capitalresearch.org/2016/09/the-miss-universe-hoax-or-no-good-deed-goes-un-clintoned/[Continuing our series on deception in politics and public policy.]
“Clinton Shaming Trump for His Alleged ‘Miss Piggy’ Comment Was Maybe Her Best Moment,” proclaimed the online magazine Slate.
After accusing Donald Trump of attacking women—of saying, for example, that “women don’t deserve equal pay unless they do as good a job as men”—Hillary Clinton, in Monday night’s debate, brought up “a woman in a beauty contest.”
CLINTON: He loves beauty contests, supporting them and hanging around them. And he called this woman “Miss Piggy.” Then he called her “Miss Housekeeping,” because she was Latina. Donald, she has a name—
TRUMP: Where did you find this? Where did you find this?
CLINTON: Her name is Alicia Machado.
TRUMP: Where did you find this?
CLINTON: And she has become a U.S. citizen, and you can bet—
TRUMP: Oh, really?
CLINTON: —she’s going to vote this November.
TRUMP: OK, good. Let me just tell you—
(APPLAUSE)
MODERATOR LESTER HOLT: Mr. Trump, could we just take 10 seconds and then we ask the final question—
Coming near the end, 96.3 percent of the way through the event, the “Miss Piggy”/”Miss Housekeeping” accusation—he didn’t even use her real name!—won the debate for Clinton. That it did so for Clinton is appropriate, since it was based on a claim that is utterly unsubstantiated and is almost certainly a lie.
If it was, in fact, a fabrication, its status as fake made it particularly effective. As experts on deception know well, true accusations are easy to prepare for, because the guilty person knows what’s coming. False accusations, on the other hand, catch the victim unprepared and vulnerable.
The background: Actress/model Alicia Machado became Miss Universe in May 1996. Asked what she would do to celebrate her victory, she said, in Spanish, “Eat! Eat! Eat!” Over the ensuing months, Machado gained a large amount of weight—a major problem, given that part of her job was to promote products associated with a healthy lifestyle, including swimsuits and breakfast cereal for dieters.
More than five months into her reign, and more than two months after pageant officials reportedly threatened to fire her, Donald Trump bought a share of the beauty pageant organization that included the Miss Universe, Miss USA, and Miss Teen USA pageants. According to the news accounts that appeared at the time, Trump hired a trainer, gave her access to a gymnasium he owned, and helped her get into better physical condition so that she could keep her job.
The Trump purchase was announced at the end of October 1996 and finalized in November. (The ultimate deal, in which Trump partnered with CBS, was announced in January.) Stories about her weight gain and the possible loss of her job had appeared in the news media the previous August: “Those extra kilos could cost Miss Universe her crown,” declared Agence France Presse (the French press agency) on August 19, 1996. “Venezuelan beauty queen Alicia Machado, the reigning Miss Universe, has been told to go on a crash diet or risk losing her crown, according to Venezuelan beauty contest officials,” reported the Newark Star-Ledger, August 20. The Miami Herald, August 21, headlined: “LOSE THE POUNDS OR THE CROWN?” The Scottish Daily Record reported on August 23 that “Miss Universe Alicia Machado gives her defiant verdict on the order to diet or lose her beauty crown. The gutsy 18-year-old from Venezuela has been told to shed 27lb in a fortnight but was snapped wolfing a hot dog in LA … with relish.”
“Alicia Machado and her waistline were the talk of the town in Las Cruces, New Mexico, this week,” noted Canada’s Globe and Mail on August 24, 1996. “The dusty resort city on the Rio Grande was awash with young beauties, but all eyes were on the reigning Miss Universe in the wake of rumours that she would be stripped of her title if she didn’t shed 27 pounds.”
“Earlier this week, Miss Universe Alicia Machado, the reigning symbol of interplanetary beauty, became the object of furor over whether she was expanding just a little too much for this galaxy,” wrote Louis Kiernan in the Chicago Tribune, August 25. (Kiernan was writing sarcastically, defending Machado.)
Remember: This happened months before Trump bought a share of the Miss Universe pageant.
Piggy/Housekeeping
This week, in the debate, Clinton repeated the new charge by Machado that Trump, 20 years ago, called her “Miss Piggy” (an insult based on her weight gain) and “Miss Housekeeping” (an anti-Latina slur). There are a number of problems with Machado’s “Miss Piggy”/”Miss Housekeeping” claim, including the fact that it appears to have been made publicly for the first time less than five months ago. “Miss Piggy” and ”Miss Housekeeping” were recent additions to a story that Machado has been telling all along without those details.
Last year, Machado announced that she would be writing a book exposing Trump’s alleged racism and sexism. Yet, even then, she failed to mention the “Miss Piggy”/”Miss Housekeeping” insults that are now central to Machado and Clinton’s version of the story.
As far as can be determined from news accounts, Machado, who was Miss Venezuela when she won the Miss Universe crown in May 1996, made the Piggy/Housekeeping claim for the first time in May 2016, at a press conference organized by the left-wing organization People for the American Way. At that event, she was joined in her attack on Trump by a group that included Dolores Huerta, a prominent supporter of Hillary Clinton and of the late Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez.
In June, Machado joined Huerta to announce the creation of a voter registration/turnout effort to benefit the Clinton campaign. The effort is run by People for the American Way and CASA in Action (a sister group to CASA de Maryland, which was profiled by the Capital Research Center at
capitalresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/OT0912.pdf ). PfAW and CASA de Maryland were both funded by radical billionaire George Soros. (For more on PfAW and Huerta, see the endnote.)
Makin’ stuff up
Significantly, Machado has embellished her story in a number of ways. In a video created by the Clinton campaign, she now claims, apparently for the first time (in public, at least), that she was not fully compensated for her work as Miss Universe, and she strongly implies that her eating disorders originated in her encounter with Trump. Earlier, she claimed that her disorders began long before her interaction with Trump.
Another recently added charge against Trump came during a press conference of sorts. The Clinton campaign brought Machado together with the news media, with Machado speaking in Spanish—a language problem for most of the reporters, about which they were not warned. During that encounter with the media, she added the charge that Trump was “violent.”
Her remarks in the Clinton video are likewise in Spanish. This is a transcript of the captions provided by the Clinton campaign.
I was the first Miss Universe after Trump bought the pageant. He was overwhelming. I was very scared of him. He’d yell at me all the time. He’d tell me, “You look ugly,” or, “You look fat.” Sometimes he’d “play” with me and say: “Hello, Miss Piggy,” “Hello, Miss Housekeeping.” As Miss Universe, I participated in more ad campaigns than most. In a year, I earned the company a lot of money. By contract, I should’ve earned 10% on all the commercials and word I did. I was never paid.
Most won't read any of this so I won't post the rest. The other 60% of the article is on the link.
Not that one more vote for Trump in Minnesota would have done any good. Yea, we still talk and get along lol
