On Wednesday, October 16th, Republican presidential candidate and former President Donald Trump met with Latino voters at a town hall hosted by Univision in Miami.
Univision is one of the largest Spanish-language media outlets in the United States. Last week, Trump’s rival, Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris, also participated in a town hall program hosted by Univision. This indicates that both candidates are looking to strengthen their connection with Latino voters.
According to a study by the Pew Research Center, Latinos make up about 15% of eligible voters and could influence the outcome in key swing states like Arizona and Nevada.
During this approximately one-hour event, Trump mainly focused on economic promotion to Latino voters. Trump believes that Latino population lived better during his presidency as he created “a lot of job opportunities” and promised to do even better if elected again.
For a long time, the majority of Latino voters have tended to vote for the Democratic Party. However, in the 2024 election, more and more Latino voters may decide to vote for Trump due to his economic policies.
Despite making progress, Trump still faces skepticism from many Latino voters. During the meeting, he addressed sharp questions from voters, including his controversial comments on Haitian immigrants, a review of his first term, and how to address the US federal debt issue.
In recent weeks, Trump has mentioned rumors of Haitian immigrants consuming wild animals or residents’ pets in the town of Springfield, Ohio.
The Mayor of Springfield, Rob Rue, and Ohio Governor Mike DeWine have denied these reports multiple times. However, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost stated, based on police call records, that a witness had seen immigrants in Springfield catching geese for consumption. Some citizens also testified to this in front of the city council.
At the town hall meeting, a Latino Republican party member from Arizona, who had not yet decided his voting intention, asked Trump in Spanish if he truly believed the rumors about immigrants eating pets.
Trump responded, “I’m just relaying what has been reported, it has been reported and they’ve eaten other things. They shouldn’t be doing it. All I did was relay the reports.”
He added, “I will go there, we will go and see, and then I will give you a full report, but it has been in the press, and it has been widely reported.”
One self-proclaimed Republican attendee expressed shock over the events of January 6 and hoped to give Trump a chance to try to win back his vote.
Trump downplayed his role in the chaos, saying, “There were hundreds of thousands of people in Washington. They weren’t there because of me. They were there because of the election.”
“Some people went to the Capitol peacefully, out of patriotism. They did absolutely nothing wrong,” Trump said.
When asked about his mistakes during his first term, Trump mentioned that he had hired some incompetent government officials at the time.
He said, “We had a strong border, the economy was good, we had these things, but I let some people I wouldn’t hire again take office.”
Regarding the plan to repay the federal debt, Trump said that if it wasn’t for the outbreak of COVID-19, leading to tens of billions of dollars in new emergency spending, he could have completed this plan in his first term.
The former president said he would work with the world’s richest man, Elon Musk, to develop a debt repayment plan.
“We will have him take charge. He really wants to do this,” Trump said. “He and his team will work on this, and we will reduce the debt.”
Over the past few months, Trump has repeatedly launched personal attacks on Kamala Harris. However, on Wednesday, Trump showed a different side.
When a voter asked Trump to list three virtues of Harris, the former president jokingly said it was the “toughest question of the night.”
He first stated that he is not a fan of Harris and believes she has “seriously” harmed the United States in terms of borders and inflation.
He eventually mentioned that Harris is able to “survive adversity” and pointed out that she dropped out of the 2020 Democratic primary before voting began but eventually became the Democratic vice presidential nominee and now the Democratic presidential nominee.
Trump praised Harris for having “some quite long-term friendships.”
“I like some of her comments, some of her ways, to some extent,” Trump said.
Last week, Harris was asked a similar question at the Univision town hall meeting, where she said that Trump loves his family, but other than that, she couldn’t point out any other virtues.