Newt Gingrich on Thursday called Hillary Clinton's attack on Donald Trump for mocking former Miss Universe Alicia Machado’s weight "as false as Benghazi" and "the new Benghazi lie."

In an interview on Sean Hannity's radio show on Thursday, the former house speaker and current Trump adviser said, "I think as fascinating to look at how the elite media bought — this is the new Benghazi lie — what Hillary tried to set up, and what they spend apparently months preparing was an ambush that was as false as Benghazi. It was as false as her claim she was under fire in Bosnia. It was as false as the lies she told about her emails."

"The elite media, which is Clinton, they totally identify with her, they took it hook, line, and sinker," Gingrich continued. "For three or four days they have run with it, and now, as happened in Ferguson, as happened in Benghazi, as happened in Bosnia, it's all starting to fall apart because it's based on a series of falsehoods."

Gingrich said Trump's 1997 comments about Machado, in which Trump said she was an "eating machine," "plumply," and she "ate a lot of everything," were Trump trying to make Miss Universe work as a business and him "actually being very positive."

At the close of the first presidential debate on Monday, Clinton went after Trump for repeatedly mocking Machado gaining weight after she won Miss Universe in 1996.



“He called this woman ‘Miss Piggy.’ Then he called her ‘Miss Housekeeping,’ because she was Latina,” Clinton said on Monday.

Trump fired back strongly on Friday morning. In a series of tweets he called Machado "disgusting" and said people should look at her questionable past and "sex tape."