He accused Kovaleski of backing off a story from a week after the 9/11 attacks that said authorities in New Jersey detained and questioned “a number of people who were allegedly seen celebrating the attacks”.
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The incident took place on Tuesday at a SC rally as Trump was in the middle of defending a claim he recently made that he witnesses Muslims cheering during the September 11, 2001 World Trade Center tragedy.
But in interviews this week, Mr Kovaleski said he and other journalists never found evidence of the “thousands and thousands” of people that Mr Trump has claimed were celebrating the attacks.
Now, Trump is claiming that he never made fun of Kovalevski to begin with and doesn’t know why people are so upset, especially because he has no idea who Kovalevski is despite his “all-time great memory”. “I think they should give me an apology before they go out of business”. “I don’t think Sarasota’s ever seen anything like this, I think there will be over 10,000 at the rally tomorrow”, said Joe Gruters who is Florida Donald Trump for President Co-Chairman.
During a speech Tuesday night, Trump moved wildly while referencing Kovaleski.
Kovaleski previously wrote for the Washington Post, where he co-authored a story in the wake of the 2001 attacks about law enforcement officials probing the Muslim community in northern New Jersey for leads. But Kovaleski covered Trump at length in the 1980s while the reporter worked for the New York Daily News. Many feel Trump is the right man to bring the USA back the stronghold it once was, but his comments have caused him to lose his supporters. I’ll say “you’re looking good or are you feeling good, how are you doing, ‘ and somebody could say that’s a lie or it’s a fib, if they don’t look good, but, you know, I do it. I don’t want to hurt people’s feelings”.
Trump demanded an apology from the Times over the allegation. That makes it hard to believe that the candidate has forgotten, or never knew, who Kovaleski is. [If] Mr. Kovaleski is handicapped, I would not know because I do not know what he looks like. ‘I’ve talked to him at press conferences. The Times said on Thursday that it was “outrageous” for Trump to “ridicule the appearance of one of our reporters”. When Stephanopoulos challenged him, Trump said he personally saw the celebrations. “I don’t remember!”, Trump said as he jerked his arm around attempting to simulate the movements of someone living with arthrogryposis.
The Republican presidential front-runner responded by firing off a raging tweetstorm and multiple statements blasting The Times and accusing the reporter of “using his disability to grandstand”.
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Shortly before Trump issued his denial, the Ruderman Family Foundation, which advocates for the disabled, said it was “unacceptable” to have a “presidential candidate mocking someone’s disability as part of a national political discourse”.
