Miss USA on Trump: 'I think that we have freedom of speech in this country, and that's a beautiful right'
"I think that we have freedom of speech in this country, and that's a beautiful right," the 26-year-old blonde-haired, blue-eyed model from Oklahoma told a room of reporters. "And it helps us draw attention to issues that are important, and immigration is certainly an important issue in this country and I think we can all agree on that."
She added: "This organization certainly celebrates diversity and I think that was very clear on this stage tonight. And I look forward to being part of this brand and part of working forward to spread a message of love, diversity, and acceptance."
During the onstage question portion of the competition, Jordan was asked what she thought the next "hot-button issue" would be in the US that needed to be tackled on a national level.
"I think we still need to talk about race relations in this country," Jordan said. "We have not solved this issue. We are still having problems. We keep hearing about new issues coming up. We really need to work on being an accepting society and being a society where every single person, no matter your race, no matter your gender, is given the same rights and privileges and opportunities."
The audience exploded with applause and cheers.
This year's pageant was aired on the little-known cable network ReelzChannel. It was dropped from NBC and Univision because of comments that pageant co-owner Trump made about Mexican immigrants during his presidential-campaign launch last month. He accused the Mexican government of sending "rapists" and they're bringing crime and drugs.
Trump did not attend Sunday evening's pageant, the day after he was in Phoenix campaigning.
Here's the clip of Jordan speaking with reporters: