Speaker 1: I am transgender. When I saw that Trump was winning tonight,
Speaker 1: I came to a realization.
Speaker 2: Which was that I was terrified as there would be
Speaker 2: people empowered by this election who would want to hurt me.
Speaker 1: This is one of the day for our country. It's
Speaker 1: wonderful day for patriots.
Speaker 3: Love constitution.
Speaker 4: So my TikTok family. So I just had a very
Speaker 4: difficult conversation with my daughters. One is crying and I
Speaker 4: had to keep telling her It's going to be okay.
Speaker 5: Dear listener, geig egdy them. This week has been quite
Speaker 5: a moment that our country is still processing.
Speaker 6: NBC News can now project that Donald Trump's he is
Speaker 6: the winner of this race and returned to the White House,
Speaker 6: is this country's forty seventh president.
Speaker 7: One of the very important keys to Donald Trump's victory
Speaker 7: was getting a larger share of votes from tinos or CBOs.
Speaker 5: Donald Trump will be President of the United States again.
Speaker 5: This is the same candidate who began his run for
Speaker 5: the White House by insulting Mexican immigrants in twenty fifteen
Speaker 5: and allowed Puerto Rico to be called an island full
Speaker 5: of garbage just a few days ago. This election cycle,
Speaker 5: Trump used lies and hate speech to win over voters,
Speaker 5: survived two assassination attempts, and will return to office as
Speaker 5: a convicted felon after a stunning victory with an impressive
Speaker 5: larger support from Latinos and Latina voters than in twenty
Speaker 5: sixteen and in twenty twenty. But considering what we at
Speaker 5: Futuro Media have seen on the ground, this result is
Speaker 5: not totally unexpected. For the past year, we've been bringing
Speaker 5: you different stories as part of our special election coverage,
Speaker 5: which we called the Latino Factor How We Vote. We
Speaker 5: covered the key issues impacting this election, and with each
Speaker 5: story we were able to sense that Latinos and Latinas
Speaker 5: were trending towards the right, towards Donald Trump, and we acknowledged,
Speaker 5: of course, that our community is not and has never
Speaker 5: been a monolith. There are Latinos and Latinas who are
Speaker 5: overjoyed that Donald Trump will have another term in office,
Speaker 5: and there are many of us who are in fear,
Speaker 5: who are angry, and who are preparing for the worst.
Speaker 5: So today we're going to start off our show by
Speaker 5: taking you on my very own journey on election Day,
Speaker 5: and then we're going to analyze just how we got here. Now,
Speaker 5: while for many people, election day ended on a dark
Speaker 5: note here in Harlem, in my community, it didn't start
Speaker 5: that way. Well, it's five twenty eight and I just
Speaker 5: woke up two minutes before my alarm is set to
Speaker 5: go off. Dear listener, It's November fifth, It's election day,
Speaker 5: and I didn't sleep well because, like many of you
Speaker 5: across the country, I was anxious. I kept on tossing
Speaker 5: and turning. But you know, here we are today's day.
Speaker 8: It is five point fifty seven.
Speaker 5: Walking out the door, so I'm heading off to my
Speaker 5: Pulling precinct, and you know, I've got a little skip
Speaker 5: in my walk because i live in Harlem, a historically
Speaker 5: black community, and a black woman is running for the presidency.
Speaker 8: And it's a beautiful day. Oh my gosh, it's beautiful
Speaker 8: out here. Wow.
Speaker 5: Okay, So pulling up to the precinct, which is actually
Speaker 5: a school, I see that there's like maybe a dozen
Speaker 5: people ahead of me. Yo, y'all are some serious early birds?
Speaker 8: Are you excited about quoting? Today? Everybody up to vote
Speaker 8: this morning? Love that?
Speaker 5: And now it's my turn to vote. We have just
Speaker 5: in the ballot, so the mission is accomplished, and I'm
Speaker 5: feeling relieved. I'm feeling excited about the day, and I
Speaker 5: you know, I want to talk to some of the
Speaker 5: folks out here, see how they're doing. How are you
Speaker 5: feeling about today. I'm optimistic Kawana Malloyd, though she's letting
Speaker 5: on that she's feeling a sense of dread too. You
Speaker 5: seeing election boxes being blown up and things like that. So, yeah,
Speaker 5: Kawana is talking about ballot boxes being set on fire
Speaker 5: in Washington State and in Oregon. But it didn't mean
Speaker 5: that that was going to stop her from coming out
Speaker 5: here to vote. And it didn't stop forty two year
Speaker 5: old Robert he didn't want to tell us his last name.
Speaker 8: Though.
Speaker 5: It was about protecting the rights of women, them having
Speaker 5: a choice of voice in terms of automoy to their
Speaker 5: own bodies and things like that, most importantly, and it
Speaker 5: didn't stop Ramon Bargas, who's ninety one years old, who
Speaker 5: told me that his primary issue for coming out to
Speaker 5: vote was defending women's rights. He thinks that if a
Speaker 5: woman's life is in danger, abortion should be a legal option.
Speaker 8: So I'm just remaining cool, calm.
Speaker 5: So like you, dear listener, you were probably feeling excited,
Speaker 5: maybe feeling cool and calm on election day, but as
Speaker 5: the day progressed, that feeling would dissipate and the day
Speaker 5: would become much darker. From futuro Media and PRX it's
Speaker 5: Latino Usa, I'm Mariao Hosa Today, a special episode on
Speaker 5: this week's historic election in collaboration with Futuro Media's In
Speaker 5: the Thick podcast, So Dear listener. Around the same time
Speaker 5: that I was waking up on election Day, so were
Speaker 5: the concer struction workers in the battleground state of Pennsylvania
Speaker 5: with its nineteen electoral votes. Whoever gets this state will
Speaker 5: likely win this election. Sehio, a construction worker, is the
Speaker 5: father of two US citizens his children, and today he's
Speaker 5: getting ready to go to work. But on this day,
Speaker 5: producer Ariel Goodman is visiting him in his home. Seedho
Speaker 5: is originally from Mexico. He's worked for twenty years building
Speaker 5: the city of Philadelphia lane sheet rock, fixing houses. But
Speaker 5: while his hands have helped build this city, he's actually
Speaker 5: unable to cast a vote to determine its future, to
Speaker 5: determine his family's future system we pull up to Sejo's
Speaker 5: work site today. It's a house that has been gutted
Speaker 5: down to the bones. Sehio tells us that he's worried
Speaker 5: about what a future could look like under Donald Trump,
Speaker 5: who has promised a sweeping mass deportation campaign.
