Alicia Machado claps back on Instagram at Donald Trump's campaign of 'cheap lies'

Ever since she came out as a Hillary Clinton supporter, Donald Trump has been attacking Alicia Machado— the Venezuelan-born 1996 Miss Universe winner whom he previously referred to as “Miss Piggy” and “Miss Housekeeping”—falsely suggesting that she has an illicit sex tape floating around that would somehow invalidate her political beliefs.

Rather than merely choosing to take the higher ground and ignore Trump’s obtuse, decidedly un-presidential comments, Machado’s clapping right back at Trump with a few choice words of her own.

“Through his campaign of hate, the Republican candidate insists on discrediting and demoralizing a woman, which is definitively one of his most terrifying characteristics,” Machado wrote in Spanish in an Instagram post this morning. “He seeks to distract attention from his real problems and his incapacity to be the leader of this great country.”

Machado went on to describe her stint as Miss Universe, during which Trump made a point of publicly criticizing her for gaining weight after the pageant and going so far as to organize a press-attended photoshoot of her exercising as a form of “damage control.”

“I will stay standing and sharing my story and my absolute support for Mrs. Clinton in the name of women, my sisters, aunts, grandmothers, cousins, friends and the female community,” Machado wrote. “To my Latinas, and in general, I want to thank you for all of the support, love and respect for my career, my humanity and for my family.”

Here’s an English translation of the post.

The Republican candidate and his campaign are once more generating attacks and insults and trying to revive defamatory and false accusations about my life. All of this has the purpose of intimidating, humiliating and destabilizing me once again. The attacks are calumnies and cheap lies generated with bad intentions. They have no foundation and have been spread by sensationalist media outlets. This, to be sure, isn’t the first time I have faced this kind of situation. Through his campaign of hate, the Republican candidate insists on discrediting and demoralizing a woman, which is definitively one of his most terrifying characteristics. With this, he seeks to distract attention from his real problems and his incapacity to be the leader of this great country.

When I was younger, [Trump] humiliated me, insulted me and disrespected me publicly, as he had usually done privately and in the cruelest way. Just as this happened to me, it is clear that over the years, his actions and conduct have been repeated with other women over decades. Therefore, I will stay standing and sharing my story and my absolute support for Mrs. Clinton in the name of women, my sisters, aunts, grandmothers, cousins, friends and the female community. To my Latinas, and in general, I want to thank you for all of the support, love and respect for my career, my humanity and for my family. I became a citizen of this great country because it is where my daughter was born and because I wanted to exercise all of my rights—including the right to vote.

I will continue to stand up, firm in my experience as Miss Universe, and with your support. I have been so pleased to hear so many of your kind words, and to receive so much love. I am focusing on my career and my work as a mother and I am going to continue taking positive steps for the Latino community, and as an activist for the rights of women and for the respect we deserve. I appreciate all of your love and support once more. Thank you.