MSNBC Journalist Argues with Venezuelan-Americans That Donald Trump = Hugo Chavez
Jose Nino
|
MSNBC journalist Ellison Barber has been covering the Trump campaign’s outreach to Venezuelan-American voters in Florida. The Trump campaign has emphasized how Venezuela’s socialist experiment has destroyed the country in efforts to tap into both Cuban and Venezuelan voters in the state. Barber ended up interviewing two Hispanic Trump supporters on MSNBC Live on October 28, 2020. She went as far as to compare Trump with the late Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez.
Mariela Gimenez was one of the voters Barber interviewed who expressed her skepticism of the Biden/Harris campaign. She was specifically scared about Joe Biden’s running mate Kamala Harris. She declared, “If you are in control of communications, you are the ones with the real power. What’s going to happen is you’re probably one day get somebody like Chavez, and in this case, it’s not going to be Joe Biden, it’s going to be Kamala Harris. The first thing they’re going turnaround and start controlling that media.”
Barber was taken aback and said that if anyone should be scared about First Amendment freedoms being under attackthey should stand in opposition to Trump. “In the U.S. President Trump has tweeted a number of times about saying we should look at libel laws, that we should consider pulling the license of media organizations like NBC News. He has revoked press credentials of journalists. None of that reminds you of Venezuela or worries you?,” Barber inquired.
Alex Christy of CNS News speculated that Barber is referencing the 2018 incident between a White House intern and CNN’s Jim Acosta, where the intern grabbed the microphone from Acosta after he was causing a ruckus during a press conference. Another voter made sure to differentiate Trump from the deceased Venezuelan strongman. Edilberto Escalante noted that “Chavez didn’t just say it. He went and did it. Chavez didn’t dance around with the media. He took credentials away.”
Barber responded by asserting that Trump allegedly has desires of being an authoritarian, but cannot realize them. “Well, In that case, isn’t the only difference between Trump and a Chavez is that Trump doesn’t quite yet have the authority to do it, not that he doesn’t want to he would love to, he tried to, he got huge pushback when he tried to revoke credentials,” Barber declared.
Escalante quickly responded, “He hasn’t closed any media. He hasn’t closed any, and he will not. He doesn’t do everything he might want to do. He doesn’t do it because he’s respectful of the law.”
Venezuelans make up 2 percent of the Florida electorate according to Pew Research Center and are part of a broader Cuban and Puerto Rican dominant voting bloc in Florida that will keep the state from going Democrat simply because Florida Hispanics don’t vote as Democrat as other minority ethnic groups.
The media will do everything possible to demonize these voters and downplay their impact during the 2020 election.
Share: