November 16, 2023

Univision, the country's most influential Spanish-language television network, was understandably harsh on Trump and his anti-immigrant policies. With new owners, sounds like they're gonna be best buds -- and that's not good. Via the Washington Post:

Three years later, 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, starting with a question about how well he is doing among Latino voters in early general election polling.

Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner, a friend of one of the executives, helped arrange the interview and was also in the room, according to multiple people familiar with the event.

“All you have to do is look at the owners of Univision. They’re unbelievable entrepreneurial people, and they like me,” Trump said in response to the question about Latino voters.

This is not good. This new relationship is going to present a real problem for Democrats:

The reversal has shocked Democrats — who are preparing a massive ad campaign to brand Trump as hostile to Latino interests — and some journalists inside Univision, who think that the past week has demonstrated the heavy hand of their new corporate bosses. The Mexican media company Grupo Televisa, which has long fostered a close relationship with Mexican political leaders, merged with Univision in 2021.

The Democratic alarm further spiked two days later, when Univision advertising representatives told the Biden campaign that spots already purchased to run during the Trump interview in Nevada, Arizona, Pennsylvania and Florida had been canceled — owing to a heretofore unannounced policy about opposition advertising in single-candidate interviews.

They also canceled a booking with Biden's Hispanic media director to respond to the Trump interview after it aired on the network’s late news broadcast, according to the usual "I don't want to talk because I might lose my job" sources.

It's not going to be easy. Univision is, after all, hugely influential and the largest Spanish-speaking network in the country.

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