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Still from an ad by the super-PAC Priorities USA showing Donald Trump mocking a reporter with a disability. | Screenshot via Youtube The taunt Clinton supporters think will haunt Trump gets airtime in new ad

The scene of Donald Trump mocking a New York Times reporter with a congenital disability garners the presumed Republican nominee some of his highest negative ratings among focus groups, POLITICO has learned.

Trump was trying to get himself out of what he must have thought a much bigger scrape at a rally in South Carolina in November—his widely debunked claim that thousands of people in parts of New Jersey with large Arab populations celebrated the collapse of the World Trade Center towers on Sept. 11, 2001—when he performed a derisive impression of the reporter, Serge Kovaleski. Kovaleski suffers from a chronic condition that has limited the movement of his limbs.

After taking some hits in the media, Trump denied that he was making fun of the reporter and claimed he didn't know him. Kovaleski countered by saying he regularly covered Trump and that the two were on a first-name basis.

Amid all the talk about borders and registrations and "tough" dealmaking with foreign powers that has alarmed even many within his own party, it is his impression of Kovaleski that supporters of the presumed Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton, will stand out in voters' minds as a negative.

Priorites USA, a super-PAC supporting Clinton, released an ad on Monday featuring a couple speaking about their daughter, Grace, who was born with spina bifida.

Soon though, the couples' comments turn to Trump.

"When I saw Donald Trump mock a disabled person, I was just shocked,” the mother, Lauren Glaros says. “The children at Grace’s school all know never to mock her, and so for an adult to mock someone with a disability is just shocking.”

As The New York Times notes: "Variations of the phrase 'mocked someone with a disability' are spoken four times in about 30 seconds of the 60-second ad, almost as if taken right from a focus group response."

The spot that debuted Monday will air for about six weeks in Ohio, Virginia, Florida, New Hampshire, Iowa, Colorado, and Nevada, as part of a $20 million ad campaign, according to the Times.

Clinton's campaign has also used the Kovaleski moment in ads, though Priorities USA's ad seems to be one of the first time the entire ad is solely focused on Trump's mocking of Kovaleski.

Priorities USA's spokesman Justin Barasky said in a statement that the ad is part of a "common thread" for Trump.

“Most voters’ knowledge of Donald Trump is a mile wide and an inch deep. As a result, the most devastating attacks against Trump are the very words that come out of his mouth. Women are pigs and slobs, Mexicans are thugs and criminals, and the disabled deserve to be targets of mocking and derision," Barasky said. "We’re still early in our paid media campaign that will ultimately reach millions of voters on a great number of issues that highlight his divisive, dangerous and dishonest record. The common thread among all of them is that if you’re not Donald Trump, he’s probably mocked and ridiculed you and he has no intention of fighting for you."

Kovaleski declined to comment for this article.

