Trump Claims He Didn't Mock Disabled Reporter

He tells Kovalevski to 'stop using his disability to grandstand'
By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff
Posted Nov 27, 2015 4:28 AM CST
Updated Nov 27, 2015 6:56 AM CST

On Thanksgiving, Donald Trump didn't take any time off from being Donald Trump. He issued a statement denying that he had mocked the disability of New York Times reporter Serge Kovalevski—and accused Kovalevski of "using his disability to grandstand," the Guardian reports. Kovalevski, who has a congenital joint condition that affects arm movement, had angered Trump by saying he didn't recall seeing thousands of Americans celebrating on 9/11, the Washington Post reports. Trump had been using a line from a 2001 Post article by Kovalevski to back up his claim that he saw such celebrations on TV news at the time.

Kovalevski met Trump several times while covering his businesses for the New York Daily News from 1987 to 1993, the Guardian notes, but Trump says that despite having "the world's greatest memory," he doesn't recall meeting him. He "must think a lot of himself if he thinks I remember him from decades ago—if I ever met him at all, which I doubt I did," Trump said. "He should stop using his disability to grandstand and get back to reporting for a paper that is rapidly going down the tubes." He tweeted that the arm movements he made after saying, "You ought to see the guy" was his way of showing "a person groveling to take back a statement made long ago." Trump also tweeted that the "failing" NYT should focus on balanced reporting instead of "boring" Trump "hit jobs." (More Donald Trump stories.)

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