#joaquin blaya

[tomorrowusa]

Spanish-language Univision is becoming more MAGA-friendly despite Donald Trump's histrionic talk of vermin, concentration camps, and how immigrants are "poisoning the blood of our country".

The famous Trump Univision interview by Enrique Acevedo has some interesting backstory.

During the hour-long interview, Acevedo allowed the former president — who as recently as 2020 called Univision “a leftist propaganda machine” — to openly pander to Latinos' “entrepreneurial” spirit, and to threaten his political opponents by insinuating he would weaponize the Department of Justice against them if he is re-elected.  This interview adds to concerns that the Spanish-language news giant – which in 2016 cut business ties with Trump and his Miss USA beauty pageant after his racist remarks against Mexicans – is shifting its stance on the former president. The Washington Post reported that “Trump is treating Univision and its new corporate owners like long-lost friends. He hosted a trio of its executives at Mar-a-Lago last week during an hour-long Univision interview that was notable for its gracious tone.”  The report also indicated that TelevisaUnivision Mexico co-CEO Bernardo Gomez Martinez, who has a “long working relationship” with Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, was responsible for facilitating the sit-down. 

Yep, you may have thought Jared had moved on from his working relationship with El Douché but he's still pulling strings for Trump.

[I]n the days that followed Trump’s interview with Acevedo, some network pundits made the case that Trump has “softened” on immigration in an effort “to repair his relationship” with Latinos – flying in the face of the network’s own reporting about his explicitly stated policies and stance on the issue. In the days that followed Trump’s interview, Univision regional and national prime-time shows like Al Punto California, Noticiero Univision, and Linea de Fuego have hosted numerous conservative pundits, including former personalities from Americano Media — the Trump-aligned Spanish-language network that ran out of money earlier this year — to defend the former president and argue that he is aiming for “a change in strategy” on Latinos and immigration.

Either those Univision pundits are living in an alternative reality or word came down from the patrón to go easy on El Douché.

Of course Univision's blatant pandering to a virulent racist and hatemonger is not going unchallenged.

Latino backlash grows over Donald Trump’s friendly Univision interview

The nation’s largest Spanish-language media company, Univision, faced growing backlash Friday for its handling of a recent interview with former president Donald Trump, as major Latino advocacy groups delivered a letter of protest to the network’s executives and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus prepared to request a meeting with the network. Actor and comedian John Leguizamo, who recently took a turn as host of Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show,” also posted a video on Instagram on Thursday night calling for a boycott of the network until it stopped its rejection of Biden ads, some of which were canceled just before the Trump interview aired. “I am asking all my brothers and sisters who are actors, artists, politicians, activists to not go on Univision,” he said in a message in English and Spanish. [ ... ] Joaquin Blaya, a former president of Univision who created its signature news show in the late 1980s, told The Washington Post in an interview this week that he worried the network had moved away from its founding mission. [ ... ] The Mexican media company Grupo Televisa, which has long had a close relationship with political power brokers in that country, recently merged with the owners of Univision to take joint control of the company. “This was Mexican-style news coverage, a repudiation of the concept of separation of business and news,” Blaya said of the Trump interview. “What I saw there was batting practice, someone dropping balls for him to hit out of the park. I think it was an embarrassment.”

What Trump tells MAGA-friendly interviewers from Univision is not what he is telling everybody else. And that interview was heavily edited to make him seem less unpalatable to the audience.

This is the same Trump who called Mexicans "drug dealers", "criminals", and "rapists" and never apologized for his insults nor took them back.

The View conducted a good journalistic dissection of the way the Univision interview took place.