldin twisted the knife: "Safe bet she can't even name the starting lineup of the CURRENT Knicks team without help."

https://x.com/melissadderosa/status/2059703798713459130“>https://x.com/melissadderosa/status/2059703798713459130

This Is the Pattern Hochul Keeps Running

Democrats are so consumed with attacking Trump that they cannot slow down long enough to check basic facts.

Hochul did not verify the year.

She did not consider that Trump – a Queens native who showed up at MSG during the Finals – might actually know more about the Knicks than a woman from Buffalo does.

She just swung, and she whiffed on facts any casual fan would know cold.

Democrats who spent years telling you Trump was never a real New Yorker just watched a Buffalo politician get schooled on Queens by a 32-year-old NBC broadcast clip.

This is the same governor who flip-flopped on her own signature policies so many times that members of her own party stopped trusting her word.

The pattern is identical – Hochul acts before she thinks, and New Yorkers pay the price.

The Knicks just swept the Cleveland Cavaliers and are heading to the NBA Finals for the first time since 1999.

Trump confirmed at a cabinet meeting he plans to attend – invited by Knicks owner James Dolan – and would become the first sitting president to attend an NBA Finals game.

Meanwhile the Governor of New York just made herself the punchline of the biggest sports gaffe of the week – corrected by her own party, mocked across social media, and buried by a decades-old broadcast clip.

The correct year is 1973, Governor.

Every Knicks fan knows it.

Trump knows it.

Now the whole country knows Hochul doesn't.

Sources:

• Greg Price, "Reporter: 'What do you say to President Trump saying he's a lifelong Knicks fan?'" X (formerly Twitter), May 27, 2026.
• Melissa DeRosa, "What a stupid thing to face plant over," X (formerly Twitter), May 27, 2026.
• "1994 NBA Finals Clip Resurfaces Showing Trump at Knicks Game After Hochul Questioned His Fandom," The Western Journal, May 28, 2026.
• "Hochul Tries to Mock Trump Over the Knicks, but It Boomerangs," RedState, May 27, 2026.
• "Gov. Kathy Hochul's Attempt at Dunking on President Trump's Knicks Fandom Backfires," OutKick/Fox News, May 28, 2026.