After a relative month of calm, Donald Trump has gone back to his old ways this week after he lost Monday night’s big debate with Hillary Clinton. On Friday morning, he went even further down the rabbit hole by telling voters to “check out” a nonexistent “sex tape” featuring former Miss Universe Alicia Machado. Hillary Clinton quickly pounced on this and mocked Trump on Twitter for obsessively talking about Machado over the past several days.
Speaking with ABC News in an exclusive interview, Trump argued that he “meant no harm” with his tweet, as well as that he was “only trying to help out an aspiring young actress.” Asked to elaborate, the Republican presidential candidate said that he’s well aware that “sex sells” and that “controversy goes hand in hand with popularity,” which is why he wanted to use his influence and recognition to help Machado’s newfound career. “I felt it was only fair after everything she’s been through because of me, you know, at one point it just wasn’t fun anymore, so I said enough is enough,” he revealed.
“Truth be told, I’m not one of those people who have this constant need to justify their actions to others. That doesn’t happen in the world I live in, which is a dog eat dog world. But, I will say I this: I too am a person and I too have a heart,” he tried to sound like a victim. “And I just felt sorry for my former employee and I read somewhere, I think she gave an interview to a magazine of something, I don’t remember anymore, but it was a recent interview and she said she wanted to become an actress. So, I figured, you know, what could I do to help her? And the solution sort of came to me out of the blue. I decided to do it the only way I knew how – with controversy and plenty of public attention.”
He continued, “And I knew for a while about that tape, and I thought I’d save it as ammo for another occasion, but my conscience got the better of me and I decided tweeting about it would be the right thing to do. I knew from experience it would be a bombshell, and even though everybody’s pretty upset with me right now for going through with it, you know, I did it and there’s no going back. Nobody gets to tell me what to do or how to react, so if you don’t like it, don’t search the video and that’s that. But I can tell you that she’s very talented, I mean that in a good way. She’s got plenty of experience, you can see that without even taking a peek at the tape.
“And so, you know, I did what I thought was best in the situation and I know I was right. When this whole thing blows over, she won’t be able to breathe from all the offers and agents that are going to haunt her day and night. Like I said, I know what I’m doing and this is not my first rodeo. At the end of the day, I genuinely tried to help because I also remember her talking about wanting to become a Playboy bunny back during the pageant, but then she got hideously fat and that went down the drain. And so, you know, I figured helping her out this way would mean something, it would mean that I deserve to become President because I care about the citizens of this country,” he added.