Speaker 2: Reportation poor K's come.
Speaker 5: On, Serio says, deportation destroys you psychologically. Then Setio's wife,
Speaker 5: Maria says the hate from Trump only makes her stronger.
Speaker 5: Maria says that strength is in our dna. We learn
Speaker 5: to survive no matter where we are.
Speaker 6: Hia, Yes, valor forstems.
Speaker 5: As election day unfolds. Another place on people's minds is
Speaker 5: the state of Florida. This past May, a six week
Speaker 5: abortion ban went into effect in the state of Florida. Now,
Speaker 5: that is one of the strictest bands in the nation,
Speaker 5: and it sparked a political fight in the state that
Speaker 5: involved a lot of Latinos and Latinas. So I'm calling
Speaker 5: dere saguzmain at Florida Rising, which is a statewide political
Speaker 5: organization dedicated to building power in communities of color. So
Speaker 5: it is now ten thirty nine in the morning on
Speaker 5: the East Coast. Can you tell us what that feels
Speaker 5: like in terms of Saint Petersburg, Florida, where you are
Speaker 5: right now, We have.
Speaker 9: Been able to build a coalition of people that are Latino, Black,
Speaker 9: all kinds of folk really invested in this idea that
Speaker 9: we all have bodily autonomy and that we believe that
Speaker 9: our laws should reflect that.
Speaker 5: If Florida voters vote for Amendment four, they would overturn
Speaker 5: the six week abortion ban. Chiao Balleerro is with the
Speaker 5: National Latina Institute for Reproductive Justice.
Speaker 8: She's in Miami.
Speaker 6: What we're finding in the work that we're doing in
Speaker 6: Spanish speaking communities in very conservative areas is that there
Speaker 6: is overwhelming support for this, regardless of party affiliation.
Speaker 5: Back in New York City, it's early afternoon, it's still
Speaker 5: a gorgeous day, and I'm going over to Columbia University
Speaker 5: for the encampments. This was an open campus. There were
Speaker 5: people from the community who would walk through here, parents
Speaker 5: and kids, people would walk their dogs like me. So
Speaker 5: students at Columbia Universe built an encampment on the campus
Speaker 5: to protest Israel's war on Gaza and the university's investment
Speaker 5: in Israel. And ever since then the campus has become closed.
Speaker 5: So we have come to talk to some students see
Speaker 5: how they're feeling. I ran into Dimitri. He's from the
Speaker 5: battleground state of Michigan. He voted by absentee ballot.
Speaker 8: So how important has what.
Speaker 5: Happened on this campus in terms of the encampments influencing.
Speaker 8: You as a student.
Speaker 3: I would never begrudge anyone for withholding their vote for
Speaker 3: Harris at this point because of the policies in the
Speaker 3: Middle East. I don't believe in everything that Harris stands for,
Speaker 3: but obviously she's getting my vote because the alternative is
Speaker 3: not an alternative.
Speaker 5: During the primaries, Michigan voters sent a strong message to
Speaker 5: Democrats about their disapproval of the Biden Harris administration stance
Speaker 5: on the war on Gaza by voting uncommitted in those primaries.
Speaker 5: It's the middle of election day, and so I called
Speaker 5: a leader of that movement.
Speaker 7: My name is Roe Roman. I'm a Georgia state representative,
Speaker 7: and I'm speaking to you from Georgia.
Speaker 5: Representative Roman is the first Palestinian to ever be elected
Speaker 5: to the state government of Georgia.
Speaker 7: I want to be clear things are not good now,
Speaker 7: like with student protesters and police departments coming after them
Speaker 7: and violently arresting them and violently displacing their encampments and stuff.
Speaker 7: For the difference is that it's not on a federal level. Now,
Speaker 7: take everything you're seeing and not only federalizing it, but
Speaker 7: making it even worse. And my worries that under a
Speaker 7: Trump presidency, that's what's going to happen.
Speaker 5: She tells me she voted for Harris, but then says,
Speaker 5: regardless of who wins.
Speaker 7: We're going to keep pressuring our elected officials. For me,
Speaker 7: voting is the beginning of a conversation.
Speaker 5: But in this election, a group that has been central
Speaker 5: to that conversation, yet perhaps the most misunderstood group is Yes,
Speaker 5: Latinos and Latiness. So I'm going to call Marisa Franco
Speaker 5: in Phoenix, Arizona.
Speaker 10: I'm the national director from MIHINTA, which is a national
Speaker 10: LATINX and Chica next organization fighting for economic, racial, gender,
Speaker 10: climate justice.
Speaker 5: Madisa helped to build the coalition of grassroots organizations that
Speaker 5: flipped Arizona blue in twenty twenty for the first time
Speaker 5: in decades. But in this election, the state is projected
Speaker 5: to go for Trump, and Mariisa says that for her
Speaker 5: community right now, everything is on the line.
Speaker 10: What's at stake is a full throttle backwards motion. We'll
Speaker 10: be fighting to protect things that were won by our
Speaker 10: predecessors decades ago. We will be fighting to keep reforms
Speaker 10: one that weren't enough, and we will be really in
Speaker 10: a fight to defend ourselves to prevent more harm.
Speaker 5: Mariisa is saying that she's feeling like there could be
Speaker 5: a Trump victory and that this for Marisa and her
Speaker 5: community would be dire.
Speaker 10: I understand Trump as a manifestation of a legacy that
Speaker 10: is ugly in this country, and I think the changes
Speaker 10: that they'll look to do inside of the executive branch
Speaker 10: and the judicial branch will damn us for decades to come.
Speaker 5: It's now getting darker in New York City. The polls
Speaker 5: start closing in several states, the results start coming in,
Speaker 5: and we hear that Florida has been called for Trump,
Speaker 5: and that Miami Dade County, which was reliably blue, has
Speaker 5: now gone Republican for the first time since nineteen eighty eight.
Speaker 5: So my mood is beginning to feel a little bit different.
