President Donald Trump was caught on video making an obscene gesture at a Ford factory worker on Tuesday who was heckling the president during a tour of the automaker’s Dearborn plant, an incident the White House defended as an “appropriate and unambiguous response.”
The video, first published by TMZ, shows Trump walking along a second-floor rail at the Ford River Rouge Complex when a worker shouted “pedophile protector” from the factory floor below. Trump stopped, pointed at the heckler, and appeared to mouth “f*** you” twice before raising his middle finger toward the worker as he continued walking.
White House communications director Steven Cheung confirmed the incident and defended the president’s reaction.
“A lunatic was wildly screaming expletives in a complete fit of rage, and the President gave an appropriate and unambiguous response,” Cheung said in a statement.
The worker who heckled Trump has been identified and suspended pending an investigation into the incident, according to a UAW spokesperson.
Take a look –
Trump has NO SHITS LEFT TO GIVE. This is gold. 😂
After being heckled, the President yells “F—k you” and gives the protester the MIDDLE FINGER.
Protect him at all costs. pic.twitter.com/M6cjNy5Os8
— mistersunshinebaby (@mrsunshinebaby) January 13, 2026
“As far as calling him out, definitely no regrets whatsoever,” the identified worker, TJ Sabula, said about the exchange. “I don’t feel as though fate looks upon you often, and when it does, you’d better be ready to seize the opportunity. And today I think I did that.”
The Trump administration has faced mounting pressure from both Democrats and Republicans to release the Epstein files, a series of documents containing information about the disgraced New York financier and his relationship with other powerful globalists.
In December, the Justice Department revealed it had 5.2 million pages of Epstein files left to review and needed 400 lawyers from four different department offices to help with the process through late January.
Ford spokesperson Dave Tovar said the company was generally satisfied with how employees represented Ford during the president’s visit, but addressed the incident.
“We’ve seen the clip you’re referring to. One of our core values is respect and we don’t condone anyone saying anything inappropriate like that within our facilities,” Tovar said. “When that happens, we have a process to deal with it but we don’t get into specific personnel matters.”
The UAW has thrown its full support behind Sabula and says it will fight to protect his job.
Trump toured the Ford factory Tuesday before delivering a speech at the Detroit Economic Club.
Elsewhere on the tour, Ford workers could be seen cheering and taking selfies with the president. Trump was joined during the tour by Bill Ford, Ford’s executive chairman and the grandson of Henry Ford, and Jim Farley, the company’s president and CEO.
It remains unclear how long Sabula will remain suspended or if he’ll be fired.