White House suggests Trump giving auto worker middle finger was ‘appropriate’ - the internet disagrees

When US president Donald Trump was heckled by a union worker in Michigan on Tuesday, the Republican appeared to respond by saying “f*** you” and giving the employee in question the middle finger – and the White House has said such a response was “appropriate and unambiguous”.

Yes, really.

The heckler, identified by The Washington Post as 40-year-old line worker TJ Sabula, told the outlet he was specifically referencing Trump’s handling of matters relating to the paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.

The Trump administration continues to face pressure over the release of the Epstein files, while the president has consistently denied having ties to the disgraced financier and has not been accused of any criminal wrongdoing.

And X/Twitter users have since reacted with disbelief to Trump’s choice of gesture in response to the auto worker – with one branding it a “pretty good visual metaphor for this moment in history”:

“He’s everything we teach our children not to be,” former Obama official Richard Stengel commented:

Another tweeted a picture of Trump flipping the bird and captioned it: “The guy who was voted to be the voice of the blue collar worker, flipping off a blue collar worker”:

A parody account for the press office of California governor Gavin Newsom joked the president had been “broken and crushed by a lone heckler”:

Progressive commentator Alex Cole said Trump’s actions are “the perfect snapshot of his whole act”:

And once again, people pointed out how different the reaction would have been if a Democrat did what Trump did:

In a statement to The Independent, White House spokesperson Steven Cheung said of the incident: “A lunatic was wildly screaming expletives in a complete fit of rage, and the president gave an appropriate and unambiguous response.”

Sabula, who identifies as politically independent but has never voted for Trump, told the Post he has been suspended from work at the Ford factory pending an investigation.

“As far as calling him out, definitely no regrets whatsoever,” he said.

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