September 28, 2016 | No Comments
Donald Trump continued his attacks on former Miss Universe Alicia Machado on Wednesday night, but he also took credit for saving her from being fired from the beauty pageant.
Trump, who has derided Machado by calling her “Miss Piggy” and “Miss Housekeeping” — references to her weight and Hispanic heritage — recently reignited their longstanding public feud by saying “she gained a massive amount of weight” and was “the worst [contestant] we ever had” in the pageant. Wednesday night, Trump went a step further, boasting that he was the one who kept Machado from being fired for her weight.
“I saved her job because they wanted to fire her for putting on so much weight,” Trump told Fox News Bill O’Reilly in a pre-taped interview that aired Wednesday night. “And it is a beauty contest. You know, I mean, say what you want, Bill, I mean, they know what they’re getting into. It’s a beauty contest.”
The Republican nominee credited himself for having “done that with a number of young ladies where I saved their job,” citing Machado as a prime example.
“She did not do well. She had a lot of difficulties. And, you know, they wanted to fire her. The company itself wanted to fire her. I saved her job,” he said. “I saved her job because I said that’s going to be ruinous.”
During the interview, Trump initially tried to distance himself from the former contest winner, minimizing the extent of their interactions over the years.
“Look, I hardly know this person. This was a person 20 years ago,” he said. “I sold the Miss Universe contest at a — you know, for a tremendous price about, you know, six months ago. Worked out great. So I don’t have anything to do with it anymore.”
Machado, a Hillary Clinton supporter, pushed back against Trump’s years of derision Tuesday during a press call for the Democratic candidate’s campaign.
“I never thought 20 years later, I would be in this position, watching this guy say stupid things, make stupid comments. I never imagined that,” she said, adding, “It’s a really bad dream for me.”
The rebuttal came just a day after Clinton herself pointed to the controversy as an instance of Trump objectifying and insulting women, a charge his campaign has repeatedly faced.
“And one of the worst things he said was about a woman in a beauty contest. He loves beauty contests, supporting them and hanging around them,” Clinton said. “And he called this woman ‘Miss Piggy.’ Then he called her ‘Ms. Housekeeping,’ because she was Latina. Donald, she has a name.”