Axelrod on former Miss Universe dustup: Trump took the bait

Donald Trump “took the bait” set by Hillary Clinton’s campaign by keeping former Miss Universe winner Alicia Machado alive in the news cycle all week, David Axelrod said Friday morning on CNN.

The former top adviser to President Barack Obama said the Machado “story is in its fourth day because of him” and added that “the Clinton campaign could not have asked for more” from its Republican opponent.


Machado entered the political spotlight Monday night when Clinton referenced her during a line of attack against Trump’s history of derogatory remarks against women. Clinton said Trump had called Machado “Miss Piggy,” a reference to her supposed weight gain after winning Miss Universe, and “Miss Housekeeping,” because of her Hispanic heritage. The pageant winner quickly became a surrogate for Clinton, doing TV and magazine interviews where she has expounded on Trump’s poor treatment of her, alleging that his name-calling triggered a relapse in her bulimia.

For its part, the Trump campaign has worked to discredit Machado by resurfacing an attempted murder case from 1996 in which Machado was investigated but never charged, as well as threats she allegedly made against the judge in that case (which Machado denies). Trump and other surrogates have also suggested that Machado has starred in pornographic films, even though there is no evidence to substantiate that claim.

“What he's done is prolonged it for four days. The Clinton campaign could not have asked for more,” Axelrod said of the Trump campaign’s willingness to engage on the Machado issue. “[The Clinton campaign] wanted to make this an issue and he is cooperating in that project. And I'm telling you, none of his advisers are telling him to do this. This is the way Donald Trump is. He's very reactive. The Clinton folks figured that out, they were pushing his buttons all throughout that debate and he is still reeling from that.”

Most recently, the Manhattan billionaire fired off a series of tweets overnight attacking Machado and scoffing at Clinton for presenting her “as an ‘angel’ without checking her past, which is terrible!” He urged his followers to “check out [her] sex tape and past” and said Clinton had been “duped and used” by the former Miss Universe.

Axelrod likened the stream of Twitter posts, and the Trump campaign’s overall struggles to deal with Machado this week, to the post-convention stretch during which his campaign appeared to be in a tailspin.

"I don't think his senior strategists are saying to him, you know what, why don't you get up at 4:00 and shoot out some tweets," Axelrod said.

“After that debate, my question was how will he react to this general verdict that he had lost the debate, because, you know, Donald Trump pictures himself as a winner,” Axelrod said. “That's his whole image. I'm a winner. Everybody else are losers. And whenever he's depicted as a loser, it just drives him off the deep end. This happened after the conventions. He was deemed a loser in the conventions and he went on, like, a three-week self-destructive rampage that really hurt his candidacy. This, you know, on the Friday after the debate, to get up before dawn, and tweet about Alicia Machado is unfathomable.”