Trump called Alicia Machado 'an eating machine' on Howard Stern show – as it happened

Ben Jacobs has more fashion reports from Donald Trump’s rally in Florida tonight:

Former Vermont governor and onetime head of the Democratic National Committee Howard Dean defended tweeting that Republican nominee Donald Trump’s persistent sniffing during last presidential night’s debate indicated possible cocaine abuse, a sentence we never thought we’d have to type and yet here we are.

“You can’t make a diagnosis over the television, but that is a signature of people who use cocaine,” Dean told MSNBC’s Kate Snow of Trump’s sniffling. “I’m not suggesting that Trump does, but ... I’m just suggesting that we think about it.”

“He sniffed during the presentation, which is something that users do,” Dean continued. “He also has grandiosity, which is something that accompanies that problem.”

“Something funny was going on with Donald Trump last night.”

The former Miss Universe winner who was the subject of a Donald Trump tirade this morning about her weight and “attitude,” Alicia Machado, hasn’t held any punches in her war of words with the Republican presidential nominee.

The Venezuelan pageant queen, who was cited by Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton during last night’s debate as an example of Trump’s misogyny, called Trump a “Nazi rat”.

Yesterday, Machado started the hashtag #RataNazi, declaring in Spanish that “My freedom of opinion is what I most love about being a US citizen! My position is overwhelmingly and firmly: #NaziRat you won’t be president!”

A real-time map of trending Twitter topics seems to show that the #TrumpWon hashtag - lauded by the candidate himself as the most popular hashtag on the internet this morning - appears to show that the hashtag’s starting location is in St. Petersburg, Russia.

Granted, the campaign could just be hiding its virtual private network’s address by changing theirs in St. Petersburg - which would just mean that the campaign dropped a pretty penny on its Twitter advertising this morning - but given that hundreds of bloggers are paid by the Russian government to flood forums and social networks at home and abroad with anti-western and pro-Kremlin comments, it’s an interesting coincidence...

In a 1997 interview with Howard Stern, Donald Trump called the Miss Universe winner Alicia Machado an “eating machine,” revealed audio unearthed by Buzzfeed.

Machado, who won the Miss Universe contest in 1996, is in the news today after Hillary Clinton used Trump’s comments - he labeled her “Miss Piggy” and “Miss Housekeeping” (she’s originally from Venezuela) - to nail him on gender issues during last night’s debate.

The new audio from Buzzfeed of the 1997 Stern interview shows exactly what the conversations around Machado were like at the time (remember, this is a 20-year-old woman who is being discussed by these men).

Stern announces the issue: “The Miss Universe, it turns out, the woman who won last year, blows up to a fat pig. I mean, like obese.”

Trump laughs in the background.

Stern: “Most people would have fired her, because she broke the rules. Mr Trump goes in there and he says “listen you, I’m not going to fire you, but you better get skinny, you better lose some weight.”

Stern adds: “You whipped this fat slob into shape. I don’t know how you did it. I see all these diet plans, everything else. God bless you. You whipped her into shape, and you held the whole pageant together. Congratulations.”

Trump responds: “Well, that was an amazing one. She went from 118 to almost 170.”

Stern: “And you got her right down again to 118, didn’t you?”

Trump: “Well, she’s going to be there. She’s probably 145 or something.”

Trump adds: “It was an amazing phenomena. She weighed 118 when she won... she was as beautiful a woman as I’ve ever seen. She gained about 55 pounds in a period of nine months. She was like an eating machine.”

“What does a girl eat in less than a year to gain [that]?” Stern asks.

“I think she ate a lot of everything,” replies Trump.

This is what Machado looked like when Trump was arranging for the media to turn up at gyms to watch her work out in order to lose the extra weight.

She’s now appearing in pro-Clinton ads, and spoke with the Guardian’s Lucia Graves about how Trump weight-shaming impacted her life and affected her health and psychological wellbeing.

Donald Trump surrogate Rudy Giuliani declared that Hillary Clinton was “too stupid to be president” for being unaware that Bill Clinton had cheated on her with Monica Lewinsky.

The comments came after Giuliani was asked if Trump was a feminist, and Giuliani noted that Trump didn’t mention Bill Clinton’s affairs, but he thought he should hae.

“I sure would’ve talked about what she did to Monica Lewinsky, what that woman standing there did to Monica Lewinsky, trying to paint her as an insane young woman when in fact Monica Lewinsky was an intern,” Giuliani said.

“The president of the United States, her husband, disgraced this country with what he did in the Oval Office and she didn’t just stand by him, she attacked Monica Lewinsky. And after being married to Bill Clinton for 20 years, if you didn’t know the moment Monica Lewinsky said that Bill Clinton violated her that she was telling the truth, then you’re too stupid to be president.”

Let’s just remember that Guiliani started dating his current wife Judith when he was mayor of New York City and still married to and living with his second wife, Donna Hanover.

Around 81 million viewers tuned into to watch Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton battle it out in last night’s debate, making it the highest rated debate in history, according to new figures from Nielsen.

Nielsen’s figures - which is based on viewers watching one of the 12 channels from home, and does not account for online livestreams, viewing parties in other venues or those watching PBS or C-SPAN - show on average 80.9 million people tuned in.

Those additional viewers that were not counted means the number is significantly higher than the 80.9 million figure, noted Brian Stelter on CNN Money.

Previously the highest ever watched debate was when 81 million watched Jimmy Carter take on Ronald Reagan back in 1980.

In 2012, an average of 70 million voters tuned in to Mitt Romney and Barack Obama’s first debate, says Politico. In 2008, John McCain and Obama’s debate averaged 53 million.

Clinton says she’s trying to prove that “love trumps hate,” as she thanks the crowd and walks off to the strains of Ain’t No Mountain High Enough.

Clinton is attacking Trump in Raleigh abut his comments last night that seemed to insinuate he doesn’t pay federal taxes.

“He actually bragged about gaining the system to get out of the paying his fair share,” notes Clinton.

In last night’s debate, Clinton pushed Donald Trump on why he wasn’t releasing his tax returns, suggesting that perhaps he hadn’t paid any federal income taxes.

“That makes me smart,” replied Trump.

“If not paying taxes makes us smart, what does that make all the rest of us?” asks Clinton in Raleigh on Tuesday.

“I think there’s a strong possibility he hasn’t paid federal taxes for a lot of years. And this is a man who goes around calling our military a disaster... he probably hasn’t paid a penny to support our troops, or our vets, or our schools, or our healthcare systems,” says Clinton .

She says her and husband Bill always pay their taxes, because that’s what Americans should do.

“We pay the highest marginal rate. We try and give 10% to charity. Because we believe in this country. And we believe with the blessings we’ve been given, we should do our part,” adds Clinton.