Speaker 5: We're making our way now to the Bronx, to the
Speaker 5: South Bronx, specifically to a restaurant named Sona Deekua.
Speaker 11: To go talk to.
Speaker 5: Fernandoadeo is a Trump supporter and is the owner of Sonadgo.
Speaker 5: Fernando Matteo and I met back in the nineteen nineties
Speaker 5: when I was reporting about his work giving toys for guns,
Speaker 5: but I haven't seen him in a couple of decades. Tonight,
Speaker 5: at his restaurant, people can come to the restaurant and
Speaker 5: either order a blue plate if they're supporting Harris, or
Speaker 5: they can order a red plate if they're supporting Trump.
Speaker 8: So why did you decide to have the red dishes
Speaker 8: and the blue dishes for Election night?
Speaker 12: Trump came to the Bronx a few times, so I
Speaker 12: wanted to know where he stood right now. And to
Speaker 12: be quite honest with you, we have so more Trump
Speaker 12: dishes than we have Camelot dishes.
Speaker 8: So what does that say to you about Latinos.
Speaker 4: And the Bronx.
Speaker 12: I think that Latinos are tired of the same rhetoric.
Speaker 12: I think that they want something new, they want opportunity,
Speaker 12: and they believe that Trump is a that's going to
Speaker 12: bring the opportunity.
Speaker 5: So to be clear, for Nanda, you're one hundred percent
Speaker 5: on board with a nasty importation policy.
Speaker 12: No, no, I'm not on board with anything that's going
Speaker 12: to hurt our community. I'm on board with the direction
Speaker 12: that I like the country to go in. I'm on
Speaker 12: board for the economy, I'm on board for opportunity.
Speaker 5: Before I leave, Fernando kind of points a finger at
Speaker 5: me and says he wants to tell me his prediction.
Speaker 12: I honestly believe that he is going to be president
Speaker 12: of the United States, whether.
Speaker 10: You like it or not.
Speaker 8: It's about ten o'clock.
Speaker 5: I'm going to head back home, and it's definitive that
Speaker 5: Trump is leading now. Of course, nothing feels final, but
Speaker 5: my excitement from the beginning of the morning. It's definitely changing.
Speaker 11: We've got quite a few battlegrounds still pending tonight.
Speaker 9: Pennsylvania the biggest prize, eighty four percent of the vote,
Speaker 9: and it is too close to Colin.
Speaker 5: So I'm home now and I'm getting into bed with
Speaker 5: my three puppies. I feel very unsure of what's gonna
Speaker 5: happen overnight, and I force myself to close my eyes
Speaker 5: and get some sleep. Now, at seven point thirty, I
Speaker 5: finally decided I had to look and see what happened,
Speaker 5: and I'm.
Speaker 8: Scared and I just don't want to live in fear.
Speaker 5: Coming up on Latino USA, a much needed roundtable conversation
Speaker 5: to dissect what happened. I'll be joined by journalist paul Ramos,
Speaker 5: my co host from In the Thick. Also joining me
Speaker 5: is Jin Guerrero, an opinion writer for The New York Times,
Speaker 5: and Jamille Smith, the editor in chief of The Emancipator.
Speaker 8: We're gonna look at Trump's victory and how he got here.
Speaker 5: Stay with us not by yes, Hey, dear listener, Welcome
Speaker 5: back to Latino USA. On this special election episode in
Speaker 5: collaboration with Futuro Media's political podcast In the Thick, We're
Speaker 5: going to turn out to our roundtable to unpack the
Speaker 5: results and how and why Trump was able to reclaim
Speaker 5: the presidency with substantial Latino support. We're joined by Gin Guerrero,
Speaker 5: journalist and contributing an opinion writer for The New York Times.
Speaker 8: Welcome back to the show.
Speaker 5: Gen, good to be here, Maria, and by Jamil Smith,
Speaker 5: editor in chief of The Emancipator.
Speaker 8: Welcome back to.
Speaker 13: You, Jamil, Thank you for having me.
Speaker 8: And we're going to welcome.
Speaker 5: Paula Ramo's journalist and author and one of my co
Speaker 5: anchors at In the Thick, hey, Madia, And by now
Speaker 5: everybody knows that Donald Trump has been declared the winner.
Speaker 5: He surpassed the two hundred and seventy electoral votes needed.
Speaker 5: He's becoming the first US president with a felony conviction
Speaker 5: and the second one to win a non consecutive reelection.
Speaker 5: But let's start the way we always start our politics conversations,
Speaker 5: which is with a temperature check.
Speaker 14: I e.
Speaker 8: How you're feeling.
Speaker 5: This is a challenging question, but we're going to start
Speaker 5: with you, Jene Gomas. What's your temperature check?
Speaker 1: Right now?
Speaker 11: I'm feeling that this is a profoundly dark and depressing moment,
Speaker 11: and I'm clear eyed on the fact that this is
Speaker 11: a victory for fascism. But I refuse to give in
Speaker 11: to despair. I wrote a piece recently in response to
Speaker 11: the racist comments about Puerto Rico at Madison Square Garden,
Speaker 11: where I wrote that I learned to be American from
Speaker 11: my Puerto Rican mother, who taught me to love this
Speaker 11: country and to work hard for this country and to
Speaker 11: defend the vulnerable in this country. And if I'm being honest, Maddy,
Speaker 11: it feels very hard to love this country today. But
Speaker 11: I am going to choose love, because I know that
Speaker 11: it's exactly what the demagogues don't want. They don't want
Speaker 11: us to keep fighting for a vision of America where
Speaker 11: all people are created equal.
Speaker 8: Also, we know, Gene, that you like to dance and
Speaker 8: you like to get on that skateboard, so I know.
Speaker 5: That you'll be doing I'm going to be doing a lot.
Speaker 5: You'll be doing that a lot. Jamille, what's your temperature check?
Speaker 1: Hot?
Speaker 13: Very hot? I would say, both in the terms of
Speaker 13: being hot headed and the fact that it's more than
Speaker 13: seventy degrees here in Boston in November, so you know,
Speaker 13: both in a physical sense and a spiritual sense. I
Speaker 13: would say also that despondent is similarly to my friend Gene.
