On January 13, Donald Trump visited a Michigan Ford plant, and the trip took a sour turn when the president was heckled by a member of staff there.In footage acquired by TMZ, a man can be heard yelling at Trump, accusing him of being a “protector of pedophiles,” after which the president appeared to respond with an obscene hand gesture.
The outburst is thought to be connected to frustration over the delayed release of the Jeffrey Epstein documents.The individual, later identified as 40-year-old TJ Sabula, was subsequently suspended from his job at Ford.Sabula has since addressed the incident publicly and has indicated that he is not particularly concerned about losing his position.
Sharing that he had ‘no regrets’ about what he said, Sabula told The Washington Post: “As far as calling him out, definitely no regrets whatsoever.”
Going on to say that Trump could hear him ‘very, very, very clearly’, Sabula thinks he was let go and ‘targeted for political retribution’ as a result of ’embarrassing Trump in front of his friends’.
“I don’t feel as though fate looks upon you often, and when it does, you better be ready to seize the opportunity,” he added. “And today I think I did that.”
The White House has responded to the incident, labelling Sabula a ‘lunatic’.
White House Communications Director Steven Cheung, who recently took aim at Mark Ruffalo, said in a statement: “A lunatic was wildly screaming expletives in a complete fit of rage, and the President gave an appropriate and unambiguous response.”
In the wake of Sabula’s firing, a GoFundMewas set up for him, and at the time of writing, a whopping $355,474 has been raised.
Part of the bio for the fundraiser reads: “Please help us raise funds for patriot TJ Sabula!! TJ was suspended from his job at the Ford Automotive Company for correctly calling President Donald J Trump a Pedophile Protector!!
“Let’s rally and support TJ and help him pay some bills (and force DJT to release the Trump/Epstein Files) LFG!!”
The page was created by Sean Williams, and he has successfully transferred it over to Sabula, who is now in control of it.
After the clip went viral on social media, Ford’s Executive Director of Corporate Communications, David Tovar, told CNN that they’d ‘seen the clip you’re referring to’, adding: “One of our core values is respect, and we don’t condone anyone saying anything inappropriate like that within our facilities.
“When that happens, we have a process to deal with it but we don’t get into specific personnel matters.”
