Not many people know about Alicia Machado, the former Miss Universe winner from Venezuela. Since last Monday's presidential debate, her name has been circulating social media and many people are wondering who she is.
Alicia Machado won Miss Universe in 1996, and she is the fourth contestant from Venezuela to win the title. During her time as Miss Universe, she made headlines due to her gaining weight. The Miss Universe Organization was considering replacing her with the runner-up as a result of her letting her figure go. This lead to Donald Trump calling her "an eating machine," and her appearance at the gym which was televised to show that she indeed worked out. Machado was 18-years-old at the time, and she was able to retain her title as Miss Universe; however, her relationship with Donald Trump turned into a feud that still lives on.
On Monday, Hillary Clinton mentioned Alicia Machado in the presidential debate. She referenced to a moment in Machado's life when Donald Trump had supposedly demeaned her and bullied her for being fat and Latina. Clinton said "And one of the worst things he said was about a woman in a beauty contest -- 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. Her name is Alicia Machado. And she has become a U.S. citizen and you can bet she is going to vote this November."
So why is she important?
For starters, Alicia Machado has been anti-Trump ever since Trump began his political campaign. Machado appeared on Univision and Telemundo and she told her story. Machado is a big influence within the Hispanic community; She's been a both a judge and a mentor for Nuestra Belleza Latina (Our Latina Beauty), a Latino beauty pageant in the United States hosted by Univision. She's made various appearances in Latino shows, and there is no surprise that Clinton has been using her story to gain supporters. Alicia Machado has been campaigning for Hillary Clinton since June 2016. Machado's feud with Donald Trump was a golden opportunity for the Clinton campaign, not only because she represents the Latino community, but because she also represents women.
How does this affect Donal Trump's political campaign?
The feud between Alicia Machado and Donald Trump was only known within the Latino community. Non-Latino news networks were not paying much attention to Machado while they focused on other issues circulating Trump's campaign. Needless to say, Trump is not doing too well with the Latino community ever since he started his campaign by referring to Mexican's as "drug dealers, criminals, and rapists" and after Clinton mentioned Machado, Latinos for once are feeling like their concerns are being heard. Alicia Machado mentioned that after the debate she "...started crying because [she] never imagined that such an important person like [Hillary Clinton] would care about [her] story."
This is a setback for the Trump campaign because Alica Machado's name has been circulating the internet since Monday's night debate. The New York Times reported that in 48 hours, Alicia Machado "has been written about in more than 150 print news articles, referred to on TV more than 6,023 times and mentioned on Twitter nearly 200,000 times." As a result, Trump went on a Twitter rampage on Friday at three o'clock in the morning. He began to tweet conspiracy theories about how the former Miss Universe was able to get citizenship and even went on to a supposed sex tape that later on was found to be a hoax.