Speaker 13: I'm also looking for ways to focus this emotion into
Speaker 13: productive outcomes. And today we have to rest, we have
Speaker 13: to grieve, and we have to rebuild and resist, and
Speaker 13: the amount of time we spend on each of those
Speaker 13: things is going to vary depending upon how we feel.
Speaker 13: But we do need to make sure that we take
Speaker 13: care of ourselves and those we love and those we
Speaker 13: care for in those frankly who we represent.
Speaker 8: Paula, what's your temperature check?
Speaker 14: Loug Maria I spent watching the results with several mixed
Speaker 14: status families, young Latinos, US born Latinos whose parents aren't
Speaker 14: documented moms have DAKA, and I have to tell you,
Speaker 14: within three hours, they went from feeling extremely hopeful from
Speaker 14: finally believing that in Harris there was the possibility of
Speaker 14: seeing real changes, and then the mood changed completely, and
Speaker 14: I think the reality kicked in in a very visceral way,
Speaker 14: and their faces, some of them, turned into tears because
Speaker 14: I think even some people that I spoke to were
Speaker 14: contemplating the possibility of even self deporting, and parents that
Speaker 14: were thinking about going back to Mexico, and families that
Speaker 14: were contemplating separating, moms that were thinking about this question
Speaker 14: that they hadn't thought since the days of share Jarpaya,
Speaker 14: which is who will have custody of my children? And
Speaker 14: so it's a lot of mixed emotions, a lot of
Speaker 14: mixed emotions.
Speaker 5: For me, I'm feeling a lot of responsibility in the
Speaker 5: sense of, you know, people turned to Latino USA. They
Speaker 5: turned to in the thick not only to be educated
Speaker 5: and informed, but also to kind of receive a light
Speaker 5: from us. And so I'm pretty gutted although this is not.
Speaker 5: I'm not blindsided because our reporting was basically pointing to this.
Speaker 5: But I'm giving myself a little bit of grace as
Speaker 5: we kind of process, because you know, I'm not going anywhere, right,
Speaker 5: I mean, what's our lemma here is yes. So we're
Speaker 5: not going anywhere, and we just have to figure out
Speaker 5: how we do better journalism over the next four years.
Speaker 5: Let's talk about some of the results.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 5: Trump managed to swing back states that Biden had won
Speaker 5: in twenty twenty, including Yes, Georgia, Wisconsin, Michigan, and the
Speaker 5: ever important Pennsylvania. But even in states where Kamala Harris
Speaker 5: did win, like New Mexico and Virginia, the victory margin
Speaker 5: was still slimmer than Biden's four years ago, and results
Speaker 5: from counties wide have indicated the same thing, essentially a
Speaker 5: shift to the right. I would say, a shift towards
Speaker 5: believing in what the right is.
Speaker 8: Telling you to believe. Jamille, We're going to start with you.
Speaker 5: You know, we're hearing that this could be explained by
Speaker 5: so many things, right, sexism, racism, because Harris didn't break
Speaker 5: with Biden on certain issues, for example, like the cost
Speaker 5: of living or GASA. So what's your analysis of how
Speaker 5: Trump was able to retake power.
Speaker 13: Well, first, about Vice President Harris, I certainly think it
Speaker 13: was unrealistic to expect her to break with President Biden
Speaker 13: on virtually anything. She's still a part of the administration,
Speaker 13: She's still trying to achieve the goals of his administration,
Speaker 13: and we obviously have incredibly sensitive, to put it mildly
Speaker 13: situation happening in the Middle East, not just with Israel
Speaker 13: and Gaza, but also not Lebanon and all the other
Speaker 13: countries that are involved in these conflicts. So to expect
Speaker 13: her to radically depart from that, even if it would
Speaker 13: have been the right right thing to do, certainly I
Speaker 13: thought was not particularly realistic part of of voters to expect.
Speaker 13: But I would say this maximizing America's potential as an
Speaker 13: experiment for me has always been about something that the
Speaker 13: founders that clearly never envisioned, and that's forming a multicultural society,
Speaker 13: you know, that embraces and celebrates the ways in which
Speaker 13: we are different. So this is an idea that Trump's
Speaker 13: voters have soundly rejected. This is not twenty sixteen, This
Speaker 13: is not folks voting for their favorite celebrity. No, this
Speaker 13: is a person we all know by now, and voters
Speaker 13: chose him. And listen, the information is out there. There's
Speaker 13: more information available to human beings that at any other
Speaker 13: time in the history of the world. And so I
Speaker 13: do think that that is a challenge for us as journalists.
Speaker 13: How do we get the right information in front of people,
Speaker 13: and how do we help them understand what are facts
Speaker 13: and not facts? And how do we prevent the next demagogue?
Speaker 5: And I got some of this sense from the year
Speaker 5: long reporting we've been doing for our special coverage here
Speaker 5: on Latino USA. It's called the Latino Factor, How we Vote.
Speaker 5: We're talking about specifically the issues that Latinos were saying
Speaker 5: we're going to impact their vote, abortion, the economy, misinformation, democracy, immigration.
Speaker 5: We know now from the exit polls that these issues
Speaker 5: indeed determined the vote for thousands of voters around the country,
Speaker 5: of course, including Latinos. So I want to talk about
Speaker 5: Florida for a second. Now, I did spend some time
Speaker 5: there just about a month or two before the election,
Speaker 5: and so it wasn't a surprise that Donald Trump took
Speaker 5: the state. I mean a little bit of a surprise
Speaker 5: for Miami Dade to go read. So Trump won Florida
Speaker 5: in twenty twenty, and we saw from the data that
Speaker 5: almost every county in the state now actually went more
Speaker 5: to the right. So let's listen to some tape when
Speaker 5: I was in South Florida reporting on misinformation targeting Latino
Speaker 5: voters in Spanish. As we saw before, when Elon Musk
Speaker 5: shares a fake photo of Kamala Harris in a communist
Speaker 5: get up, it passes off as a meme. Some people
Speaker 5: might laugh, but on the ground it has a real
Speaker 5: impact from the neighborhoods of Miami a Kamala Harris presidency.
Speaker 8: What concerns you about that, well said some socialism.
Speaker 5: Yes, I believe that Kamala Harris elected would lead to socialism.
