September 27, 2016

Donald Trump Fires Back at Former Miss Universe Winner He Once Called “Miss Piggy”

“She gained a massive amount of weight and it was a real problem.”


The morning after Hillary Clinton confronted Donald Trump with his own words describing former Miss Universe winner Alicia Machado as “Miss Piggy,” the Republican presidential candidate doubled down on his disparaging remarks by calling Machado’s past weight gain a “real problem.”

“She gained a massive amount of weight and it was a real problem,” Trump said during an appearance on Fox News on Tuesday morning. “Not only that, her attitude, we had a real problem with her. So, Hillary went back into the years and she found this girl and talked about her like she was Mother Teresa, but it wasn’t quite that way.”

He went on to attribute Clinton’s mention of Machado during the first presidential debate as an attempt to stay ahead in national polls.

Shortly after the debate wrapped up on Monday, the Clinton campaign released a web video featuring Machado where she described Trump as a frightening figure who routinely bullied her about her appearance. In one incident, Machado claims Trump once ambushed her with reporters who filmed her while she exercised—an experience she said left her scarred with eating disorders.

Machado announced that she recently became a US citizen and will be voting for Clinton this November.

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WE'LL BE BLUNT.

We have a considerable $390,000 gap in our online fundraising budget that we have to close by June 30. There is no wiggle room, we've already cut everything we can, and we urgently need more readers to pitch in—especially from this specific blurb you're reading right now.

We'll also be quite transparent and level-headed with you about this.

In "News Never Pays," our fearless CEO, Monika Bauerlein, connects the dots on several concerning media trends that, taken together, expose the fallacy behind the tragic state of journalism right now: That the marketplace will take care of providing the free and independent press citizens in a democracy need, and the Next New Thing to invest millions in will fix the problem. Bottom line: Journalism that serves the people needs the support of the people. That's the Next New Thing.

And it's what MoJo and our community of readers have been doing for 47 years now.

But staying afloat is harder than ever.

In "This Is Not a Crisis. It's The New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, why this moment is particularly urgent, and how we can best communicate that without screaming OMG PLEASE HELP over and over. We also touch on our history and how our nonprofit model makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there: Letting us go deep, focus on underreported beats, and bring unique perspectives to the day's news.

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