Donald Trump participated in a town hall with voters hosted by Univision on Wednesday night, and the event was a showcase of the headwinds Trump faces when he ventures outside of his right-wing bubble.
During the 2024 campaign, Trump has rarely faced questions from those who aren’t already supporters, and he has largely avoided media outlets that do not have a conservative bias. The voters who spoke to Trump at the Univision event respectfully questioned Trump on important issues, but he often veered off into unrelated ranting or avoiding the subject.
Ramiro González, a former registered Republican, told Trump he was disillusioned by the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol and Trump’s role in inciting the attack. He asked Trump to win back his vote by explaining his behavior during the attack and his mismanagement of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Trump restated his claim that he did nothing wrong on the day of the attack, despite his speech that day telling supporters to “fight like hell.” Trump also lied and said there were no guns at the attack, but there were.
“That was a day of love,” Trump said, as González looked on skeptically.
Another voter asked Trump why he pressured Republicans to kill a bipartisan border-security bill. Instead of answering, Trump filibustered and discussed his support for “strong” borders and complained about crime in cities run by Democratic officials.
Trump also continued to promote the debunked racist conspiracy theory that he and running mate JD Vance have advanced. Trump told voters he claimed Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio, were eating domestic animals because “I was just saying what was reported,” adding that migrants “are eating other things, too, that they’re not supposed to be.”
Trump’s poor showing on Wednesday comes after Vice President Kamala Harris was the guest of a Univision town hall last week. At that event, Harris expressed sympathy for a woman whose mother died after her immigration status held up medical care.
The troubled outing for Trump also stands in contrast to his appearance at an all-woman town hall event on Fox News, which the network aired Wednesday morning. That audience was more receptive to Trump, but the network failed to disclose that the crowd was packed with supporters picked out by the Georgia Federation of Republican Women.
At around the same time as Trump’s Univision event, Harris sat for an interview with Fox News’ Bret Baier. Despite his hostile questioning, Harris deftly handled the inquiry and even called out the network for deceptively editing comments from Trump.
Earlier on the day of Trump’s Univision town hall, which took place in Doral, Florida, the Harris campaign hosted a nearby press conference with families who had been impacted by Trump’s policy of separating families at the border.
“I had no bed sheets, no bed, no nothing,” a young man identified as Billy told reporters, recounting his experience in detention. He said he was held in a room where the temperature was set to around 54 to 55 degrees.
Trump’s family-separation policy was widely condemned across the world, and the Biden-Harris administration has since devoted resources to reunifying affected families.
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