Donald Trump, the property magnate and Republican presidential contender, is in trouble once again for his bombastic campaign rhetoric, this time for mocking a disabled newspaper reporter.
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“Now, the poor guy – you’ve got to see this guy, ‘Ah, I don’t know what I said!” The story did not suggest “thousands” were celebrating, as Trump claimed, and a story then by The Star-Ledger in Newark, New Jersey, said the reports of such celebrations by Muslims proved unfounded.
According to NBC, Trump was at a rally in SC on November 24 and attempted to defend his claim that “thousands of Muslims in New Jersey” celebrated as the World Trade Center collapsed in the September 11 attacks.
The reporter’s statement to MSNBC didn’t sit well with “The Donald” who proceeded to imitate Kovaleski on stage at the rally (video below), moving his arms around in a manner that mocked the reporter’s physical disability.
Serge Kovaleski of The New York Times says he has met Trump repeatedly, interviewing him in his office and talking to him at news conferences, when he worked for the New York Daily News in the late 1980s. In a speech Tuesday in South Carolina, Trump said, “Poor guy, you oughta see this guy”, and gestured in a jerky fashion as if imitating Kovaleski’s movements. “I don’t remember, ‘” Trump continued, jerking his curled arms back and forth. I don’t remember.’ He’s going, ‘I don’t remember.
Mr Trump said on Thursday that “despite having one of the all-time great memories” he had no recollection of ever meeting Serge Kovaleski.
“Written by a nice reporter”, Trump said in the speech. Kovaleski himself said he wasn’t surprise at all that Donald Trump would do something that low-rent.
The Washington Post has since added an addendum to the piece Trump cited and added a link to a fact check that disproved Trump’s claim.
“In my speech before over 10,000 people in Myrtle Beach, S.C., I merely mimicked what I thought would be a flustered reporter trying to get out of a statement he made long ago”.
Kovaleski challenged that statement in a Times story posted online Thursday night.
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The Times expressed outrage afterward that Trump would “ridicule the appearance of one of our reporters”.
