Trump: This is the one time Clinton got under my skin during the debate
Donald Trump said Tuesday Hillary Clinton failed to get under his skin during the first presidential debate, except "maybe" after she brought up a former Miss Universe winner who accused him of calling her derogatory names after she gained weight.
And in a tweet Tuesday, he again lashed out at "Crooked Hillary."
Alicia Machado, who was crowned Miss Universe in 1996, accused Trump of pressuring her to lose weight and publicly shaming her in a New York Times story published in May. She later told the television program "Inside Edition" Trump called her "Miss Piggy." Trump also called her "an eating machine" on the Howard Stern Show, "Inside Edition" reported.
Trump, who had taken over the Miss Universe pageant shortly before the 1996 contest, acknowledged to the Times he pushed Machado to lose weight.
"She was the worst we ever had, the worst, the absolute worst. She was impossible," Trump told "Fox & Friends" on Tuesday, without mentioning Machado by name.
"She was the winner and, you know, she gained a massive amount of weight and it was, it was a real problem," Trump said. "We had a real problem. Not only that, her attitude."
Clinton mentioned the incident near the end of the debate while discussing Trump's past name-calling of women.
Trump told "Fox & Friends" he felt he performed best while discussing the issues of immigration, the police and law and order, and international trade and jobs.
Asked what he would do differently in the next debate, Trump said, "I may hit her harder in certain ways. You know, I really eased up because I didn't want to hurt anybody's feelings, so I may hit her harder in certain ways."
Earlier in the interview, he said he had considered bringing up former President Bill Clinton 's infidelities, but chose not to because he felt it was not the right thing to do and because Chelsea Clinton was present.
As for the moderator, Trump said Lester Holt did "really good" for the first half, but criticized the NBC News anchor for bringing up a housing discrimination lawsuit the federal government brought against Trump Management in the 1970s and for not directly questioning Clinton about her email scandal or the fatal 2012 attack on a U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, that occurred while she was secretary of state.
Trump also speculated over whether someone had purposely set up his microphone improperly.
"I had a problem with a microphone that didn't work. I don't know if you saw that in the room, but my microphone was terrible. I wonder was it set up that way on purpose?" he said.
"When I tested it, it was beautiful, like an hour before I said what a great mic … It was much lower than [Clinton's]. I don't want to believe in conspiracy theories, of course, but it was much lower than hers, and it was crackling, and she didn't have that problem."
Correction: This story was revised to correct that Trump spoke to "Fox & Friends" on Tuesday.
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