President Donald Trump could be seen on video flipping the bird and saying the phrase “f*ck you” in the direction of a heckler during his Tuesday visit to the Ford F-150 plant in Dearborn, Michigan.

The president, in town for a speech at the Detroit Economic Club, toured the F-150 plant as well — and responded in the moment as someone in the crowd shouted at him, apparently accusing the president of “protecting” the late convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.

Entertainment site TMZ first reported the news, sharing video of the brief exchange that quickly made its way across social media.

WATCH:

#EXCLUSIVE 😳 President Trump was filmed flipping off a Ford worker who yelled “pedophile protector” at him. https://t.co/m5nLYtWxxT pic.twitter.com/512zEYV6WC

— TMZ (@TMZ) January 13, 2026

“It’s hard to make out the full sentence shouted at Trump, but it seems to have included the words ‘pedophile protector,'” the outlet reported. Trump could be seen turning to look at the person who had shouted at him before apparently saying, “f*ck you,” and flipping him a middle finger for good measure.

White House Communications Director Steven Cheung addressed the video as it circulated, explaining, “A lunatic was wildly screaming expletives in a complete fit of rage, and the President gave an appropriate and unambiguous response.”

Throughout most of the president’s tour, the plant workers crowded around him as they shook his hand and posed for photos.

🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/OFqEPVD9LY

— The White House (@WhiteHouse) January 13, 2026

While he was at the Detroit automotive plant, Trump also sat for an interview with new “CBS Evening News” anchor Tony Dokoupil.

In that interview, among a number of other topics, Trump talked about what was going on in the auto industry – particularly since he’d put a stop to imminent electric vehicle mandates set in motion by former President Joe Biden’s administration.

WATCH:

.@POTUS: “I want electric, and I want gasoline, and I want hybrids — I want everything. But you were going to be forced, under the mandate, to buy an electric car in a very short period of time. I didn’t want that, and I ended that.” pic.twitter.com/jTU4v6bMev

— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) January 13, 2026

“I want electric, and I want gasoline, and I want hybrids — I want everything. But you were going to be forced, under the mandate, to buy an electric car in a very short period of time. I didn’t want that, and I ended that,” Trump explained.

WASHINGTON—The Supreme Court appears poised to allow states to keep men out of women’s sports after the majority of justices seemed favorable towards laws from West Virginia and Idaho that make participation in women’s sports contingent on sex.

After three and a half hours of arguments on Tuesday, the justices seemed skeptical of claims from transgender-identifying athletes that laws keeping them off women’s sports teams violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution and Title IX. The outcome of the cases could have far-reaching implications for protecting women’s privacy in bathrooms, locker rooms, and other sensitive spaces.

The justices heard the cases of West Virginia v. B.P.J. and Little v. Hecox. Both cases revolve around laws in West Virginia and Idaho that prohibit men from competing on women’s sports teams.

The strongest pushback against the arguments made against the laws came from Justice Samuel Alito, who pressed lawyer Kathleen Hartnett, an attorney representing a transgender-identifying male athlete from Idaho, about what her definition of sex was.

“Is it not necessary for there to be, for Equal Protection purposes, if that is challenged under the Equal Protection Clause, an understanding of what it means to be a boy or a girl or a man or a woman?” he asked.

“We do not have a definition for the court, and we don’t take issue with the … we’re not disputing the definition here. What we’re saying is that the way it applies in practice is to exclude birth sex males categorically from women’s teams, and that there’s a subset of those birth sex males where it doesn’t make sense to do so, according to the state’s own interest,” Hartnett replied.

“How can a court determine whether there’s discrimination on the basis of sex without knowing what sex means for Equal Protection purposes?” Alito followed up. He also asked Hartnett if she thought female athletes worried about fair competition were bigots.

In a different section of arguments, Chief Justice John Roberts joined in Alito’s skepticism about ACLU lawyer Joshua Block’s reluctance to provide a definition of sex for the court.

“Title IX prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex. It’s a statutory term, it must mean something,” Roberts said. “You’re arguing here there is discrimination on the basis of sex, and how can we decide that question without knowing what sex means in Title IX?”

Justice Brett Kavanaugh appeared inclined to let the debate play out at the state level, noting that 27 states have protected women’s sports while the other 23 allow males who identify as females to compete in the women’s division.

“Why would we, at this point, just the role of this court, jump in and try to constitutionalize the rule for the whole country while [there’s] still, as you say, uncertainty, debate — while there are still strong interests on the other side?” he said.

Kavanaugh also noted that sports are often a “zero-sum game” and that even one transgender-identifying athlete allowed on a women’s team could have an outsized impact.

At a press conference after the case, Alliance Defending Freedom lawyer John Bursch told The Daily Wire that he believes the issue should be national and that women in California and Massachusetts should not have their right to fair competition taken away.

During arguments, demonstrators on both sides held competing rallies. One woman from North Carolina who was holding a sign in favor of protecting women’s sports told The Daily Wire that she got on a bus at 3:00 a.m. to travel up to Washington, D.C., for the demonstration.