Speaker 8: I think so, but I tell you I'm not complete
Speaker 8: in form.
Speaker 5: It happened, actually, Jamille, I remember when I was reporting
Speaker 5: about this back in twenty fourteen, twenty fifteen, and the
Speaker 5: misinformation was being really directed at black voters at that time,
Speaker 5: and the misinformation was like, you don't need to vote,
Speaker 5: your vote doesn't matter who cares, don't vote.
Speaker 8: The turn to really.
Speaker 5: Focusing on Latino voters and massively inundating with misinformation has
Speaker 5: been something that we've witnessed Gene. So, how do you
Speaker 5: understand the impact of this misinformation this vote in this election.
Speaker 11: I think it was one of the main contributing factors
Speaker 11: to what we're seeing as far as Latino support for Trump, which,
Speaker 11: by the way, I think it's worth mentioning that a
Speaker 11: majority of Latino still voted for Harris. But disinformation I
Speaker 11: think has played a huge role in determining the outcome
Speaker 11: of this election. I mean, just the other day, I
Speaker 11: was talking to my Puerto Rican cousin in Pennsylvania because
Speaker 11: I noticed that she was sharing some misinformation about Kamala
Speaker 11: Harris enabling sex trafficking of children at the border. I've
Speaker 11: reported previously on like this misinformation, this QAnon border variant
Speaker 11: about sex trafficking at the border, and how it's being
Speaker 11: hugely overstated. But despite being my family, despite following my reporting,
Speaker 11: they're still falling victim to this propaganda, to this disinformation.
Speaker 11: And I think it's a huge challenge, and it speaks
Speaker 11: to the influence of people like Elon Musk in a selection.
Speaker 11: I really do believe that these tech moguls have completely
Speaker 11: destabilized our democracy and it's become such a challenge for
Speaker 11: the media to fight back.
Speaker 5: So, Baola, let's get into the impact of different voting groups,
Speaker 5: because while it was white men and women that overwhelmingly
Speaker 5: came out for Trump, the exit polls showed that Trump
Speaker 5: did make those real gains with young voters, with Latino voters,
Speaker 5: black voters. And when it comes to the Latino vote,
Speaker 5: some voters said that they cast a vote for Trump
Speaker 5: in order to protect democracy, while others said they saw
Speaker 5: him as a threat to democracy. So tell us about
Speaker 5: your reporting in terms of Latino's moving to the right.
Speaker 5: How do we understand this Latino vote?
Speaker 14: Well, look, I think the point right now as we're
Speaker 14: sort of taking this in is to be very open
Speaker 14: and be very curious and have no assumptions. And I
Speaker 14: think what you said right now is the key.
Speaker 1: We believed, we have believed that.
Speaker 14: Someone like Donald Trump, with his anti immigrant rhetoric, would
Speaker 14: sort of push away Latinos and immigrant families. But I
Speaker 14: think if we've learned anything from this election, is that
Speaker 14: even that assumption is wrong, right, because what we know
Speaker 14: at this point is that there is a significant amount
Speaker 14: of Latinos that were not insulted by Donald Trump's antimegrant rhetoric. Right,
Speaker 14: that were not alarmed by his words saying that she
Speaker 14: wanted mass deportations, and that in fact, perhaps perhaps they
Speaker 14: see themselves more aligned with white America with this idea
Speaker 14: of what it means to be American then they do
Speaker 14: with their immigrant roots. And that is a harsh thing
Speaker 14: and a hard reality to take in. But that is
Speaker 14: something I think at this point we have to confront.
Speaker 14: And by us, I don't just mean us as journalists,
Speaker 14: I particularly also mean and I throw this back to
Speaker 14: the Democratic Party that has to really recognize and understand
Speaker 14: and listen with curiosity to what Latinos are saying, to
Speaker 14: how we are evolving to this big difference that really
Speaker 14: resonated with them, which is that Trump's US versus Them
Speaker 14: game really really really worked.
Speaker 5: You know, Paola, One of the things that we were
Speaker 5: reporting is that Latinos were really connected to the issue
Speaker 5: of the economy and President Biden and the notion that
Speaker 5: President Trump, especially among Latinos and Latinas, is really held
Speaker 5: up as the example of a great businessman, even though
Speaker 5: there are six bankruptcies, right, So, how do we understand
Speaker 5: how deeply connected to the issue of the economy Latino
Speaker 5: voters felt. What would you say to the Democratic Party
Speaker 5: in terms of their missing out the opportunity to talk
Speaker 5: about the economy in a different way that might have
Speaker 5: led to a different result.
Speaker 14: I think for so long what Democrats were trying to
Speaker 14: say is like, look, Republicans are trying to really paint
Speaker 14: a negative picture of the economy. But look at the facts, right,
Speaker 14: Wages are up, the economy is of Unemployment is down.
Speaker 14: Inflation has been a persistent issue, but it has come down.
Speaker 14: And I think they really, really really tried to push
Speaker 14: that message. But I think what Donald Trump did was
Speaker 14: simply sort of break through that noise in a very
Speaker 14: simple way, with a very simple language that may be
Speaker 14: hard to understand, but it just went like this, look,
Speaker 14: I am just like you. This is what he told
Speaker 14: a group of after Latinos in the Bronx a couple
Speaker 14: of weeks ago. She walked into a hair salon and
Speaker 14: he said, I am just like you. Just so wif
Speaker 14: yo stas right. I am a businessman, but I can
Speaker 14: help you guys because we all come from the same
Speaker 14: same place. That is not true, that is not accurate,
Speaker 14: but it is simple language that seems to have resonated.
Speaker 14: And again it's like we're kind of staring at this
Speaker 14: map that's full of contradictions. But I think what I
Speaker 14: keep coming down to is the simplicity of his message, right,
Speaker 14: the simplicity of his radical message broke through.
Speaker 8: It worked, Jamille.
Speaker 5: In the lead up to the election, there was a
Speaker 5: lot of talk about black men moving to the right,
Speaker 5: and in some key swing states, Trump did in fact
Speaker 5: make gains. Wisconsin, for example, Trump got twenty one percent
Speaker 5: of the black vote. That's compared to just eight percent
Speaker 5: in twenty twenty. That's a pretty big jump. Of course,
Speaker 5: the group overwhelming these still came out for Harris. But
Speaker 5: what does all of this signal about the concerns of
Speaker 5: the electorate and the Democratic Party's ability to connect with
Speaker 5: their most important base, Black voters.
