Ballpark boos a rarity for shielded President Trump

NEW YORK — The boos were loud. And for President Donald Trump, they may have felt unfamiliar.

Trump was showered with jeers, boos and chants ( as well as some cheers) when he attended a World Series game at Nationals Park in Washington on Sunday. It was a rare moment of in-your-face disapproval for a president whose White House goes out of the way to shield him from protests and demonstrators.

Since taking office, Trump has rarely ventured out to places in his deeply Democratic adopted home city or elsewhere that might feature high-volume hostility or a cold shoulder.

When the boos began as Trump' s image flashed on the ballpark's giant video screen, t he president seemed momentarily taken a back. He mouthed something to his wife, Melania Trump, while gamely trying to clap along. But his smile froze and then faded as the boos continued and some in the crowd launched into a brief chant of “Lock him up,” a version of the phrase chanted against Hillary Clinton at dozens of Trump rallies during the 2016 campaign.

White House officials tried to play down the negative feedback, which erupted when Trump's image appeared on the giant video screen during a tribute to the military.

“I know that there were some people cheering as well. But, listen, it's Washington D.C. It's a pretty liberal town,” White House spokesman Hogan Gidley said Monday.

Though White House officials were prepared for jeers ina ballpark located in a city where only 4 percent of residents voted for Trump, some thought the president's announcement hours earlier about the death of Islamic State leader A bu Ba kr al-Baghdadi might temper some of the boos. That proved not to be the case, despite efforts to limit the heckling.