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Op-Ed: Did Donald Trump hit new low by mocking reporter with disability?

Trump: Mocks disabled

Here’s the background: Trump was at a campaign rally Tuesday in Carolina talking about 9/11 and Arab-Americans, denigrating them; given he and his supporters are operating from a base of fear — that is, yes, an opinion — he has been down that road in the past.

In speeches he’s spoken of “thousands and thousands” of American Muslims celebrating on 9/11. This, he has said, happened in New Jersey, claiming that these alleged celebrants were looking across the river into New York and waiting for the twin towers of the World Trade Center to come down.

Now the conclusion arrived at by law enforcement officials on the rumours of celebrating was that there were zero Muslims, zero anyones in New Jersey, celebrating in public the collapse of the buildings. An investigation they conducted found no evidence of any such thing. Urban legend.

Post newspaper story

But there were stories about the possibility of there having been celebrants in newspapers. One was written in the Washington Post on Sept. 18 of 2001, one week after 9/11. Trump has been using that story to validate his claim that “thousands and thousands” celebrated the death and destruction.

He’s been criticized for those false claims that Arab-Americans celebrated on 9/11 so during his rally Tuesday he read from the Post story, reading to the crowd that police were investigating “a number of people who were allegedly seen celebrating the attacks and holding tailgate-style parties on rooftops while they watched the devastation on the other side of the river.” Again, the investigation failed to authenticate the rumours of such a thing ever happening.

After reading to his supporters from the story, Trump spoke of Serge Kovaleski, who wrote it and who has arthrogryposis, a congenital condition which limits mobility and muscle development in the joints. Kovaleski, who now writes for the New York Times, told CNN in a recent interview that he could “not recall anyone saying there were thousands, or even hundreds of people celebrating. That was not the case, as best I can remember.”

So despite the fact that Kovaleski was correct in saying his story from 2001 did not say there “thousands and thousands” of people celebrating — it actually didn’t say there were any, only that there was an investigation — Trump went into outrage mode, as if Kovaleski had written there were thousands but was denying it.

Then he tried to defend his remarks by saying the phrase “tailgate-style” party meant thousands of people. He also implied that he himself saw Muslims celebrating but provided no details other than to say he viewed a report on TV, looked on the internet and read the Kovaleski story.

Next came the mocking. He talked about the reporter denying to CNN he’d said thousands and, as he mimicked with his arms and hands someone with a disability such as Kovaleski’s and imitated his voice in a crude manner, Trump said: “Now the poor guy, you oughta see this guy (cue arms flailing) — ‘uh, I don’t know what I said, uh, I don’t remember.’ He’s going like, ‘I don’t remember.'”

Cover-up exposed

Trump has since claimed he wasn’t mocking the reporter and said he did not even know Kovaleski was disabled. So why say “you oughta see this guy” before making crude gestures that call to mind the very physical disability that Kovaleski suffers from?

Further, for many years Kovaleski covered the real estate market and he interviewed Trump many times and reported on him many times. Indeed, according to the reporter the two were for years on a first-name basis.

Here’s this: I don’t think he hit a new low. Because he long ago bottomed out and he’s already sitting on the floor of the empty pool. But ignorance is indeed bliss for some and the Donald a fixture there, stewing happily in his own fearful flatulence, so arrogant he blatantly lies whenever he pleases.

But his supporters have hit a new low. They cannot be so stupid to fail to realize he was indeed mocking a person’s disability and so they are choosing to continue to back a man that would do the equivalent of stealing candy from a baby or scamming the elderly and infirm.

His numbers will remain high, the polls, for now, will continue to show him in the lead, and those who back him will embrace the episode — “who cares if he made fun of the guy?” — or allow themselves to forget it. But the Republican primaries will begin in February and when they do the field will narrow and Trump will begin his inevitable slide into political oblivion.

When that happens let us hope at least some of his supporters will look back with regret at allowing him to pull them into the bottom of that pool with him. If they do then maybe they’ll be able to climb back out.

It’s clear though that Trump feels more comfortable down there.

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