Speaker 13: Well, I mentioned the word toxic earlier, and I think
Speaker 13: that this is part of it. And speaking as a
Speaker 13: black man, I feel that obviously I don't speak for
Speaker 13: all of us, but I do think that there is
Speaker 13: an element within black male communities, black male groups, where
Speaker 13: we feel that we can't accept black women in leadership.
Speaker 13: So I think that that is, let's just go to
Speaker 13: the heart of it, that's part of it. Then we
Speaker 13: have the fact that. Frankly, Trump appealed to a lot
Speaker 13: of biases. And you know, we heard folks on black
Speaker 13: radio talking about how well we don't want to have
Speaker 13: Kamala pain for or a person in prison to get
Speaker 13: a gender reassignments. Well, actually that was Trump's policy, but
Speaker 13: he lied about in an ad, played it on every
Speaker 13: football game for weeks, and lots of folks saw it
Speaker 13: and bought it without doing any investigation for themselves or
Speaker 13: any critical thinking. So this is not necessarily about Trump
Speaker 13: holding a watch and swaying it and hypnotizing a bunch
Speaker 13: of folks of color and getting them to vote for him. No,
Speaker 13: it is about the fact that there is a lot
Speaker 13: of folks who do not feel that this country serves
Speaker 13: their interests, do not feel that politics work for them.
Speaker 13: This is something that Trump feeds upon.
Speaker 5: Baula, How do you see this notion of Latinos kind
Speaker 5: of putting their eggs in the basket with Donald Trump
Speaker 5: because he represents this image of what America is supposed
Speaker 5: to be straight, white, wealthy man, businessman, etc. How does
Speaker 5: this play into what happened?
Speaker 14: I mean, isn't that an image that we've been sort
Speaker 14: of taught to adore and romanticize in the fifteenth century.
Speaker 14: It is a familiar image to us because that's precisely
Speaker 14: what the Spanish colonizers did the moment that they walked
Speaker 14: into Latin America. The institutionalized a cast system and gave
Speaker 14: place to mestisake, creating the sort of permission structure within
Speaker 14: our community to always draw a direct line to whiteness,
Speaker 14: no matter who we are, no matter how dark our
Speaker 14: skin color is, no matter our ethnic background. And we've
Speaker 14: always had the sort of permission structure to draw that
Speaker 14: direct line to whiteness. And in a United States where
Speaker 14: we've sort of been taught to see race and these
Speaker 14: binaries where Latinas have been criminalized, where immigrants have been criminalized,
Speaker 14: where black people have been criminalized, in the reality of
Speaker 14: this country, there are a group of Latinas that will
Speaker 14: resort to that whiteness, that will resort to drawing that
Speaker 14: direct line to whiteness. And I think that's one of
Speaker 14: the things that Trump tapped into, right, He tapped into
Speaker 14: that racial and ethnic grievance that it is not unfamiliar
Speaker 14: to us, it is part of our history, and I
Speaker 14: think that's part of unpacking this conversation right this, this
Speaker 14: romantization with whiteness is part of what it means to
Speaker 14: be us in this country.
Speaker 5: Coming up on Latino USA, our conversation continues about what
Speaker 5: the results mean for our democracy.
Speaker 8: Stay with us.
Speaker 5: Yes, Hey, dear listener, welcome back to our special election
Speaker 5: episode that we're collaborating with our politics podcast in the Thick.
Speaker 5: We're going to jump back into our roundtable now with
Speaker 5: guest journalists Paula Ramos, Gin Guerrero and Jamille Smith. So
Speaker 5: the other big issue that came up is abortion right
Speaker 5: because abortion was on the ballot in ten states right
Speaker 5: and measures to enshrine abortion rights actually passed in seven
Speaker 5: of those states Maryland, Arizona, Colorado, New York, Nevada, and
Speaker 5: even deep Red Misery and Montana, even though Trump wan
Speaker 5: Missouri and Montana. And in our episode right now, we
Speaker 5: did hear from two activists from Florida who were organizing
Speaker 5: around the abortion initiative. That initiative lost by just two
Speaker 5: percentage points. It didn't meet the sixty percent threshold needed
Speaker 5: to pass the measure, which would have protected abortion access.
Speaker 5: So this issue is a lot more nuanced than the
Speaker 5: idea that support for abortion protections would equal support for
Speaker 5: a Kamala Harris presidency. Our reporting on Latino, USA and
Speaker 5: New Mexico really went into trying to explain these complexities.
Speaker 5: Let's go to the tape. There's a conservative majority in
Speaker 5: the Supreme Court. There is a real chance that the
Speaker 5: anti abortion movement could get another outcome in their favor,
Speaker 5: like what we saw with the reversal of Roe v.
Speaker 15: Wade and Marklee Dixon. The Texas pastor was also quite
Speaker 15: blunt about their final goal. When we asked him about this,
Speaker 15: he said that the final goal for him and his
Speaker 15: movement is the end of abortion in all fifty states,
Speaker 15: and that the Comstock Act is for them a means
Speaker 15: to that end. Maria Dixon also said that he's not
Speaker 15: afraid of these ordinances ending up before the Supreme Court
Speaker 15: of the United States.
Speaker 5: So, Gene, we have seen wider support for abortion access,
Speaker 5: but at the same time stricter laws on the local level,
Speaker 5: and we're entering in an administration that has previously overturned ROV.
Speaker 8: Wade.
Speaker 5: What is all of this signaling about the future of
Speaker 5: abortion and abortion writing in our cut, now.
Speaker 11: What these abortion referendums, the success of these abortion referendums
Speaker 11: shows is the influence of Latinas, of black women of
Speaker 11: women of color, who have resoundingly shown that they will
Speaker 11: fight for their bodily autonomy, that this is a value
Speaker 11: that they have. And Latinas are overrepresented in these in
Speaker 11: states that have abortion bands and are the most likely
Speaker 11: to suffer the consequences.
Speaker 1: They are the lowest paid group in.
