Trump made a mocking impression of Serge Kovaleski, a New York Times reporter.
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Kovaleski suffers from arthrogryposis, a congenital condition that affects joint movement, limiting usage of his hands.
“Now the poor guy, you ought to see this guy”, Trump told thousands of supporters in South Carolina.”‘Ah, I don’t know what I said!
“Uhh I do not understand what I said”.
Kovaleski believes the Republican presidential candidate does remember meeting him years ago, calling what he did “low-rent” and unsurprising. In his statement, Trump said he was simply making fun of the way the reporter was trying to “pull away from” something he had written more than a decade ago. He’s said he’s confident the businessman recalls his physical state and him, the Washington Post reported.
Trump, front-runner for his party’s nomination for the November 2016 election, was defending his unsubstantiated assertions that thousands of Muslims were seen in New Jersey cheering the collapse of the Twin Towers.
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.
According to Politico in 2011, Trump also had a call with the organization’s head that year too.
“They should focus on the survival of their newspaper and not on dishonest and very bad reporting about me”, Trump said.
The reporter Donald Trump claims he’s never seen before says he spent a whole day with the bombastic billionaire while working for the Daily News – and he’s drawn Trump’s ire before.
In an interview for the Times, Kovaleski said he was certain Trump remembers him from his days covering the real estate developer for the New York Daily News in the 1980s. In the video, Trump mimics the journalist to discredit him after some “facts” that the Donald was spewing about Muslims on 9/11 came into question. But the story did not suggest “thousands” were observed celebrating or that the reports of such a scene were true.
At a rally after Kovaleski’s recent statement, Trump ridiculed the reporter. “I do. I think they should give me – and I’d love to have the apology before they go out of business”.
The New York Times quotes Trump as saying “I have no idea who this reporter, Serge Kovalski [sic], is, what he looks like or his level of intelligence”.
This wrangle is one more on the long list of controversies that have marked Trump’s campaign for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination.
In South Carolina, Trump described Kovaleski as a “nice guy” before mocking his comments about the article in The Post.
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The Ruderman Family Foundation said it’s willing to offer Trump a series of sensitivity training sessions.
