Donald Trump has made several widely reported remarks and actions about disabled people that many disability advocates and media outlets have condemned as insulting or ableist.

Well‑known incidents

• At a 2015 campaign rally, Trump flailed his arms and mimicked a New York Times reporter, Serge Kovaleski, who has a congenital joint condition; disability groups and major news organizations described this as mocking the reporter’s disability, though Trump later denied that was his intent.

• During his 2016 campaign, he complained about “political correctness” around disability language while referencing terms like “handicapped” and “person with disabilities,” comments that critics said trivialized respectful terminology.

Remarks reported by relatives and advocates

• Trump’s nephew, Fred Trump III, has publicly claimed that Trump once said about people with severe disabilities that “maybe those kinds of people should just die,” in the context of discussing the cost of care for profoundly disabled individuals; this account comes from the nephew’s descriptions in interviews and writing and has been heavily criticized as dehumanizing.

• Disability organizations have repeatedly issued statements accusing Trump of holding the “ableist, false belief” that people with disabilities are less worthy or less capable, particularly in response to his more recent campaign comments about political opponents and disabled people.

Comments linking disability to competence

• In 2020 and again during later controversies, Trump faced condemnation after suggesting that including people with various disabilities in certain federal roles (such as air traffic–related positions) was a safety risk, which disability rights groups said reinforced stereotypes that disabled people are inherently less competent or less safe workers.

• In more recent political attacks, he has been reported using the “r-word” to describe opponents, a slur historically used against people with intellectual disabilities, which advocates say normalizes discriminatory language.