Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is once again under fire after allegedly mocking a reporter with a physical disability, although the real estate tycoon has denied the accusations.
Advertisement
Four officers and an unknown number of civilians have been injured in a Colo. shooting.
The statement added, “It’s worth noting that in his initial comments last week, Mr. Trump referred to Mr. Kovaleski as “a nice reporter” and said “now, you have to see this guy” before moving his hands in a jerking fashion that mocked Mr. Kovaleski’s disability”.
“I spent the entire day with Trump, along with some other reporters, on the inaugural voyage of the Trump Shuttle, which Trump bought from Eastern Airlines in the late 1980s”, Kovaleski told The News in an email on Friday. Kovaleski recently said that his reporting never bore out that thousands, or even hundreds, were celebrating.
Onstage Tuesday, a mocking Trump flailed his arms in an apparent attempt to imitate mannerisms of the “poor guy”.
Kovaleski, who suffers from a chronic condition that limits the movement of his arms, went on CNN to renounce his report, after which Trump impersonated him on stage at a SC rally.
Numerous fact-checkers said his comments were untrue, so Trump seized on a story co-written by Kovaleski, then with the Washington Post, seven days after the attacks.
Joseph Caputo left a suicide note with a reference to “Star Wars”. “We think it’s outrageous that he would ridicule the appearance of one of our reporters”, a Times spokesman told Politico.
“Donald and I were on a first-name basis for years”, Mr Kovaleski said.
In his Thursday statement, Trump said he had not been aware of the journalist’s disability and “merely mimicked what I thought would be a flustered reporter trying to get out of a statement he made long ago”. “If Mr. Kovaleski is handicapped, I would not know because I do not know what he looks like”.
Trump never mentioned Kovaleski by name in SC as he defended previous claims that thousands of Muslims in New Jersey celebrated the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. “I don’t remember.’ He’s going like, ‘Uhhh I don’t remember'”. In July, Trump made a remark about columnist Charles Krauthammer, who now works for the Washington Post, has been critical of the Republican candidate and who is also paralyzed from the waist down.
Advertisement
The Ruderman Family Foundation has been pushing for the inclusion of people with disabilities since 2002 across Jewish communities in the United States and in Israel.
