Former Star Trek actor George Takei ridiculed Donald Trump for telling supporters at a rally in Pennsylvania that he considers himself "a blue collar worker, in a way".

"Right. That's like me claiming I'm a ladies' man," said Takei, who came out as gay in 2005 in response to then California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's veto of a same-sex marriage bill.

Internet gadfly Takei previously chided Trump after appearing in the Republican presidential candidate's 2012 series of Celebrity Apprentice.

"He is very indecisive; he's a chameleon," Takei said during an interview with MSNBC in May, saying Trump tends to make a "statement decisively, and then he'll change it decisively".

Trump spoke in Ambridge, Pennsylvania, on Monday (10 October) when he trumpeted his blue collar credentials a day after the second presidential debate against Hillary Clinton.

At a speech today in PA, Trump said he considers himself "a blue collar worker, in a way." Right. That's like me claiming I'm a ladies man. — George Takei (@GeorgeTakei) October 10, 2016

"Your steel has been stolen from you in this area," Trump said to loud applause. "Natural gas. The EPA [US Environmental Protection Agency] is killing you and killing your companies and you're losing your jobs. That's going to be turned around on day one, if I win," he said. "We're going to take care of our steel workers and we're going to take care of our miners."

The US' steel industry has been in decline since at least the 1970s. But "since 2001, productivity in the Pennsylvania Steel Industry has been higher than the national average", according to a report by the Pennsylvania Economy League of Southwestern Pennsylvania.

Trump is estimated to be worth $3.7bn (£3bn). In late September an investigation by Forbes found that a drop in the value of New York real estate had knocked $800m off the mogul's fortune over the past year.

Last week a New York Times investigation revealed that Trump's claim of a $916m loss in 1995 allowed him to avoid paying taxes for years afterward.