Fighting back against charges that he mocked a reporter’s physical disability, Donald Trump said this week that he spends “millions of dollars making buildings good for people that are disabled.”
“Millions and millions of dollars,” Trump said in an interview that aired Thursday morning on Fox News.
The comment brought ridicule from some liberal observers, who pointed out that Trump was boasting about his compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act.
“Trump Thinks Following Federal Law Makes Him A Champion For Disability Rights,” read the headline at the liberal news site ThinkProgress.
Trump was responding to a question about his mockery of New York Times reporter Serge Kovaleski, who has arthrogryposis, a condition that limits the movement of his arms.
After Kovaleski said that his own reporting did not back the Republican nominee’s claim to have witnessed thousands of Muslims cheering in New Jersey on 9/11, Trump appeared to mimic the reporter at a rally last November.
Trump said he had never met Kovaleski, and that he didn’t know of the reporter’s disability. Kovaleski countered by pointing out he met Trump several times when he was a reporter for the New York Daily News in the 1980s.
The scene of Trump flailing his arms has appeared in campaign ads in support of Hillary Clinton, whose campaign has held up the moment as an example of Trump’s character.
At the Democratic National Convention on Monday night, disability rights advocate Anastasia Somoza responded to Trump’s mocking of Kovaleski.
“Donald Trump has shown us who he really is,” she said. “And I honestly feel bad for anyone with that much hate in their heart.”
But in his interview with Fox on Thursday, Trump his gestures were meant to mimic “a man that was groveling.”
“I had no idea that he was disabled. None,” he said. “He said I met him before many, many years ago. I have no idea who he is.”