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Donald Trump Under Fire for Mocking a Reporter With a Disability

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Presidential candidate Donald Trump is under fire for publicly mocking a man with a disability.

On Tuesday, Nov. 24, Trump gave a speech in South Carolina in which he appeared to imitate the physical disability of a New York Times reporter named Serge Kovaleski, The Guardian reported. Trump made flailing motions with his arms in apparent mimicry of Kovaleski, who has arthrogryposis, a joint condition where a child is born with joint contractures that may limit arm mobility, according to Seattle Children’s Hospital.

The incident occurred as Trump was reiterating his claim that he witnessed thousands of Muslims cheering in New Jersey on Sept. 11, 2001, as the World Trade Center collapsed, The Washington Post reported. His claim has since been discredited by journalists, law enforcement and government officials who were in New Jersey in the days and weeks following the terrorist attacks, including Kovaleski.

“The sad part about it is, it didn’t in the slightest bit jar or surprise me that Donald Trump would do something this low-rent, given his track record,” Kovaleski told the Washington Post.

On Thursday, Nov. 26, trump tweeted a statement about the incident in which he claims he was not mocking Kovaleski and that he had no idea Kovaleski had a disability.

 

A spokesperson for the New York Times told Politico they consider the ridicule of one of their reporters “outrageous.”

Get more on the story from the video below: 

 

Originally published: November 26, 2015
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