ESCANABA — A Ford employee who heckled President Donald Trump has been suspended without pay. The United Auto Workers (UAW) union leapt to his defense, but the case is sure to be contentious.

On Tuesday, when Trump visited Michigan, he took a tour of a Ford Motor Company plant in Dearborn. A few-second video of an exchange between the nation’s Commander-in-Chief and a blue-collar worker has since gone viral.

The visit was supposed to be for Trump to shine a light on American manufacturing and “thank us for our industrial capability and also for building the best-selling vehicle in America,” Ford Executive Chair Bill Ford told the Detroit Free Press earlier this week.

In a video confirmed to be authentic, the president was walking through the Ford River Rouge truck factory on Jan. 13 when 40-year-old autoworker T.J. Sabula shouted from afar, “pedophile protector!”

The cry is presumably a reference to suppression of the Epstein files.

In response, Trump is seen flashing his middle finger toward the workers and mouthing what has been interpreted as “f– you.”

In Trump’s defense, “a lunatic was wildly screaming expletives in a complete fit of rage, and the President gave an appropriate and unambiguous response,” said White House Communications Director Steven Cheung.

The Ford Motor Company’s response to the incident was to suspend Sabula without pay.

The public won’t let Sabula go broke, though. Crowdfunding has already raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for the man.

Sabula himself has given limited public comment, but told The Washington Post that he had been “targeted for political retribution” for “embarrassing” the president. Though Sabula is worried about possibly being wholly fired, not just suspended, he said he has “no regrets.”

The union UAW, of which Sabula is a member, defended employee’s actions, saying: “He believes in freedom of speech, a principle we wholeheartedly embrace, and we stand with our membership in protecting their voice on the job.”

However, legal experts who have weighed in say that the Ford Motor Company is within its rights, as Sabula was being disruptive and disrespectful on the floor — misconduct could be grounds for termination.

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Editor’s note: The Daily Press compiled this story after consulting reports from the Detroit Free Press, Click on Detroit, BBC, Fox News, Politico and other trusted sources.