Donald Trump was filmed giving the middle finger on Tuesday during a tour of a Ford plant in Michigan, reportedly in response to a heckler who shouted at him as a 'pedophile protector'. The incident was captured in a short video shared by TMZ, showing the US president looking down from a railing as a person yelled from the factory floor.
The White House communications director, Steven Cheung, did not confirm the gesture but said in a statement that Trump gave an 'appropriate and unambiguous response' when 'a lunatic was wildly screaming expletives in a complete fit of rage'. Trump spent the afternoon touring Ford's River Rouge complex in Dearborn before a speech at the Detroit Economic Club.
A Ford spokesperson told TMZ that the company was generally proud of how employees represented the firm and called it a 'great event', but added that they do not condone 'anyone saying anything inappropriate' in their facilities, noting a process to deal with such matters without commenting on specific personnel.
The heckling and Trump's reaction come amid growing pressure on the administration to release the so-called Epstein files, documents detailing the dealings of the disgraced financier and sex trafficker. The Department of Justice has released less than 1% of the files, according to court filings, despite a federal law requiring full disclosure by mid-December. Attorney General Pam Bondi has cited the need to protect victims' identities, while Trump, who had a long association with Epstein, has dismissed the files as a 'hoax'.
