Donald Trump is not amused by Hillary Clinton’s first general election ad, which contained footage of him impersonating a disabled New York Times reporter during a campaign rally last fall.
The minute-long ad asks voters to consider “who we are” as a country, juxtaposing clips of Trump inciting violence at his campaign events with Clinton meeting with voters young and old across the country.
“What kind of America do we want to be? Dangerously divided … or strong and united?” Clinton asks at the end of the ad.
The ad includes footage of Trump flailing his arms around while pretending to be Times reporter Serge Kovaleski, who has a medical condition that limits the movement of his joints.
“Clinton made a false ad about me where I was imitating a reporter GROVELING after he changed his story,” Trump tweeted Sunday morning. “I would NEVER mock disabled. Shame!”
As recently as last month, Trump denied ever mocking Kovaleski during his campaign rally. “I would never say anything bad about a person that has a disability,” he told the Washington Post in an interview.
“I swear to you it’s true, 100 percent true. Who would do that to [the] handicapped. I’ve spent a lot of money making buildings accessible,” he said.
Clinton’s ad will begin airing Thursday in a handful of battleground states where she and Trump have been polling within a few percentage points of each other recently. The former secretary of state is also slated to travel to Pennsylvania, Ohio and Wisconsin next week.
