With only 15 days to go until the 2024 presidential election, Donald Trump has realized he may be in trouble with Latino voters.
Politics :
Trump is used to speaking exclusively to MAGA crowds that have drunk the Kool-Aid and already signed their lives away to the cult of TrumpWorld. So, it should come as no surprise that things didn’t go well when he had to answer real questions from real Republicans and undecideds who aren’t enamored with his verbal ‘weave’ and don’t hang on his every word.
Last week, Trump participated in a Town Hall sponsored by Univision for undecided Latino voters. The premise was that Trump would answer questions from audience members regarding his policies and plans for the government (should he be elected) so as to help them decide if they should vote for him.
Unlike usual MAGA audiences, Univision’s Latino voters didn’t find it the least bit cute when Trump dodged their questions and refused to give viable answers to anything.
One such exchange that has since gone viral on social media featured Ramiro Gonzalez, a one-time Republican who offered Trump the opportunity to “win back” his vote.
“I want to give you the opportunity to try and win back my vote,” González began. “Your action and maybe inaction, during your presidency and maybe the last few years, sort of, was a little disturbing to me.… What happened during January 6th, and the fact that you know, you waited so long to take action while your supporters were attacking the Capital?
“I’m curious how people so close to you and your administration no longer want to support you, so why would I want to support you?” Gonzalez concluded. “Your own vice president doesn’t want to support you now.”
Trump was clearly not expecting an audience of Latino voters to hold his feet to the fire and ask legitimate questions. So, he quickly switched to his go-to move: the verbal salad ‘weave’ with a dressing of lies.
“You had hundreds of thousands of people come to Washington. They didn’t come because of me, they came because of the election—they thought the election was a rigged election, and that’s why they came,” Trump said, using the canned lie he’s been pushing for 4 years. “Some of those people went down to the Capitol. I said ‘peacefully and patriotically,’ nothing done wrong at all, nothing done wrong.”
Trump then attempted to pull Gonzalez under his spell by referring to the January 6th insurrection as a “day of love.” However, instead of succumbing to the lies, Gonzalez shifted his head in a “you really don’t expect me to believe this bullshit” sort of way. He was backed up by most of the audience, including several female Latino voters who listened to Trump with their arms folded and their facial expressions saying “We’re not buying what you’re selling.”
Not sure we’ve ever seen anything like this before. The audience at Trump’s Univision town hall is visibly showing their disgust over and over for Trump as he lies about January 6. pic.twitter.com/f2pu8pPkj9
— MeidasTouch (@MeidasTouch) October 17, 2024
Following the Univision Town Hall event, other Latino voters let it be known that they were deeply disturbed by Trump and his weak attempts to lie to them while expecting them to believe and support him.
One such voter was registered Republican José Saralegui, who asked Trump to explain his infatuation with conspiracy theories, including the false claim that Haitian migrants have been eating pets in Springfield, Ohio.
“His rhetoric hasn’t changed,” Saralegui said, adding that he didn’t vote for Trump in 2016 or 2020. “I heard the things he was saying about us Mexicans. He’s let it go now — because now he’s going after the poor Haitians — but during the first campaign he painted us as rapists, diseased people, anything you can think of.”
Saralegui said it was clear “how the audience was surprised by Trump’s attitude, his answers,” and how “totally disingenuous” and “arrogant” he appeared.
“I’m a Republican, but I’m going to vote for Vice President Kamala Harris,” he added.
Illinois voter Guadalupe Ramírez said she came to the town hall with an “open mind,” and a desire to hear “directly from the horse’s mouth.” She asked Trump to explain his plans to reform the American immigration system and why he used his influence to tank a bipartisan border bill earlier this year. However, after hearing Trump’s rhetoric and non-answer to her question, she said she’s about 99% sure she will vote for Kamala Harris.
Jorge Velázquez asked Trump to describe his plan for mass deportations and how it might raise the price of produce. Once again, after a verbal salad of lies and dancing around the question, Trump failed to provide a satisfying response — and lost yet another voter.
Trump “didn’t give us concrete answers. He didn’t give anyone convincing answers,” Velázquez said. “He’s humiliating us every time.”
“It was really not a town hall, it was an infomercial in where they brought in audience as props. They did ask tough questions, but of course, he went on to recite his concert of lies without any journalism integrity on the part of the network, without any fact-checking,” former Univision president Joaquín Blaya said of Trump’s appearance.
Are Americans finally waking up to Donald Trump and his years upon years of tired lies and dangerous rhetoric?
OK WASSUP! discusses Politics:
Have Latino voters grown tired of Trump?
AP: Donald Trump took part in a town hall on Wednesday with Univision as part of his campaign’s effort to reach Latino voters. The crowd was made up of undecided registered voters, some of who didn’t speak English. Among them was Ramiro González, a 56-year-old construction worker who lives in Tampa, Florida, and who asked Trump a question about the Jan. 6 attack on the United States Capitol building. González explained that he was once a registered Republican and he said that one thing that really bothered him was the attack on the U.S. Capitol, as well as the fact that people from Trump’s own staff have now come out against him. Trump responded by attacking former Vice President Mike Pence, saying that he didn’t agree with Pence’s refusal to not certify the 2020 election and send it back to the states. He then repeated his frequently used comment that… Read more »