At a Nov. 24, 2015, rally in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, Trump defended his discredited claim that thousands of people in New Jersey cheered the Sept. 11 attacks by attacking New York Times reporter Serge Kovaleski, who has arthrogryposis, a congenital joint condition that limits movement in his arms. “Now, the poor guy. You ought to see this guy,” Trump said, then imitated him: “'Oh, I don't know what I said! Ah, I don't remember!'” CBS News reported that as he spoke Trump held his arms in front of him, scrunched his shoulders and jerked his hands around.
Trump said he did not know what Kovaleski looked like or that he was disabled. Kovaleski, who covered Trump for the New York Daily News from 1987 to 1993, said, “Donald and I were on a first-name basis for years,” and that they had interacted around a dozen times. The Times called the mockery “outrageous.”
In an August 2016 Bloomberg poll, likely voters picked the incident as the thing that bothered them most about Trump among his controversies.
Correction (October 14, 2026): A dead Washington Post video link and a Wikipedia citation were replaced with CBS News and CNN Wire coverage and NBC News's report on the Bloomberg poll. Trump's quote was corrected to the wording CBS News transcribed, the description of his gestures now follows that reporting, and the earlier statement that Trump “falsely claimed” not to know Kovaleski now presents both men's accounts.
Category note (October 15, 2026): this entry was previously filed under racism. The incident concerns a reporter's disability, so it is now filed under character.