--- title: Donald Trump Says He Didn't Mock Journalist With Disability description: The Republican presidential candidate had come under fire for appearing to mock a reporter who suffers from a joint condition canonical: https://time.com/4128128/donald-trump-kovaleski-journalist-disability/ author: TIME Staff article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-11-27T13:31:04.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-22T12:55:47.912Z article:section: Politics og:title: Donald Trump Says He Didn't Mock Journalist With Disability og:description: The Republican presidential candidate had come under fire for appearing to mock a reporter who suffers from a joint condition og:url: https://time.com/4128128/donald-trump-kovaleski-journalist-disability/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltaf120d00e044154a/698872df3c163928cc45aebf/donald-trump8.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2560 og:image:height: 1440 og:image:alt: U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks to supporters at an event at the Myrtle Beach Convention Center in Myrtle Beach og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Donald Trump Says He Didn't Mock Journalist With Disability twitter:description: The Republican presidential candidate had come under fire for appearing to mock a reporter who suffers from a joint condition twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltaf120d00e044154a/698872df3c163928cc45aebf/donald-trump8.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Donald Trump Says He Didn't Mock Journalist With Disability > Sponsored content. 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Brief is TIME's Washington newsletter, written by senior correspondent Philip Elliott. It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, three times a week. It reaches 85,000 subscribers with a 37.0% open rate as of August 2026. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters. by [TIME Staff](https://time.com/author/time-staff/) ## TIME Staff Nov 27, 2015 1:31 PM UTC  Donald Trump speaks to supporters at an event at the Myrtle Beach Convention Center in Myrtle Beach, S. C., on Nov. 24, 2015. Donald Trump speaks to supporters at an event at the Myrtle Beach Convention Center in Myrtle Beach, S. C., on Nov. 24, 2015. Randall Hill—Reuters by [TIME Staff](https://time.com/author/time-staff/) ## TIME Staff Nov 27, 2015 1:31 PM UTC Donald Trump accused a New York _Times_ journalist of “using his disability to grandstand” and denied mocking the reporter’s joint condition during a campaign rally in South Carolina on Tuesday. Trump was widely criticized after he blasted Serge Kovaleski for his comments on an article he wrote after the 9/11 attacks for the _Washington Post_, which Trump had used to back up controversial claims that thousands of Muslims in New Jersey celebrated the collapse of the World Trade Center in 2001\. On stage, Trump waved his arms around with his hands at an odd angle in an apparent impression of Kovaleski, whose disability affects his arms. Kovaleski told CNN that he did “not recall anyone saying there were thousands, or even hundreds, of people celebrating. That was not the case, as best as I can remember.” “I have no idea who this reporter, Serge Kovalski \[sic\], is, what he looks like or his level of intelligence,” Trump said in a [campaign statement](https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/669980142475845632) issued Thursday afternoon. “Despite having one of the all-time great memories, I certainly do not remember him.” Trump demanded an apology from the _Times_ and added ““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 paper that is rapidly going down the tubes.” Kovaleski said in an interview earlier this week that he’s confident Trump remembers him and his condition. \[[_Washington Post_](https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-denies-mocking-journalist-with-disability--and-demands-an-apology/2015/11/26/797e011c-9492-11e5-b5e4-279b4501e8a6%5Fstory.html)\] ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4128128/donald-trump-kovaleski-journalist-disability/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4128128/donald-trump-kovaleski-journalist-disability/"},"headline":"Donald Trump Says He Didn't Mock Journalist With Disability","datePublished":"2015-11-27T13:31:04.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T12:55:47.912Z","description":"The Republican presidential candidate had come under fire for appearing to mock a reporter who suffers from a joint condition","url":"https://time.com/4128128/donald-trump-kovaleski-journalist-disability/","keywords":["2016 presidential election"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltaf120d00e044154a/698872df3c163928cc45aebf/donald-trump8.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"TIME Staff","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/time-staff/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltaf120d00e044154a/698872df3c163928cc45aebf/donald-trump8.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks to supporters at an event at the Myrtle Beach Convention Center in Myrtle Beach","caption":"U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks to supporters at an event at the Myrtle Beach Convention Center in Myrtle Beach","creditText":"Randall Hill—Reuters","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4128128/donald-trump-kovaleski-journalist-disability/","name":"Donald Trump Says He Didn't Mock Journalist With Disability"}}]}] ```