Back in November of 2015, Donald Trump made fun Serge Kovaleski, a reporter for the New York Times who happens to suffer from arthrogryposis. Here’s the video of Trump mocking Kovaleski:
The issue of Trump’s actions has again come to the fore with a speech actress Meryl Streep gave Sunday evening at the Golden Globe awards in which she said:
“It was that moment when the person asking to sit in the most respected seat in our country imitated a disabled reporter — someone he outranked in privilege, power and the capacity to fight back. It kind of broke my heart.
“When the powerful use their position to bully others, we all lose.”
And yet, rather than admit what he did was wrong and apologize, Trump has repeatedly lied, doubled down, and tried to pretend he’s never met Kovaleski (another lie). And on Monday, Trump once again decided to deny what can clearly be seen on video:
Hillary flunky who lost big. For the 100th time, I never "mocked" a disabled reporter (would never do that) but simply showed him…….
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 9, 2017
On CNN Monday morning, Trump sent out his chief disinformation officer, Kellyanne Conway, to try and defend him as part of an interview with Chris Cuomo. When Cuomo mentioned the video showing Trump twitching around like a fish, Conway replied:
“Why can’t you give him the benefit of the doubt?”
Though Cuomo didn’t say it, allow me to: We don’t give Donald Trump the benefit of the doubt because we’ve caught him in far too many blatant lies, Kellyanne. He is a pathological liar and fraud. He scams people out of money (remember Trump University, which he settled for $25 million?). And he doesn’t have an honest bone in his body.
Cuomo did remind Conway:
“Forget about Meryl Streep — this happened before her. If our kids did that, could you imagine what we would say to them?”
To that, Conway demurred, saying she wouldn’t bring her children into the debate, so Cuomo assured her:
“If my kid did something like that, it’d be a really tough day.”
An incredulous Conway wondered aloud:
“You have to listen to what the president has said about that. Why don’t you believe him?”
But she was silenced by this retort from the CNN host:
“It’s a gesture that he’s making on video — everybody can see it. I’m not judging the man, I’m judging what he did.”
The Trump team thinks that just because they fooled some of the American voters into supporting this charlatan that all of us will fall into line, too. But we won’t. Not now and not ever. He is not and never will be our president.
Here’s Conway on CNN earlier today:
"Why can't you give him the benefit of the doubt?" Kellyanne Conway says Trump wasn't mocking reporter's disability. https://t.co/3LAWwTIME4
— New Day (@NewDay) January 9, 2017
This article was originally published by the same author at LiberalAmerica.org