{"id":407157,"date":"2026-01-14T18:44:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-14T18:44:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/407157\/"},"modified":"2026-01-14T18:44:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-14T18:44:10","slug":"suspended-michigan-autoworker-who-heckled-trump-gets-outpouring-of-donations-michigan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/407157\/","title":{"rendered":"Suspended Michigan autoworker who heckled Trump gets outpouring of donations | Michigan"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tens of thousands of dollars have been raised for an autoworker at a Ford plant in Michigan who was suspended without pay after heckling Donald Trump<\/a>.<\/p>\n

TJ Sabula is said to have called the president a \u201cpedophile protector\u201d<\/a> as Trump toured the automotive giant\u2019s River Rouge complex on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Trump then appeared to give Sabula the middle finger, according to a video published by celebrity news and gossip site TMZ, which claimed that Trump also yelled obscenities prior to making the gesture.<\/p>\n

In an interview<\/a> with the Washington Post, Sabula said \u201cas far as calling him out\u201d he had \u201cdefinitely no regrets whatsoever\u201d. But he said he was concerned about his job security after the incident, claiming he had been \u201ctargeted for political retribution\u201d and for \u201cembarrassing Trump in front of his friends\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t feel as though fate looks upon you often, and when it does, you better be ready to seize the opportunity,\u201d Sabula added in the interview. \u201cAnd today I think I did that.\u201d<\/p>\n

A GoFundMe was created on his behalf<\/a> to help cover lost income from the suspension. As of Wednesday lunchtime, it had raised more than $150,000, with purported donors including the band the Dropkick Murphys.<\/p>\n

\u201cTJ is a father of two young children, husband, and is a proud United Auto Workers (UAW) Local 600 line worker. Funds donated will support TJ and his family to cover expenses during this time of uncertainty,\u201d the GoFundMe campaign states.<\/p>\n

Ford did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The White House communications director, Steven Cheung, didn\u2019t confirm whether Trump flashed his middle finger, but argued in a statement<\/a> to the Guardian that the president had given an \u201cappropriate and unambiguous response\u201d when \u201ca lunatic was wildly screaming expletives in a complete fit of rage\u201d.<\/p>\n

Trump had been touring the Ford complex before delivering a speech at the Detroit Economic Club<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The United Auto Workers criticized Sabula\u2019s suspension, and vowed to fight it.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe autoworker at the Dearborn Truck Plant is a proud member of a strong and fighting union \u2013 the UAW,\u201d said Laura Dickerson, vice-president and director of the Ford department at the UAW. \u201cHe believes in freedom of speech, a principle we wholeheartedly embrace, and we stand with our membership in protecting their voice on the job.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe UAW will ensure that our member receives the full protection of all negotiated contract language safeguarding his job and his rights as a union member,\u201d she added. \u201cWorkers should never be subjected to vulgar language or behavior by anyone \u2013 including the President of the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tens of thousands of dollars have been raised for an autoworker at a Ford plant in Michigan who…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":407158,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":{"0":"post-407157","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-united-states-of-america","12":"tag-unitedstates","13":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","14":"tag-us","15":"tag-usa"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407157","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=407157"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407157\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/407158"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=407157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=407157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=407157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}