Given that the Media Research Center’s MRC Latino operation has largely gone defunct, it has fallen to Jorge Bonilla to bash Univision for not being a Spanish-language Fox News. When Univision announced it was doing town halls with both Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, Bonilla’s first instinct was to work the refs a little (though in a surprisingly reasonable manner) in a Sept. 30 post:
Univision is broadcasting presidential town halls with both former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris, to be moderated by Enrique Acevedo. An English-language feed will be made available on YouTube, however, we believe an event of this magnitude should be made available over the air, and accessible to as many viewers as possible.
[…]The forum might be marketed by Univision as “exclusively for Latinos”, but will undoubtedly draw the eyes of the entire nation. This is especially so, given the fact that no additional presidential debates have been agreed upon.
Additionally, Vice President Kamala Harris has been largely unavailable to the press in extended unscripted forums. The town hall will place her in front of voters with direct questions, something the nation hasn’t seen since 2019.
Rather than limiting the English-language feed to Univision’s YouTube channel, the network should do what it did with the English-language versions of the respective interviews with Trump and with President Joe Biden. Each of these aired on sister network UniMás, which is widely accessible both via paid services and over the air.
The electorate at large benefitted from the ability to watch these interviews and would equally benefit from watching these candidates in the unscripted environment that a town hall represents. Univision is in a position to expose broad swaths of the voting American public to these candidates in this environment. In service of the public interest, I call upon the network to broadcast its original English-language feeds on UniMás.
Unsurprisngly, Bonilla reverted to his usual biased form after each event. His Oct. 11 review of the Harris town hall was given the blaring headline “HISPANDERING,” kicking things off with a lot of nitpicking:
Vice President Kamala Harris’s Univision town hall went about as expected. Nothing earth-shattering but with some interesting choices from Univision, and with more unanswered questions than at the beginning. The Regime Media’s coverage of the town hall will include some version of “Harris addressed Latino voters in Las Vegas.” Technically, she did both of these things. But of the nine questioners at this town hall, only ONE was from Las Vegas.
The rest came from such locations as Tampa (FL), San Diego (CA), Deltona (FL), Santa Monica (CA), Yuma (AZ), Beloit (WI) and two persons from Los Angeles. This leaves one wondering whether it is a common practice to fly town hall participants from across the country. Enrique Acevedo moderated this town hall in the truest sense, asking no questions of his own and letting the attendees’ questions set the tone.
Bonilla waited until the end of his post to tepidly debunk a right-wing conspiracy theory about the town hall, though he soft-pedaled it to hide the fact that it was a right-wing conspiracy theory:
Post-town hall, there is some question over whether Harris used a teleprompter during the town hall. I suspect that the teleprompter going viral is there for the moderator. Had Harris’s prompter shut down, she would’ve glitched out á la “32 days.”
Because Harris did well, Bonilla concluded by downplaying its impact: “As far as this town hall went, I suspect it didn’t move the needle with where Hispanics are at on Harris. But it did expose her on immigration and continuity with Joe Biden. Back to the drawing board.”
By contrast, Bonilla’s review of Trump’s Oct. 16 town hall didn’t get the “HISPANDERING” tag (though it can be argued that’s exactly what he was doing), getting only the bland “TRUMP’S TURN” label instead:
Last week, Vice President Kamala Harris attended a town hall hosted by Univision at Las Vegas, Nevada. Former President Donald Trump’s was scheduled earlier in the week but postponed due to potential impacts from Hurricane Milton. Trump’s town hall was rescheduled for tonight, at Univision headquarters in Doral. FL.
There are contrasts in the town halls. In Harris’s case, she got fewer questions which on substance were simpler. Trump drew more substantive questions, as well as some which could well be considered hostile.
It is also necessary to remember that this town hall was supposed to feature persons from battleground states. As with the Harris forum, there were people flown in from California and other non-swing states.
As with his Harris review, this one is peppered with embedded tweets from Bonilla’s Twitter/X account featuring clips from the town hall.In a contrast to his review of the Harris town hall, Bonilla fervently hoped it would “move the needle for Hispanics” toward Trump:
There were 13 audience questions for Trump to Kamala’s 10. Trump’s questions were sharper in comparison to Kamala’s. As was the case with Kamala’s town hall, anchor Enrique Acevedo maintained a hands-off approach, which allowed the candidates to engage the audience directly. Per reports, Trump met with attendees after the conclusion of the event.
Might this event move the needle for Hispanics with Trump? It’s hard to say definitively, but it can’t hurt any time Trump has a mic and is in front of a crowd. Media strategies are going to get very interesting over the next three weeks.
Bonilla would never described Trump’s participation as “HISPANDERING,” though he identified nothing that differentiated Trump’s behavior during it from that of Harris.