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DONALD TRUMP ATTEMPTED to shame a former beauty pageant winner for her alleged sexual history and encouraged Americans to check out what he called her “sex tape,” in an early-morning tweet-storm that dragged him further away from his campaign’s efforts to broaden its appeal to women.
A day after he injected former President Bill Clinton’s dalliances into the campaign, Trump accused Hillary Clinton’s campaign of helping 1996 Miss Universe winner Alicia Machado get US citizenship, but offered no proof.
He said Machado had a “terrible” past that a “duped” Clinton had overlooked before holding her up “as an ‘angel’” in the first presidential debate.
“Did Crooked Hillary help disgusting (check out sex tape and past) Alicia M become a U.S. citizen so she could use her in the debate?” read a missive from Trump posted on his verified Twitter account at 5.30am.
Trump’s taunt appeared to refer to footage from a Spanish reality show in 2005 in which Machado was a contestant and appeared on camera in bed with a male contestant.
The images, posted this week to a newspaper’s website, are grainy and do not include nudity.
The show took place almost a decade after Trump invited reporters to watch Machado exercise and mocked her publicly for gaining weight after she won Miss Universe, which Trump owned at the time.
In Monday’s debate, Clinton brought up Trump’s taunts of Machado.
Shaming Machado over intimate details from her past was particularly risky as Trump tries to win over more female voters, many of whom are turned off by such personal attacks.
It also risks calling further attention to the thrice-married Trump’s own history with women.
The outburst was an extreme reminder of how Trump has seemed unable to restrain himself from veering into unhelpful territory, even with the election less than 40 days away.
Trump’s allies have implored him to stick to attacks on Clinton over her family foundation, her emails or her long history as a political insider, critiques that fall further out of view whenever Trump sparks a new controversy.
Rather than back way from the comments about Machado, Trump has repeatedly pushed it back to the center of the conversation, even as early voting in critical states gets underway. He said this week that Machado had gained “a massive amount of weight,” adding that it was “a real problem”.
Trump said today that Clinton had been “set up by a con” in holding up Machado “as an ‘angel’ without checking her past, which is terrible!”
He suggested Clinton had helped the Venezuela-born actress gain citizenship.
Clinton’s campaign, which has released videos featuring Machado and arranged for reporters to interview her, has highlighted her status as a new American and her plans to cast her first vote for Clinton.
Clinton spokesman Brian Fallon took to Twitter to ask of Trump, “What kind of human being is this?”
Her campaign chairman, John Podesta, tweeted that as a man of a certain age he shares Trump’s urge to get up in the middle of the night but added a “safety tip” — “don’t reach for your phone”.
The flurry on Twitter began shortly after 3am on the East Coast when Trump complained about stories about his campaign based on anonymous sources and told his supporters not to believe them.
“There are no sources, they are just made up lies!” he wrote.
Trump has repeatedly gotten himself in trouble with his late-night and early-morning tweets, which appear to be written by the candidate himself.
The reality TV show star once said that aides help him tweet during the day but that in the evenings, he tweets by himself. Trump has, at various points during his campaign, toned down the content of his tweets, but rarely for long.
Trump yesterday warned voters that a Hillary Clinton victory would bring her husband’s sex scandal back to the White House.
It was Trump’s latest effort to bounce back from Monday’s debate performance, which was widely panned for being less effective than Clinton’s.
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Half of the above are charlatans. Only Grudgiev, Lyons, McWilliams & Maynooth Prof are credible.
Tis all guessonomics!
We didn’t need the first one.
Shove it!!!
Mcwilliams? Seriously? If he was so certain of our collapse maybe he would have spent more time discussing that than his new catchphrase. Seriously go back and check what he spent his days talking about before the crash. F*cking ‘deckchair families ‘ sweatpants mummies’ and waynes world generations. He, compared to the torrent of paper space he commanded, barely talked about a potential crash.
The real question is, if he actually considers himself a reputable economist why did he not spend most of his time talking about the collapse of millions of Irish livelihoods? He was the only popular economist in the country! He either was guessing or didn’t care. Literally the only two possibilities.
Lyons hits it on the head:
“If you don’t want to be answerable in your public spending to anyone other than your citizens then balance your books and you won’t have to borrow.”
Everybody likes the sound of having the books balanced. But it would require “austerity” on a grand scale so no thanks. We´ll just keep borrowing and borrowing in the hopes that the guy we´re borrowing from will forget about the money.
Colm mccarthys comments are brainless… Noone can predict the future.
Rich coming from a man who has trousered a fortune from the taxpayer doing just that!
Mr Noone can predict the future!
What are you talking about? He did that job for a fiver… if the government went to an accountancy or a consultancy firm they would have been charged millions, Colm did it for a few thousand.
And that is a fair amount considering his expertise. If anything was brainless it was your comment.
Everyday it just seems to go from bad to worse. There just seems to be no light at the end of the tunnel, we are borrowing from Peter to pay Paul & its getting us nowhere. The country is on its knees.