Speaker 11: The United States, so it's hard for them to find
Speaker 11: the time and the resources to travel across state lines
Speaker 11: for abortions, particularly if they are undocumented, because crossing state
Speaker 11: lines could mean risking deportation. These are the voters who
Speaker 11: are most you know, urgently need investment. They are the
Speaker 11: ones who are going to make sure that people who
Speaker 11: are being oppressed maintain control of their bodies. And yeah,
Speaker 11: I think that's large actually what the success of these
Speaker 11: abortion referendums is reflecting.
Speaker 5: Now, Trump also made gains with young voters compared to
Speaker 5: twenty twenty. Now, this is a group that tends to
Speaker 5: lean more democratic. Recently in Wisconsin, we reported on a
Speaker 5: young Latino who was leading the Republican Party of Milwaukee
Speaker 5: County as a young Latino. Let's go to the tape
Speaker 5: and here's some of that coverage on Latino USA.
Speaker 2: I don't care what I have to do if I
Speaker 2: have to run through a war zone. He's got my vote,
Speaker 2: and I'm going to try and get so many other
Speaker 2: people who join me, friends, family, neighbors, doesn't matter, independence,
Speaker 2: swing voters, Democrats, anyone and everyone to vote for that
Speaker 2: man this time around.
Speaker 5: Jane, what do we take away from the youth vote
Speaker 5: in twenty twenty four and the election of Donald Trump.
Speaker 1: Well, I think it reflects discontent largely.
Speaker 11: It also reflects a failure to come up with an
Speaker 11: effective counter narrative on immigration, understand immigration as an economic
Speaker 11: issue that affects their economic prospects, their economic mobility. And
Speaker 11: I think what Kamala Harris really failed to do was
Speaker 11: to contrast herself effectively with Trump on his signature issue,
Speaker 11: which was immigration. She framed it largely in terms of
Speaker 11: border security, talking about her support for a border bill
Speaker 11: that would have increased border patrols resources to try to
Speaker 11: counter this idea that she's pro open borders, But she
Speaker 11: really didn't counter his immigrant scapegoating his number one weapon,
Speaker 11: which was to treat immigrants as the cause of all
Speaker 11: of American's problems. She failed to frame immigration as an
Speaker 11: economic issue that benefits America. These are people who have
Speaker 11: built America's homes, highways, who harvest our crops, who take
Speaker 11: care of our elderly in hospitals. She really failed to
Speaker 11: hammer that home, and I think it was a result
Speaker 11: of really misunderstanding the power of young voters in the country.
Speaker 5: So the question of Kamala Harris differentiating herself both from
Speaker 5: Donald Trump very specifically on the issue of immigration, let's
Speaker 5: say we're going to give you a totally different view
Speaker 5: on immigration, or distancing herself from Joe Biden on the
Speaker 5: question of Gasa. Jamille, how much do you think the
Speaker 5: issue of GASA impacted voter turnout and her loss the Democrats' loss.
Speaker 13: I do think that certainly, the energy at the DNC
Speaker 13: in August, as well as what we've seen since, tells
Speaker 13: us that people want more than calls for Ceaspier. People
Speaker 13: want more than calls for the war to end when
Speaker 13: forty thousand people have been killed in retaliatory violence by Israel,
Speaker 13: people who had nothing to do with what happened during
Speaker 13: the Hamas attack on October seventh, and frankly, as much
Speaker 13: as we can debate Vice President Harris's campaign missteps. This
Speaker 13: begins and ends with Joe Biden to me and the
Speaker 13: fact that he had years to court this demographic. He
Speaker 13: had years to make sure that he was communicating effectively
Speaker 13: with young people. He had years to make sure that
Speaker 13: they're not relying upon black and brown electorates simply for
Speaker 13: the fact that they are Democrats and those guys are
Speaker 13: the racists over there. He could sail that, and it
Speaker 13: may be true, but we cannot afford to have a
Speaker 13: politics on the left where we spend most of our
Speaker 13: time complimenting our own intelligence.
Speaker 5: So I understand that politics and democracy it doesn't start
Speaker 5: and it doesn't end with going to a polling booth,
Speaker 5: and it doesn't start to end with an election date.
Speaker 8: It's a continuous process.
Speaker 5: And yes, acknowledging that right now, we're all just like,
Speaker 5: oh my god, we need to just take a break
Speaker 5: for a moment, which is important. We do have to
Speaker 5: take care of ourselves. I need to get a good
Speaker 5: night's sleep, example, like that would really help. But when
Speaker 5: we take that rest, right we're obviously thinking about how
Speaker 5: we move forward with our country. And so as we
Speaker 5: wrap up, I'm wondering about la as you process the
Speaker 5: state of our democracy. What are you carrying with you
Speaker 5: as we move into this next phase in our country?
Speaker 14: Look, right now, I'm I'm in this mindset of I'm
Speaker 14: not blaming Trump, I'm not blaming the Democrats. I am
Speaker 14: simply putting the weight on voters. Right, This is who
Speaker 14: voters chose. The two stories that we could choose were
Speaker 14: very clear. Now we're very different. This is the route
Speaker 14: that we chose. And so I think I'm just sort
Speaker 14: of taking that in and processing that that Americans chose
Speaker 14: someone that is flirting with authoritarianism, that has told us
Speaker 14: what he will do, that will try so hard to
Speaker 14: implement these mass deportations, and that is what Americans want.
Speaker 14: And on top of that, I think for so long,
Speaker 14: so many of us sort of operated under this assumption
Speaker 14: that Ladinas would be part of this huge and beautiful,
Speaker 14: multi racial, multi ethic coalition that would lead this country
Speaker 14: towards a more better version of democracy. And now I
Speaker 14: think we're staring at a reality where perhaps it's going
Speaker 14: to look very different. And I think, instead of being pessimistic,
Speaker 14: I think what I learned from spending time with the
Speaker 14: organizers on the ground here and the immigration activist is
Speaker 14: that they are going to be fighting no matter what.
Speaker 14: They have, the infrastructure, they have, the message, they have
Speaker 14: the north star, And that was so clear after the
Speaker 14: election results and came in right that these organizers know
Speaker 14: how to fight for democracy in a way better way
Speaker 14: than any political party does. And so that I think
Speaker 14: is something to hold on to.
