Politics September 28, 2016
“Her name is Alicia Machado and she has become a U.S. citizen and you can bet she’s going to vote this November,” Hillary Clinton tells Donald Trump during the first presidential debate.
Inspirational woman Alicia Machado won Miss Universe on May 1996 and, as she tells the Guardian, “I remember I [hugged] my mom and I [told] her, now our lives [are] going to be changed forever.” Unfortunately, however, her life did change and it involved a firsthand experience of body shaming and Trump’s degrading comments.
At just 19-years-old, she was “overwhelmed” and “scared” of Trump because he’d constantly yell about how “fat” she was. Not only that, but Trump would call her names like “Miss Piggy” and “Miss Housekeeping.” Despite the fact Alicia Machado earned the company a great deal of money, people chose to focus on her weight instead of her health or accomplishments. In The Briefing’s video above, Trump is shown saying to reporters, “She weighed 118 pounds or 117 pounds and she went up to 160 or 170. So this is somebody who likes to eat.”
Because of the weight gain, Donald Trump not only threatened to take away her Miss Universe crown, he also invited reporters to watch Machado work out. The Guardian writes, “Although she appeared happy, smiling for the crowd of cameras as she dutifully skipped rope, she tells the Guardian she felt like a mouse in a cage, running endlessly on her fixed wheel for the entertainment of others.”
To this, Hillary Clinton responds, “A man who bullies and shames a woman for her weight should never become president.”
