The White House defends Trump’s “appropriate” reaction and claims the man was “a lunatic”
US President Donald Trump made an offensive gesture to a Ford employee in Michigan during a visit to an assembly plant, after the man called him a “pedophile protector,” apparently in reference to the controversy surrounding the delays in the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files.
According to a video published by TMZ, Trump was walking along a walkway when the insult was heard, to which the White House occupant responded by saying “fuck you” and making the aforementioned gesture, a reaction deemed “appropriate” by the White House.
White House Communications Director Steven Cheung emphasized that “a lunatic started shouting insults in a fit of rage and the president gave an appropriate and clear response,” a stance not shared by the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, Ken Martin. “Protecting pedophiles and saying ‘fuck you’ to American workers,” he criticized on social media.
The worker has been identified as TJ Sabula, 40, who told the American newspaper ‘The Washington Post’ that the company has suspended him while it investigates the incident. “As far as saying it, I don’t regret it at all,” he said, defending his statement to the US president.
Sabula also explained that Trump could hear him “very, very, very clearly” and stressed that he was specifically referring to the White House’s handling of the release of the files of sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, amidst the controversy because some of them mention the president.
So far, it is estimated that about 12,000 documents with more than 125,000 pages have been released, which represents less than 1% of all the material to be reviewed. The Department of Justice indicated on December 24 that more than one million files had not been included in that initial analysis.
The Trump administration has faced harsh criticism from Democratic politicians and members of Congress, who accuse the government of trying to prevent the release of the documents. However, authorities have maintained that any delays or obstacles are related to protecting the victims, while the president has gone so far as to claim that the whole thing is a “hoax” orchestrated by the Democratic Party.
