President Donald Trump appeared to flip off a person heard calling him a “pedophile protector” during his visit to Michigan on Tuesday.
Video obtained by TMZ shows the president at the Ford plant. He appears to point at the accuser as he says, “f*** you,” then gives the person the middle finger as he walks away.
The president was touring Ford’s River Rouge complex in Dearborn, Michigan Tuesday afternoon before delivering a speech at the Detroit Economic Club.
The accusation against Trump came after the president pushed back on the release of the Epstein files for months last year, despite saying on the campaign trail he would release the files if reelected.
Trump had been a close associate of the convicted sex offender, and his pushback on releasing the files sparked widespread outrage, even from some of his MAGA supporters, and raised further questions about the president’s own relationship with the disgraced financier, who died in jail in 2019.
After months of delays, a bipartisan group of lawmakers last fall was able to buck GOP leadership and force a vote for the Justice Department to release the full Epstein files.
As the bill appeared poised to pass with overwhelming support, the president reversed course and backed it.
However, the Justice Department has since failed to meet multiple deadlines, including its requirement to release all the files with limited redactions by mid-December as well as provide more information on its redactions to Congress as required by law.
White House Communications Director Steven Cheung told the Daily Beast that “a lunatic was wildly screaming expletives in a complete fit of rage, and the President gave an appropriate and unambiguous response.”
Apart from the “pedophile protector” accusation, it’s hard to hear what else the man, who was off camera, was saying.
Trump had been photographed with Epstein and his accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell, numerous times in the 1990s and early 2000s.
The president once called him a “terrific guy” in a 2002 article, but Trump has claimed they had a falling-out and he kicked him out of Mar-a-Lago.
There are conflicting accounts about what their falling-out was over and when exactly it took place.
The president has denied any criminal wrongdoing and has not been accused by any Epstein survivors.
But Trump reportedly told then-Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, “My friends will get hurt,” last year as he pushed back on the effort in Congress to release the files.
