Trump said that in his speech at the rally “I merely mimicked what I thought would be a flustered reporter trying to get out of a statement he made long ago. If I did know, I would definitely not say anything about his appearance.” Kovaleski is handicapped, I would not know because I do not know what he looks like. In a subsequent statement, Trump demanded an apology from the New York Times and was critical of Kovaleski. “Serge Kovaleski 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. “He should stop using his disability to grandstand and get back to reporting for a newspaper that is rapidly going down the tubes,” Trump said. Trump’s performance at the rally was prompted by challenges to Trump’s repeated claim that he saw “thousands” of Muslims celebrating in Jersey City, N.J., as the World Trade Center towers burned and fell during the 9/11 terror attack.īoth sides have cited a story Kovaleski had written in 2001 when he worked for the Washington Post that said authorities had detained “a number of people” in Jersey City who had allegedly been seen celebrating the 9/11 terror attacks on the World Trade Center. Kovaleski’s story referred to FBI probes of the alleged celebrations, but quoted no witnesses and contained no specific evidence that celebrations occurred. He was interviewed this week by the Washington Post about his 2001 reporting. Trump went on to bemoan standards of political correctness when talking about handicaps, saying that "it's complicated out there," and that he doesn’t have time to be politically correct.“I certainly do not remember anyone saying that thousands or even hundreds of people were celebrating. "I didn't like the fact that he wrote a story and he took it back, because he talked about tailgate parties and other things you all saw, and many people knew what took place and everybody knows it took place worldwide, so why wouldn't it take place in very strong Muslim communities, where they have a lot of Muslim communities?" Trump said. Trump accused Kovaleski of trying to retract his story and continued to defend his original claim that thousands of Muslims in New Jersey celebrated. But Kovaleski has since said he never heard about "thousands or even hundreds" of people celebrating and that he doesn’t recall the allegations of isolated celebrations ever being confirmed. Trump has pointed to Kovaleski's story as evidence that his claim that "thousands" of Muslims in New Jersey celebrated the World Trade Center’s collapse. "I don't take that back because the person was groveling in terms of creating statements," Trump said, referring to a story that Kovaleski wrote for the Washington Post a week after the September 11 terror attacks that referred to allegations of "tailgate-style parties on rooftops" in New Jersey after the World Trade Center towers fell. "Now he's going, 'Well he knew me and we were on a first name basis.' Give me a break." "I didn't know him, it's possible, probable that I met him somewhere along the line, but I deal with reporters every day," Trump told the crowd. Kovaleski has disputed Trump's claim and said he was on a first-name basis with the real estate mogul when he covered him for the New York Daily News in the 1980s. Trump has insisted that he does not know the reporter, Serge Kovaleski, and was unaware of his condition. "I would never mock a person that has difficulty. "I was very expressive in saying it, and they said that I was mocking him," Trump said. — - GOP frontrunner Donald Trump says he wasn't mocking a New York Times reporter's muscular disorder when he made jerking motions seeming to imitate the man's condition during a speech last week, saying today at a rally in Sarasota, Florida, that he was just showing a reporter who was "groveling."
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