Trump tries to distract from Alicia Machado sex tape accusations
GOP
nominee went on Twitter rampage earlier, making false accusations
that ex-Miss Universe had a sex tape and that Clinton helped her
become a US citizen
Ben Jacobs in
Washington
@Bencjacobs
Saturday 1 October
2016 01.13 BST
Donald Trump tried
to distract voters from a weeklong controversy over his insults
toward a former Miss Universe on Friday night by asking Barack Obama
to pledge not to “pardon Hillary Clinton and her co-conspirators
for their many crimes against our country and against society
itself”.
Only hours earlier,
the Republican nominee went on a predawn Twitter rampage about Alicia
Machado, tweeting false accusations that she had a sex tape and that
Clinton had somehow helped Machado become an American citizen. He
later tried to justify the tweets, writing: “For those few people
knocking me for tweeting at 3 o’clock in the morning, at least you
know I will be there, awake, to answer the call!”
The Clinton campaign
quickly responded. “His latest Twitter meltdown is unhinged, even
for him,” the Democratic nominee told a rally in Florida. She also
responded on Trump’s medium of choice, Twitter: “What kind of man
stays up all night to smear a woman with lies and conspiracy
theories?”
The former secretary
of state spoke in Coral Springs, where she unveiled a plan to expand
national service opportunities for young Americans. But Clinton also
scorned Trump at length there, asking: “Who gets up at three
o’clock in the morning to engage in a Twitter attack against a
former Miss Universe?”
Late Friday,
BuzzFeed found that Trump had a cameo in an explicit Playboy video
made in 2000, prompting a response from Clinton campaign spokesman
Nick Merrill. “There’s been a lot of talk about sex tapes today,
and in a strange turn of events only one adult film has emerged today
and its star is Donald Trump,” Merrill told reporters.
Former Miss Universe
Alicia Machado on Trump: ‘I know what he can do’
On Friday evening,
Trump attempted to change the subject by amplifying his attacks on
Clinton, citing the Clinton Foundation’s international donors and
her handling of emails as secretary of state. Republicans often
criticize Clinton along these lines, but Trump has recently escalated
the rhetoric. He called Clinton a “globalist” and a “vessel for
special interests … who want to strip [the US] of its status as a
sovereign nation” and accused her of “many crimes against our
country and against society itself”.
The Trump campaign
did not immediately respond to questions about what crimes the
nominee meant.
The Republican
nominee also stirred concerns about voter fraud, returning to the
unsubstantiated claims of a “rigged election” and “cheating”
that he made for several weeks this summer. On Friday, Trump claimed
voter fraud “is a big big problem in this country” and that
“nobody has the guts to talk about it.”
He then urged
attendees at this rally to “go and watch the polling places and
make sure it is on the up and up”, even though an exhaustive
investigation in 2014 found only 31 potential incidents of in-person
voter fraud in all US elections over 14 years.
The complaints about
a “rigged” system follow days of negative revelations about the
nominee. A report in Newsweek showed evidence that Trump’s company
had violated the embargo on doing business in Cuba, and a report in
the Washington Post showed Trump’s charitable foundation lacks a
license to solicit money, though it has appeared to do so for years.
Several conservative
or apolitical newspapers also refused to endorse Trump this week. On
Friday, the San Diego Union Tribune, which has endorsed every
Republican presidential candidate since 1868, announced that it would
back Hillary Clinton. In doing so, its editorial board wrote “Trump
could be our Chávez, our Kirchner. We cannot take that risk.”
It was joined by USA
Today, which issued its first-ever presidential endorsement to write
that Trump was “unfit for the presidency”. The national paper did
not endorse Clinton but merely urged readers to vote for anyone but
Trump. Other papers have broken their conservative record to back
Clinton, including the Arizona Republic and the Cincinnati Enquirer.
A number of other traditionally conservative papers, such as the
Chicago Tribune and the Detroit News, have endorsed Libertarian Gary
Johnson instead of Trump.
One newspaper has
broken its apolitical history to endorse Trump. In March, he became
the first candidate endorsed by the National Enquirer in the
tabloid’s history.
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