Trump Ally: Actually, Hillary Clinton Body-Shamed Girls In Anti-Trump Ad (VIDEO)

Betsy McCaughey speaks Saturday, Jan. 23, 2016, at the New Hampshire Republican Party summit in Nashua, N.H. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
Start your day with TPM.
Sign up for the Morning Memo newsletter

A Donald Trump supporter made the mind-numbing argument in a CNN interview Thursday that Hillary Clinton should apologize for using young girls in a campaign ad that hit Trump for his history of disparaging comments about women’s bodies.

CNN’s Poppy Harlow asked Betsy McCaughey what she thinks about a recent memo sent out by the Trump campaign encouraging surrogates to bring up former President Bill Clinton’s sex scandals. McCaughey quickly pivoted away from the memo, saying that the real villain here is Hillary Clinton because she featured girls “distressed” about their bodies in campaign ads.

“The worst of all I find is those little girls in Mrs. Clinton’s television ad, the nameless little girls standing in the mirror looking extremely uncomfortable, distressed about their own body types,” McCaughey said. “Here’s why that’s distressing. Because I’ve sat at the bedside of a child nearing death from anorexia and there are families all over this country who have gone through this for years.”

“To see Mrs. Clinton take this terrible epidemic that’s afflicting our daughters across the country and turn it into a political ad and then blame this very complex mental health problem on Donald Trump is the lowest I’ve ever seen a politician go,” she said.

Harlow went on to ask McCaughey if she thinks Trump should bear any blame for comments he made about former Miss Universe Alicia Machado, who said Trump’s comments about her weight contributed to her developing an eating disorder. McCaughey again defaulted to blaming Clinton.

“No. And I think it’s amazing that Mrs. Clinton —look, she had to go back 20 years to find something that he is alleged to have said. Alleged in public—” McCaughey said.

“He’s on tape saying—” Harlow interrupted.

“I saw the tape,” McCaughey interjected.

“He said on Fox News this week ‘She gained a massive amount of weight,'” Harlow pointed out.

“That’s right, she did and she was a beauty queen under contract with him,” McCaughey said.

“And Alicia Machado said it drove her to be anorexic and bulimic. Do you think he has no culpability or responsibility?” Harlow asked.

“I don’t,” McCaughey said. “I think Hollywood and most of the literature, by the way, parents all across the country who like me have sought out the advice of doctors and read hundreds of articles about anorexia and bulimia have found Hollywood, the people who support Mrs. Clinton, are far more to blame.”

Watch below:

Latest Livewire
Comments
Masthead Masthead
Founder & Editor-in-Chief:
Executive Editor:
Managing Editor:
Associate Editor:
Editor at Large:
General Counsel:
Publisher:
Head of Product:
Director of Technology:
Associate Publisher:
Front End Developer:
Senior Designer: