As most of us were sleeping last night, the Republican nominee for President of the United States engaged in a tweet storm about a former Miss Universe.
The debate in which Clinton mentioned Machado was Monday night. It is now Friday and Trump just managed to ensure that this is the topic we’re still going to be talking about today. That makes something that Newt Gingrich said yesterday look even more ridiculous.
Newt Gingrich on Thursday called Hillary Clinton’s attack on Donald Trump for mocking former Miss Universe Alicia Machado’s weight “as false as Benghazi” and “the new Benghazi lie.”
In an interview on Sean Hannity’s radio show on Thursday, the former house speaker and current Trump adviser said, “I think as fascinating to look at how the elite media bought — this is the new Benghazi lie — what Hillary tried to set up, and what they spend apparently months preparing was an ambush that was as false as Benghazi…
“The elite media, which is Clinton, they totally identify with her, they took it hook, line, and sinker,” Gingrich continued.
I’ll grant you…it’s pretty hard to come up with the parallel between an attack on a U.S. compound in Benghazi and a candidate’s fat-shaming of a former Miss Universe. But I suspect that was not Gingrich’s intent. He merely wanted to get the word “Benghazi” inserted into the discussion.
But beyond that, he is lying when he says that this story continues because the media is obsessed with it. Everyone would have forgotten about it if Trump hadn’t done things like go on Fox and Friends on Tuesday morning and railed about how he wasn’t being given credit for fat-shaming Ms. Machado. Obviously, he STILL can’t let go of it based on his early morning twitter rampage.
Of course, Trump is also intent on talking about a former president’s sex scandals, bragging about the his role in fueling birtherism and ranting about how Monday night’s debate was rigged against him. The fact that he is completely unhinged and has zero self control is on display for the whole world to see – if they actually care to look.
As someone whose job it is to write about politics, this is – frankly – getting to be embarrassing. But it’s what is actually going on in this presidential election. Last night world leaders gathered to mark the passing of Shimon Peres and the Republican presidential nominee was tweeting about sex tapes. It really is that bad.
