New York – Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump appeared to mock one of the New York Times’ reporter during a campaign rally in South Carolina this week.
On Tuesday, Trump criticized Serge Kovaleski, who suffers from a congenital joint condition, for his recent remembrance of an article he had written a few days after the September 11 attacks. Trump claimed in the rally that Kovaleski is denying reports from his own statements.
Kovaleski reported at the time of the terrorist attacks that there were people in New Jersey supposedly celebrating, but it was never confirmed. The gestures used by the candidate while he criticized the reporter appeared to mock Kovaleski’s physical condition, which visibly limits the flexibility in his arms.
“Now, the poor guy — you’ve got to see this guy, ‘Ah, I don’t know what I said! I don’t remember!’” Trump said as he waved his arms in front of his body in an awkward manner.
Now Trump has been under fire because of these actions. A New York Times’s spokesperson said that they felt the candidate offended them. He also said that they found outrageous that he would ridicule the appearance of one of their reporters. Kovaleski himself said he wasn’t surprise at all that Donald Trump would do something that low-rent.
Trump has denied he mocked the reporter. He said that in his speech he simply mimicked what he thought would be a nervous reporter trying to get out of a statement he had made long ago.
“If Mr. Kovaleski is handicapped, I would not know because I do not know what he looks like. If I did know, I would definitely not say anything about his appearance,” the republican candidate added.
This is not the first time Trump has been accused of mocking a person’s physical appearance. In a July interview with NBC news, Trump lashed out at columnists Jonah Goldberg and Charles Krauthammer after they called the candidate a “rodeo clown.” Trump ironically asked how he could get called names by someone who couldn’t buy a pair of pants. Critics speculated that Trump had intentionally mocked Krauthammer, who is paralyzed from the waist down.
Source: The Washington Post