Without shame — or apologies
Donald Trump’s acts of humiliation against Alicia Machado, after Miss Universe gained weight in 1997, were crude and cruel. What is even more disturbing is that two decades later, as a candidate for president, Trump cannot bring himself to acknowledge that the public shaming of a young woman was wrong.
Once again, Trump is demonstrating an utter unwillingness to show even an ounce of contrition for spewing hurtful or factually unsupportable words. This is the man who expressed no regret for fanning a myth about President Obama’s citizenship, discounting the sacrifice of ex-POW Sen. John McCain, criticizing a fallen soldier whose parents dared to publicly challenge him or questioning the objectivity of an American-born judge because of his Mexican heritage.
So perhaps no one should be surprised that Trump’s response to Hillary Clinton’s reference to the ugliness of the Machado episode was to defend the indefensible. In Monday’s debate, Clinton said Machado had been called “Miss Piggy” and “Miss Housekeeping” by Trump.
Unrepentant as ever, Trump told “Fox and Friends” on Tuesday that Machado “was the worst we ever had. She was the winner, and she gained a massive amount of weight, and it was a real problem.”
In doubling down on his fat-shaming, Trump guaranteed that a story that could have faded with an apology has stayed a hot topic on social media. Out came the January 1997 video of Trump parading Machado to a workout at a New York gym before invited news crews. “I was about to cry in that moment with all the cameras there,” she told the New York Times earlier this year.
All too predictably, Machado’s emergence as a powerful messenger against Trump prompted sexist smears by Rush Limbaugh and Newt Gingrich, and assaults on her past by right-wing websites.
“I’m not a saint girl,” she said on CNN.
And she is not on the November ballot. Trump is. One of the challenges of a president, who is confronted with an array of judgments on any given day, is to recognize when he or she is on in an untenable situation and to course correct. Stubbornness in the face of selfdestruction is no virtue for a commander in chief.