Ford has refused to fire the factory worker who heckled President Donald Trump last month.
Thomas “TJ” Sabula, 40, was suspended after calling Trump a “pedophile protector,” but United Auto Workers Vice President Laura Dickerson says the 40-year-old is back working and does not have a negative mark on his personnel file.
Cameras captured Trump, 79, responding to the heckle by flipping Sabula off at a plant in Dearborn, Michigan, and saying, “F--k you.” Dickerson said that the president also told the auto worker, “You’re fired.”
The union leader told a Washington crowd on Monday that it would never happen.
“This ain’t The Apprentice,” Reuters reports Dickerson said, referring to Trump’s pre-politics life as the host of the reality TV show.
Dickerson added of Trump’s visit to an F-150 plant, “There was a worker at that plant that day who famously told Mr Trump exactly what he thought of him. Unfortunately, in that moment, we saw what the current president really thinks about working people and the way he responded—he gave us the middle finger.”
The White House did not respond to a request for comment.
Ford Executive Chairman Bill Ford, the great-grandson of company founder Henry Ford, said the incident was unfortunate and that he was embarrassed by it.
A fundraiser for Sabula raised over $800,000—prior to the campaigns being suspended—from those praising him for calling out Trump for his administration’s suppression and downplaying of the so-called Epstein files.
News of Sabula’s reinstatement is likely to upset MAGA. Republican Rep. Tim Burchett, of Tennessee, said after the incident that Sabula had every legal right to yell at Trump, but said he would be fired if he did so in his southern state.
“I guess he has a First Amendment right, but in Tennessee, we have a right to fire his a--,” Burchett told MeidasTouch.