I agree with Michael o leary. Hoping for a second bailout so that the imf will force the government to cut themselves because they are not gonna do it of their own accord.
Whether or not Ireland will need another bailout will depend on the state of the bond markets. We are doing all the right things to get our public finances in order and we are not going to default on existing bonds so re-entry into the bond maret will depend on others.
Personally I think we will remain in bailout until the Euro and the other debtor countries have sorted themselves out.
I’m not so sure about that Peter.
The recent McKinsey report (detailed in many of the papers yesterday) makes for eye-watering reading from an Irish perspective. Our total debt (public, private, household, etc) is at more than 6.5 times national income. More than twice the nearest delinquent Spain.
Total Irish debt is inflated by the Financial Institutions balances at 294% of GDP. This is influenced by the number of foreign institutions operating in the IFSC. Soveriegn debt at 85% of GDP is a concern as is household debt at 124%. Non financial corporate debt at 194% would be a worry but again I think this is artificially high reflecting stategic leveraging by the high number of FDI corporates in Ireland, particularly from the US.
It is difficult to choose another economy to measure ourselves against because of our ability to attract foreign direct investment across a number of business sectors. I would suggest that the nearest model to our own is the UK.
Peter it is not just the financial sector. The households and the corporate sector are up to the eyeballs too and much above the average of developed countries and above even the usual debtors UK and US.
The government says it is not going to happen……… So it is a given .
“SIPTU economist”. Ha.
Perhaps media outlets such as yourselves should begin posting something positive and instill some confidence, rather than continuously churning out crap like this! Every economist on your list has said the same thing!
Everyone except Gurdgiev and McWilliams are deluded. ‘Talk of the bailout is unhelpful’ – what is this? Is this an opinion of a university head of economics department??
Enough of the gloom get on with it, listening to these economists for too long now. People need to buckle down & make things happen for themselves & please stop thinking the government are going to do something for you do it yourself.
And the comment of Paul Sweeney of ICTU that the question is hypothetical is utter rubbish. If Ireland was about to be leveled by a giant meteorite the question would have been hypothetical but because it isn’t the question is fairly relevant and real. That is except maybe for ICTU beards who according to Sweeney’s own admission have ‘other things to worry about’ (i.e. how to keep the Croke Park zombie alive and pull a quick one in front of the general public pretending some progress is being made).
Government policies are killing growth. When the retail figures are out on this quarter, the reality will be laid bare. Job losses will roll on this year unfortunately. Tax revenue is shrinking and that has been the case for several years even after all the levies, band adjustments, etc. To keep the Croke Farce Agreement going, increasing amounts of shrinking tax revenue are needed. Eventually, the Farce must be closed down if the deficit is to be brought under control. The present trajectory leads inevitably to a second bailout. Few public sector economists will admit that openly, as it opens up uncomfortable questions about wage levels among the academic and teaching elites when businesses are struggling to keep their premises heated.
I’ve spoken to many in the retail sector over the past few days and the last few weeks have definetly been the worst that any of them have experienced in 30+ years of trading.
My comment is this: I would like to quote Walter Ulbricht, the East German head of State, commenting at a 1961 press conference when asked about his stance as to an East west border: “Nobody here intends to build a wall.” Watch it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YjgKKOdVRx4
“It is ludicrous to say that Ireland will need a second bailout.” Will you believe it still after watching that?
A No vote will sort it all out one way or the other. Then there won’t be a cent left to pay the most senior guaranteed bondholder and Croke Park will be hit by an ICBM.
In the end you have to take the bottle away from the alcoholic!
It largely depends on factors outside of our control. We are doing everything that is being asked of us and meeting our targets but political inaction in the EU is putting all of that at risk.
If we do have to go the the EFSF for a further round of funding it would not be a total disaster. We would be getting money at less than normal market rates and would only require assisted funding for a year or two.
We are missing growth forecasts, tax intake is below the forecasts (masked to an extent with ‘once-off’ measures like the pension raid), the deficit is still a double XXL whopper with cheese, the only sector with some growth potential (export industry) is about to be fucked with another global crisis and the unemployment is stuck near 15%. What particular targets are being met??? I am afraid you are buying the government’s spin. Their statements on the subject are the work of pure fiction. Anybody who thinks Greece is an exception is deluded. Portugal is next and then Ireland. There is no such thing as ‘one cockroach’.
Looking at the response from McWilliams I realised that his comments to the Journal were made earlier this month and on this basis I wonder when the other interviews took place. Forecasting in economic terms requires a set of facts and a common set of assumptions. Could the author of this place validate the timing of the economists contributions to avoid the piece being meaningless.
Mark,
Apologies for the delay in responding to your query. Bar McWilliams, the interviews for this piece all took place within the last 7 days.
Hugh
Comments from such a group could never be conclusive, economics is one part, politics is another macroeconomics is another and microeconomics is finally where it hurts in the pocket . I wouldn’t bet on anything they say.none of them ever saw the downturn coming including Mc Williams who saw everything down turning, as always he had to be right sometime why didn’t he profit from it.
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