Former President Trump on Wednesday fielded questions from Latino voters at a Univision town hall as he seeks to court the key voting bloc in November’s election.
Trump detailed his plans to crack down on immigration if elected, and was asked about his conspiratorial rhetoric around Haitian migrants and plans for the border and the economy during the event, which was held in Miami one week after Vice President Harris attended a similar Univision event in Nevada.
Here are five takeaways from the event.
Trump seeks to appeal to key voting group
Wednesday’s town hall provided Trump with a chance to directly address the concerns of an increasingly important voting bloc.
He opened the town hall with a short statement saying he has done better than any Republican with support from Hispanics and created “a lot of jobs,” which he vowed to do more.
Trump faced a series of often direct questions about key issues, including whether he still thought climate change was a hoax, whether he agreed with his wife’s views on abortion rights and if he could defend his stance on gun rights to the parents of school shooting victims.
Pew Research found that 36.2 million Latinos will be eligible to vote in this year’s election, and it is the second fastest-growing major racial group in the United States. Latino voters will be particularly important in the battleground states of Arizona and Nevada.
A Times/Siena College poll of Hispanic voters published Saturday found 56 percent said they would vote for Harris, while 37 percent said they would vote for Trump.
Exit polls in 2020 showed President Biden won 65 percent of Latino voters, compared to 32 percent who voted for Trump.
Trump pressed on claims about Haitian migrants
One voter identified themselves as a registered Republican who is undecided and asked Trump if he really believed his claims that Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio, were eating pets, despite local officials insisting that is not the case.
Trump doubled down on his claims and suggested migrants like those in Springfield are destroying the country.
“This was just reported. I was just saying what was reported. That’s been reported. And eating other things, too, that they’re not supposed to be,” Trump said.
Trump went on to argue the influx of migrants into towns like Springfield is upsetting long-time residents and putting a strain on local hospitals, schools and other services.
“I think you can’t just destroy our country. Maybe some people disagree with me,” Trump said. “But you can’t put in a very short period of time 32,000 people into a 50,000 people town and expect things to go well. It’s a disaster. It’s a total disaster.”
Haitian migrants have been caught in a political firestorm ever since Trump and his running mate, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), amplified debunked claims about migrants in Springfield abducting and eating pets.
Roughly 15,000 Haitian immigrants have arrived in Springfield, a city of about 60,000 people, in recent years, according to The Associated Press. Many are in the country legally under temporary protected status, which keeps people from being deported to nations in turmoil and allows them to work in the U.S. Trump has threatened to revoke that status.
Trump tells skeptical voter Jan. 6 was ‘day of love’
The former president shrugged off a voter named Ramiro Gonzalez who raised concerns about Trump’s inaction on Jan. 6, his handling of the coronavirus pandemic and the criticism of him by some of his former administration officials.
Trump dismissed the ex-administration officials who have said they won’t support him as a small number of discontented individuals. Former Vice President Mike Pence, former Defense Secretary Mark Esper and former national security adviser John Bolton are among those who have said they won’t back Trump.
On the issue of Jan. 6, when a mob violently clashed with law enforcement at the Capitol to try and halt the certification of President Biden’s 2020 victory, Trump downplayed his role in the mayhem and called it a “day of love.”
“You had hundreds of thousands of people come to Washington. They didn’t come because of me. They came because of the election,” said Trump, who had for weeks spread false claims about the election being fraudulent leading up to the incident. “Some of those people went down to the Capitol peacefully and patriotically. Nothing done wrong at all.”
By the end of his answer, which included attacks on President Biden for refusing to fire staff members, Trump seemed aware he likely did not win over the voter he was addressing.
“I hope someday maybe we’ll get your vote. Sounds like maybe I won’t, but that’s OK, too,” Trump said.
Trump dodges thorny aspects of his plans
Trump repeatedly emphasized his vision for a strong economy with plenty of jobs and low inflation along with a secure border throughout the event, but he on several occasions avoided delving into specifics when attendees pressed him.
At no point did Trump detail his plans for a massive deportation operation to remove illegal immigrants, which has been a central campaign promise.
One attendee, a farmer named Jorge Velázquez, asked Trump about replacing undocumented workers, who are key in picking fruits and vegetables if he carries out his deportation plans.
Trump did not directly address the idea of replacing deported workers or the costs as the farmer asked but instead said his was the best administration for farmers while the current administration has “lost control.” He also argued that Hispanic and Black Americans were losing their jobs to undocumented workers.
The former president also avoided addressing a question from a woman from the suburbs of Chicago about why he pressed Republican lawmakers to sink the bipartisan border legislation that failed to advance in the Senate earlier this year.
Trump spent much of his answer slamming Chicago as having a “horrible mayor” and blaming Democrats for crime in the city. He reiterated that the border was “strong” when he was president.
“Everything the Democrats run is bad,” he said.
Trump offers rare praise for Harris
The former president has relentlessly lobbed personal and demeaning attacks against Harris over the past few months, insulting her intelligence, her laugh and her manner of speaking. But one voter forced Trump to show a different side on Wednesday.
Trump was asked to name three virtues about Harris, something the former president called “the toughest question” of the night. He started by saying he’s “not a fan” and believes Harris has harmed the country “horribly” on the border and inflation.
He eventually called Harris a “survivor,” noting she dropped out of the 2020 Democratic primary before voting even began, but managed to become vice president and eventually the party’s nominee.
Trump complimented Harris for having “some pretty long-time friendships,” and he said the vice president “seems to have a nice way about her.”
“I like the way some of her statement, some of her – the way she behaves, in a certain way, but in another way, I think it’s very bad for our country,” Trump said.
Harris was asked a similar question during her Univision town hall last week, where she said her opponent loves his family, but otherwise could not point to other qualities.
“I don’t really know him. I only met him one time … so I don’t really have much more to offer you.”
