What were the exact gestures and words Trump used when imitating Serge Kovaleski?
Executive summary
Donald Trump, at a November 24, 2015 campaign rally, introduced a passage about a Washington Post article "written by a nice reporter" and then said, “Now the poor guy — you ought to see the guy: ‘Uhh, I don't know what I said. I don't remember,’” while making jerky arm movements that several outlets interpreted as an imitation of New York Times reporter Serge Kovaleski’s posture [1] [2]. Reporters and disability advocates said Trump’s words and the visible gesture — flopping or gyrating his right arm with the hand at an odd angle — were a mockery of Kovaleski’s arthrogryposis; Trump denied he was aware of Kovaleski’s appearance or condition and insisted he was imitating a “flustered” reporter groveling [2] [3].
1. What Trump actually said onstage
At the Myrtle Beach rally Trump prefaced the impression by citing the 2001 piece, calling it “written by a nice reporter,” and then spoke in a mock voice: “Now the poor guy — you oughta see the guy: ‘Uhh, I don't know what I said. I don't remember,’” continuing with variants such as “I don’t remember. Maybe that’s what I said,” as he delivered the lines to the crowd [1] [2]. Multiple news reports quote the same short mock-delivery and attribute it to the moment when Trump sought to discredit the reporting [1] [2].
2. The visible gesture described by contemporaneous reporting
News organizations documented that Trump accompanied those words with a deliberate physical affect: flailing or gyrating his arms and “pointedly flopping his right arm around with his hand held at an odd angle,” an action many outlets characterized as mimicking the unusual angle of Kovaleski’s hand or his arm movements [1] [4]. Reports consistently describe jerky, flailing gestures rather than a neutral shrug [5] [6].
3. Why reporters and disability advocates said it mocked Kovaleski
Serge Kovaleski has arthrogryposis, a congenital condition that restricts joint movement in his right arm and hand; outlets highlighted that Trump’s words — “the poor guy… Uhh, I don’t know what I said. I don’t remember” — combined with the specific arm posture and flopping motion, were widely understood as an imitation of Kovaleski’s physical mannerisms [7] [2]. The New York Times called the behavior “outrageous,” and disability advocates and colleagues publicly condemned the impression as mocking a disability [1] [8].
4. Trump’s defense and competing account
Trump denied targeting Kovaleski’s disability. He issued a statement saying he had “no idea who this reporter, Serge Kovalski [sic], is, what he looks like or his level of intelligence,” and later said he was imitating a “flustered” or “groveling” reporter trying to back away from an old statement — not mocking a handicap [3] [9]. Those denials set up a factual dispute: journalists who know Kovaleski and accountings of the rally interpreted the behavior as a physical imitation, while Trump framed the same sequence as dramatizing evasiveness [3] [9].
5. Evidence available in contemporary coverage
Video of the rally and verbatim transcriptions cited by outlets show the same short mock-phrases and the arm movement together; reporting from Politico, NBC, AP, BBC and others document the words and the gesture in close tandem, which is why the coverage uniformly treated the episode as an imitation of Kovaleski [1] [2] [6] [10]. Fact-checkers and Snopes also noted the quoted lines and described the right-arm “flop” as the central visual moment [4].
6. What sources do not say or cannot prove here
Available sources do not prove Trump’s inner intent — whether he consciously sought to mock a disability or believed he was only caricaturing a “groveling” reporter; the reporting records the words and the gesture and quotes the denials, but intent remains contested in contemporaneous statements [3] [9]. Also, available reporting does not offer forensic analysis beyond eyewitness and video description; journalists reported the same speech lines and visible arm movements, which is the basis for public judgment [1] [2].
7. Why this matters beyond one rally
Journalistic accounts connect the specific phrasing and the conspicuous arm posture to broader debates about respect, ableism and political rhetoric: critics argued the combination of quoted mock-utterances and the arcing arm gestures signaled demeaning treatment of a journalist’s disability, while Trump and his defenders insisted the words illustrate evasiveness — a factual clash documented in the sources [8] [9]. The sources show the episode became a defining controversy because the quoted lines and visible gesture were widely reported and interpreted as an imitation of Kovaleski’s condition [1] [2].