AKA: Jared’s flagrant pay-for-play to Univision
This shady new compact between Univision and Trump was orchestrated by Jared Kushner. Judd Legum reminds us of Jared’s strategy:
In 2021, Univision merged with Televisa, a Mexican media company. Televisa is known for its friendly coverage of Mexican political leaders, who have rewarded the company with favorable regulatory treatment and other benefits. The co-CEO of TelevisaUnivisio Mexico is Bernardo Gómez, a close associate of Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner. In 2019, Kushner met with Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador at Gómez’s house.
The Washington Post reported that Kushner “helped arrange the interview and was also in the room” during the interview at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence. Gómez was also present during the interview, along with two other TelevisaUnivisio executives, TelevisaUnivision CEO Wade Davis, and TelevisaUnivision co-CEO Alfonso de Angoitia Noriega.
Trump praised the new owners during the Univision interview. “Look at the owners of Univision,” Trump said. “They’re unbelievable entrepreneurial people. And they like me.”
The Kushner media playbook
Kushner has a history of trading access to Trump for promises of favorable treatment. After the 2016 election, Kushner reportedly told a group of business executives that he “struck a deal with Sinclair Broadcast Group during the campaign to try and secure better media coverage.” Sinclair is the owner of many local affiliates in swing states. The agreement “gave [Sinclair] more access to Trump and the campaign” in exchange for a commitment that Sinclair would “broadcast their Trump interviews across the country without commentary.”
Kushner boasted that Sinclair affiliates had a larger audience than CNN in states like Ohio. According to a Trump spokesperson, “the deal included the interviews running across every affiliate.” Sinclair did not deny that it had struck a deal with the Trump campaign but claimed it offered a similar arrangement with Hillary Clinton. There were no Clinton interviews aired on Sinclair stations during the campaign, however.
The Clinton campaign might not have been enthusiastic about granting special access to Sinclair because Sinclair is a conservative media company. An academic study found that “stations bought by Sinclair reduce coverage of local politics, increase national coverage and move the ideological tone of coverage in a conservative direction relative to other stations operating in the same market.”
It seems these Univision wingnuts are happy to downplay Trumps draconian 2024 immigration policies and they’re worse than ever. If Latinos don’t know about it will they inadvertently support it? It’s too depressing to think about.