Outrage against Univision grows after Trump interview
California Politics
Hannah Wiley Julia WickNov. 19, 2023
Univision has found itself at the center of a growing controversy
in the wake of after
a recent interview with former President Trump that critics have blasted as too friendly.
The interview that aired Nov. 9
was noticeably warm, and Trump received little pushback as he gave false or misleading
statements on border security and immigration policies he instituted as president.
Backlash from certain corners of the Latino community
has been was
swift,
ranging from including
calls for more balanced reporting
to and
an outright boycott of the television network ahead of the 2024 election.
Latinos are considered a
critical crucial
voting bloc and largely up for grabs in next year’s election, likely to be a rematch between Trump and President Biden.
While Although
Latino voters have historically favored Democrats, the Republican Party in recent years has made significant progress in courting their votes
.
The exclusive interview with Trump therefore raised significant alarms within the Democratic Party and its allies
that the leading Republican candidate was making a variety of unchecked claims to important swing voters.
Actor John Leguizamo posted a video to his 1 million Instagram followers Thursday criticizing the Spanish-language media company for “softballing Trump” and reportedly canceling ads for Biden. He said the television network has become “MAGA-vision.”
He implored fellow entertainers, athletes, activists and politicians to join him in boycotting the network until
itthey
reinstated parity, and equality and equity between the presidential candidates.
The television network has also
requested an interview with Biden
, according to the Washington Post.
The more-than-hourlong interview with Trump was conducted by Enrique Acevedo, an anchor from Mexican network Televisa who is not a Univision journalist. The two media groups merged last year. Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner reportedly helped organize the interview.
All you have to do is look at the owners of Univision, Trump said in the first few minutes of the interview when asked about Latino voters and recent polls showing him defeating President Biden in 2024. Theyre unbelievable entrepreneurial people, and they like me.
“They want to see security,” Trump added. “They want to have a border.”
During the interview, Trump made questionable claims that the partial wall built along the southern border was made possible by Mexico providing thousands of soldiers “free of charge,” and that former President
Barack
Obama laid the groundwork for the controversial policy at the border to deter illegal crossings that became known as the family-separation crisis. Acevedo did not push back on either claim.
It wasnt just a friendly interview. It was an embarrassing 1-hour puff-piece with lots of smiles and no pushback with a guy who relished in attacking, belittling and otherizing Latinos and Latin American immigrants, Ana Navarro-Crdenas, a prominent Nicaraguan
–
American political strategist and commentator, said on the platform X, the company formerly known as Twitter.
Len Krauze, a veteran news anchor for Univision, has since resigned from the network. He did not provide a reason for his departure.
State Sen. Susan Rubio (D-Baldwin Park), a member of the California Latino Legislative Caucus who is
currently
running for Congress, said she knew many other Latino leaders who were personally upset about the interview.
Rubio said she was
was
appalled at how the former president was allowed to just continue to spew lies and go unchecked during the conversation. She called the interview
an
“an insult to our entire Latino community.”
Thousands more migrant children likely taken from their families than previously disclosed, report says
The network is absolutely influential in households like hers, she said, describing it as a news source she and her Spanish-speaking parents view as trusted and unbiased.
Our community relies on this information to be truthful. They rely on this source that has been trusted by the Latino community for many, many generations,” she said. “They should have done a better job of making sure that our community is not lied to.
The Congressional Hispanic Caucus
also
plans to send a letter
to send
to the television network requesting a meeting with its
CEO chief executive
, Wade Davis, and calling for stronger guardrails against disinformation, according to a draft copy of the letter reviewed by The Times.
Univision news anchor Len Krauze departs after network’s controversial Trump interviewA group of More than 70 organizations including prominent Latino groups like such as the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, America’s Voice and the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights also signed an open letter to Davis and other TelevisaUnivision executives, sharply criticizing the interview. The letter, first reported by Tthe Post, asks that the network conduct a thorough internal review, take corrective measures, and reaffirm its commitment to unbiased reporting and to keeping the Latino community informed and up-to-date with facts and truth, according to a copy reviewed by The Times.
The controversy is more complicated than what it seems, said Mike Madrid, a GOP political consultant who has a forthcoming book called “The Latino Century: How Americas Largest Minority is Shaping
o O
ur Democracy.”
Madrid, who is a vocal critic of Trump, said the objections to the interview
is are
reflective of how the Democratic Party and other left-leaning organizations have taken Latino voters for granted and relied on the television network to promote their candidates and policies for decades.
Since the late 1980s, Democrats have banked on Latino voters to win elections, Madrid said. But over the last decade, Democrats have begun “hemorrhaging” second- and third-generation Latino voters who are U.S.-born and English-dominant speakers.
Madrid doesn’t dispute that the interview with Trump may have been biased or too cozy, but he said it demonstrates the media company’s shift toward the middle and, therefore, a new Latino audience.
“Where were they for the past 30 years when the Democratic Party was getting softball interviews? The Democrats have taken this base vote for granted. They assumed it was there and Univision would always be in their corner, would always be championing them and advocating for their candidates and policies,” he said. “When youve been the beneficiary of media bias, objectivity sounds like betrayal. Thats whats going on.”
Instead of promoting a boycott of the network, which Madrid called “absolute madness,” Democrats should adjust their strategy and start courting Latino voters on a variety of issues, such as the economy and jobs, rather than just immigration.
“The Democrats have to figure this out very quick that going to war is not in their best interest,” he said. “They are going to have to learn to fight for this vote, when they havent for decades. … And they have less than a year to figure this out.”
Times staff writer Stephen Battaglio contributed to this report.
