Trump Mocking Physical Disabilities Is Nothing New

Kovaleski said in an email interview with the Daily News on Thursday that he met Trump repeatedly while he was still working for the Daily News and was covering Trump’s business career in the late 1980s. And that’s saying something.

The row erupted after Mr Trump’s speech at a rally in SC on Tuesday.

Trump is insisting that he saw “thousands” of Muslims celebrating in Jersey City, N.J., as the twin towers burned fell on the other side of the Hudson River.

The New York Times has called Mr Trump’s actions “outrageous”.

He now says he does “not recall anyone saying there were thousands, or even hundreds, of people celebrating”.

On Tuesday evening, at a rally in South Carolina, Trump tore into this account, telling supporters: “Now the poor guy”.

Donald Trump says he couldn’t have been making fun of a reporter’s disability, because he doesn’t know the man.

Kovaleski said earlier in the week that he couldn’t remember anyone ever claiming to have seen what Trump claims.

His statement concluded: “The New York Times has become more and more irrelevant and rapidly becoming a total joke – sad!”

The only corroborating evidence that Trump has managed to produce is a single Washington Post article from September 18, 2001.

Kovaleski’s friends and colleagues took to social media this week to defend him – and excoriate Trump.

“In my speech before over 10,000 people in Myrtle Beach, SC, I merely mimicked what I thought would be a flustered reporter trying to get out of a statement he made long ago”, Trump said in the statement. Then, he jerked his arms in front of his body, mocking the reporter who suffers from arthrogryposis, a condition that limits his ability to move his joints.

However, a Trump campaign spokesperson told The Washington Post that the billionaire was “not aware of any condition and was not mocking his physical appearance in any way”. Asked whether Trump will keep up his criticisms of the paper, Pierson said if it “continues to attack him and write negative articles that are false about him, he’ll continue to respond in kind”.

In an emailed statement, the Ruderman Family Foundation, which advocates for people with disabilities, blasted Trump. “Uhh I don’t know what I said. That was not the case, as best as I can remember”, Kovaleski told CNNMoney.