When asked by Dr. Oz about his long history of public misogyny—especially on Howard Stern’s radio show—Trump said that he was just playing a game. “Had I known I was going to be a politician—Howard Stern is a friend of mine—I wouldn’t have done his show. We have fun. We have fun. A lot of people understand that. We have fun. So we’ll talk about women. We’ll talk about men. We’ll talk about everything, and we’re all have a good time.”
But in the first presidential debate, Hillary Clinton made it clear that there was nothing funny about Trump’s comments about women, baiting him into discussing former Miss Universe Alicia Machado, who he had repeatedly and publicly humiliated about her weight. Any normal campaign would have tried to move on from the massive L that its candidate took in the debate, but the Trump campaign is not a normal campaign in large part because the presidential candidate in question has access to a cell phone between certain hours of the day. Very early this morning, Trump sent a series of tweets referring to a reality show appearance in which Machado slept with another contestant. (Trump supporters have also alleged that Machado appeared in pornography, but there is no evidence that this is true.) None, surprisingly, contained the thinking emoji.
There’s a lot going on here. First of all, what is Trump doing? These tweets are timed between 3am and 5am. Was he just stewing, unable to sleep, even after Melania brought him a cup of warm milk? Second of all, there are less than 40 days to the election and Trump has spent the last four talking about Alicia Machado. Third, this basically takes a former Miss Universe and tries to turn her into the new Benghazi: Maybe Alicia Machado tricked Hillary Clinton into giving her citizenship so she could ... mention her in a debate? And how dare we give citizenship to ... someone who had sex with someone on a Mexican reality show? It’s weak shit and the alt right fever swamps really should be able to do something better. And finally, it showcases Trump’s two most un-presidential attributes. He’s easily baited and he finds it impossible to move on once he’s hooked. And his only answer to charges of misogyny is more misogyny.