The conventional Cinco de Mayo occasion that piles Latino VIPs and administration allies into the White House offered its standard buzz of catch-ups with outdated associates and selfies with celebrities, together with Marvel’s Xochitl Gomez and Ted Lasso’s Cristo Fernández. But it was additionally a laid-back affair, due partly to the muted feeling from Democrats in attendance who weren’t precisely feeling bullish about Joe Biden’s possibilities in November.
Few conversations higher mirrored this state of downbeat vigilance than these within the Rose Garden, the place a number of Latino Democrats expressed fears that Senator Marco Rubio may upend the dynamics of the election if chosen as Donald Trump’s vice presidential nominee.
To ensure, there may be one main impediment: the truth that Rubio and Trump each reside in Florida. (The twelfth Amendment of the Constitution prevents electors from voting for a president and vp who reside in the identical state with out shedding that state’s electoral votes.) In principle, Rubio may get round this just by transferring, which, as Marc Caputo notes, may open up a Pandora’s field of lawsuits that Rubio must fend off. But the mere notion of the primary Latino vp being a Cuban American Republican is sufficient to make Hispanic Democrats attain for the Tums.
“It would be the first major Latino to be nominated to the second-highest office in the land,” one Cinco de Mayo attendee mentioned. “That would be a problem.”
“Rubio is normal,” a second White House visitor mentioned, suggesting the senator may assist the previous president join with a wider voters. “He allows Trump to make his case to Latinos directly, in a way that he himself cannot do.”
The harsh actuality for Biden’s reelection marketing campaign is that the president wants extra goodwill amongst Latinos—much more. Polls recommend he’s stronger with Spanish-speakers than Hispanics who predominantly communicate English. That is probably going why the president lately brokered a relationship reset with Univision, America’s largest Spanish-language community, which supplied him a prolonged sit-down after the community gifted Trump with a much-criticized softball interview in November. But a Rubio vice presidential nomination may throw an enormous wrench in Biden’s Spanish-language-media forays, offering Trump with a weapon he’s by no means had earlier than: a bilingual, bicultural MAGA minister capable of seamlessly change from English to Spanish, sharing the marketing campaign’s message instantly with voters.
Carlos Trujillo, who served within the US Department of State beneath Trump, known as Rubio—whom he has identified for greater than a decade, with each having been on the earth of Florida Republican politics—“exceptionally qualified” to be vp. “He gives President Trump an ability to reach out more aggressively to the Hispanic community,” he mentioned, including that polling reveals Republicans performing higher with Latinos and that Rubio “widens those margins because he would be the only person onstage who could speak native Spanish.”
“He can speak policy relatably, both in English and Spanish, with zero lag, zero drop-off,” echoed Jorge Bonilla—a longtime conservative watchdog of networks like Telemundo and Univision, who now hosts a radio present on Radio Libre 790 in Miami, Florida. “In essence, he’s the apex predator of elected officials—no one else can do that.”
Rubio, who’s reportedly on Trump’s VP brief record—although isn’t as brief as his Trump-given nickname may recommend—lately took to NBC News’ Meet the Press with Kristen Welker to indicate Trump proof of idea: He refused to decide to accepting the 2024 election outcomes and touted debunked voter-fraud claims, together with that liberal teams have been shopping for votes in Georgia for $10 a vote and that a whole bunch of unlawful drop containers have been utilized in Wisconsin in 2020. All of this rang alarm bells amongst Latino Democrats and progressive leaders, who concern that the senator may saturate Univision’s and Telemundo’s airwaves with related lies as Trump’s working mate.
“We know disinformation is already pervasive, especially targeting the Latino community in the US, and something Rubio could do is continue to misinform the community,” mentioned Sindy Benavides, the president and CEO of Latino Victory Project, which works to elect Latino Democrats. Benavides, who was on the Cinco de Mayo occasion, additionally famous that Rubio’s choice would ship a transparent message of the significance of the Latino vote, whereas additionally displaying that “Trump is pandering to the Latino community.”
Although securing the vice presidential nomination can be a excessive level of Rubio’s political profession, it may include appreciable private {and professional} prices. One supply with data of Rubio’s pondering pressured that the senator is mulling over how the transfer may affect his household, in addition to his duties in Congress, the place he holds a privileged place as vice chair of the US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence—and will assist Trump from his Senate perch, ought to the ex-president win.
There are additionally causes for Rubio to be involved about falling out of Trump’s good graces. Kristian Ramos, a Democratic strategist working with the Biden administration to promote its financial report, pointed to Trump’s dealing with of January 6 when stories confirmed Mike Pence was in critical hazard from pro-Trump rioters. “I don’t know why Rubio would want that job,” Ramos mentioned. “The last guy who was his vice president, he almost got killed.”
Among the Cinco de Mayo attendees, who have been noshing on steak tostadas, ceviche, and guacamole, there was additionally one other uncomfortable subject of debate: whether or not Rubio, in distinction to a white man working mate like Pence, would function a harder debate opponent for Vice President Kamala Harris.
“He’s a skilled debater and he’s a man of color, so he brings something different to a debate with Kamala Harris,” a fourth attendee mentioned. “A unique thing is, after the debate, he could then go talk on Univision about how he did. That ability to speak to voters directly in Spanish will always hurt us way more than a white guy would.”
Trujillo, for his half, blamed Democrats for placing themselves ready that will permit Rubio to be such a serious risk in a debate. “It would be great if the party of, quote, unquote, ‘inclusivity’ could speak Spanish and defend their views. I don’t know anyone on their farm team who can,” he mentioned. “There’s been no bigger disastrous policy than their border policy. Kamala disappeared as border czar. What ever happened to immigration reform?”
However, Maria Cardona, a CNN commentator and Democrat near the White House, struck a special tone, arguing that Harris would eat Rubio’s lunch in a televised cage match. “His biggest obstacle, when it gets down to brass tacks,” she mentioned, “is he is going to have to defend the extremism of dirty, disgusting MAGA politics.”
Cardona famous that the White House and the Biden marketing campaign are usually not afraid of Rubio as Trump’s VP decide as a result of he betrayed his personal rules on points like immigration and doesn’t have a related affect on Latino communities which might be outdoors of Florida and predominantly Mexican American. “Marco Rubio has no connection to Latino communities, for example, in the Southwest, in Arizona and Nevada, and they certainly do not see him as one of their own,” she argued.