Speaker 5: Gene, how do you see this state of our democracy today?
Speaker 5: And what are you carrying with you as you move forward?
Speaker 5: And where are you reaching to kind of get the
Speaker 5: inspiration and the energy to pick yourself up and keep
Speaker 5: on going.
Speaker 11: So I think one of the main concerns I have
Speaker 11: is around the silencing and self censorship that we're going
Speaker 11: to see among journalists, particularly Latino journalists and journalists of
Speaker 11: color who are from the communities that Trump plans to target.
Speaker 11: I've been asking myself, you know, like, if you have
Speaker 11: an undocumented family member, are you going to want to
Speaker 11: potentially draw the ire of the Trump administration by reporting
Speaker 11: the truth about his policies. So I think it's critical
Speaker 11: moving forward for all newsrooms to be developing strategies to
Speaker 11: fix that problem of under representation and to ensure that
Speaker 11: they have plans in place to mitigate the risks that
Speaker 11: these journalists will face under a second Trump term. Legal risks,
Speaker 11: psychological risks, et cetera. And the psychological toll of this
Speaker 11: kind of reporting is huge on people from these communities.
Speaker 11: I can speak from experience as somebody who's received threats
Speaker 11: of litigation from Trump's closest allies, and so I think
Speaker 11: one of the the main priorities has to be making
Speaker 11: sure that newsrooms across the country are creating an environment
Speaker 11: where people of color feel safe and supported in telling
Speaker 11: their stories and in continuing to speak truth to power,
Speaker 11: because it's never.
Speaker 1: Been more important than it is right now in this moment.
Speaker 5: Jamille, take us out yes your comments on the state
Speaker 5: of our democracy and what you're carrying with you, and
Speaker 5: how you're finding the inspiration to pick it up and
Speaker 5: keep on going.
Speaker 13: I actually want to quote a little bit of what
Speaker 13: Gene wrote for us at the Emancipator. You know that
Speaker 13: in Trump's America, you're American only if you choose hate,
Speaker 13: and we have to think about one another. I heard
Speaker 13: way too many folks talking about their vote as if like, Okay, well,
Speaker 13: this issue matters the most to me, and I want
Speaker 13: this and I'm going through this, So I'm going to
Speaker 13: vote this way. Votes are not about you. Voting is
Speaker 13: about everyone but you. It's about everyone else. It's to
Speaker 13: be the most altruistic thing that and it's also the
Speaker 13: easiest thing to do as a citizen. You go there
Speaker 13: and you vote with your own needs in mind. Sure,
Speaker 13: but you have to vote thinking about everyone else. And frankly,
Speaker 13: I don't think we're doing that as a country right now.
Speaker 13: And that's not simply because of the result of this election.
Speaker 13: I think that we have a demagogue who has allowed
Speaker 13: people to embrace their worst selves in a public way
Speaker 13: that they felt they were restricted by through you know,
Speaker 13: when people were simply asking folks to be courteous and
Speaker 13: respectful of cultural, gender difference, all the ways in which
Speaker 13: we are different, Can you please just be respectful of that? No,
Speaker 13: they you're asking me to be politically correct, you're asking
Speaker 13: me to be woke, You're asking me to be all
Speaker 13: these things, which actually just mean courteous and respectful. And
Speaker 13: as long as we have to keep fighting for people
Speaker 13: to just literally see us and respect us as fellow Americans,
Speaker 13: this battle, the struggle will continue.
Speaker 5: Thank you so much, Jamil for joining me on this
Speaker 5: edition of In the Thick and Let You Know USA.
Speaker 5: Thank you, Jamil, Thank you Jeane. Always a pleasure to
Speaker 5: have you on the show. Thank you for joining me
Speaker 5: on this episode.
Speaker 1: Likewise, thank you so much, Baola.
Speaker 8: Thank you for all of your reporting and for your thoughts.
Speaker 8: And we'll see you on the other side.
Speaker 14: Thank you. I'll see you soon.
Speaker 5: And may we get some rest, some nature, some good
Speaker 5: healthy food, some family time, some laughing dancing.
Speaker 13: Well meta a man.
Speaker 5: Thanks everybody, dear listener, get ego, gety them. Yes, this
Speaker 5: is absolutely a moment for a reset. One thing is
Speaker 5: for certain. Our reporting is going to continue. We will
Speaker 5: continue to bring you the stories and perspectives you might
Speaker 5: not hear from anywhere else. We do this because of
Speaker 5: our commitment to our profession, but also because of our
Speaker 5: commitment to our democracy.
Speaker 8: So we won't turn away from.
Speaker 5: The most vulnerable, but we will hold the most powerful accountable.
Speaker 5: That is our commitment to you, and we hope we
Speaker 5: won't do it alone, because you, dear listener, are the
Speaker 5: reason why we do it all. This special edition of
Speaker 5: Latino USA, in collaboration with Fuduro's political podcast In the Thick,
Speaker 5: was produced by our wonderful team including Renaldo Leanos Junior,
Speaker 5: Ariel Goodman, Nor Saudi, Ines Renique and JOHNI Man Marquez.
Speaker 5: It was edited by Andrea Lopez Grussado and Benni Le Ramirez.
Speaker 8: Who is also our co executive producer.
Speaker 5: Our show was mixed by Stephanie Lebau, Julia Caruso and
Speaker 5: jj Carubin special thanks this week to Glenn Alexander and
Speaker 5: Michael Garth at w b U R, as well as
Speaker 5: Arturo Angel in Florida. The Latino USA team also includes
Speaker 5: URIs Luna and Marta Martinez. Our production manager is Francis Boon,
Speaker 5: with production support from Jessica Ellis, Victoria Estrada and Nancy Trujillo.
Speaker 5: Our pop up season of In the Thick is supported
Speaker 5: in part by the Hispanic Federation and Futuro Media's Friends
Speaker 5: of Democracy Fund. Fund sustainers include Dipadonde, April Gossler and
Speaker 5: carmin Rita Wong. I'm your host and co executive producer
Speaker 5: Maria no Josa join us again on our next episode.
Speaker 5: In the meantime, remember to find us on social media.
Speaker 5: I'll see you there and remember now more than ever
Speaker 5: not Te bayes Chao.
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