The Univision-Biden Interview: Don’t Call It a Reconquista

Jorge Bonilla
April 10th, 2024 12:31 AM

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Heavy is the burden of being right. Univision’s interview of President Joe Biden went exactly as we foretold- the softball that the left, Acela Media and Professional Latinx still think Televisa anchor Enrique Acevedo afforded former President Donald Trump back in November. Whatever you may wish to call it: don’t call it a return to form for Univision, because the network never stopped being a reliable Democrat talking point regurgitator. 

In this sense, Univision was defamed by everyone screaming about a rightward shift that only actually exists in the fevered swamps of the imaginations of the Acela Media and the Professional Latinx. The Trump interview was a one-off, not a permanent change in editorial direction. So the hype ahead of the Biden interview was just that. 

For starters, the interview was starkly different from the Trump interview. As we said in the preview:

...it will be significantly different from the Trump interview, where Acevedo and crew simply set up shop at Mar-a-Lago and let it rip. Both from Carrasquillo’s reporting and from Acevedo himself, we can glean that this interview will have significant choreography (as one would expect given that Biden comms consigliere Anita Dunn set the whole thing up).

Sure enough, the Biden interview was slick, beautifully produced, and heavily edited to the point of being practically one extended campaign ad.

The most newsworthy item to emerge from the interview will be Biden’s call for Israel to unilaterally offer Hamas a six or eight-week ceasefire, with no mention of hostages, for “total access of all food and medicine to go into the country.” 

The White House may spin it into the wind to their heart’s content, but that sounded very unilateral-ly. Acevedo them moves on to Ukraine.

More broadly, the interview touched on those things the Biden campaign may deem of interest to the Hispanic community. Prescription drug prices, Obamacare, student loans, housing assistance as promised at the State of the Union address, and gun control. With some foreign policy and Democracy mixed in. 

Missing from the interview: inflation (sort of), gas prices, the cost of food, the cost of living and, interestingly enough, abortion. 

Acevedo tried to throw in an inflation question without actually saying the word “inflation” and Biden totally missed it, going instead on a ramble about bounced check fees. No follow-up from Acevedo here.

Shortly thereafter and in a weird piece of editing, Biden accuses Trump of making fun of him over being Irish-Catholic:

In the preview, we made a point about how much better Biden sounds with the Spanish dubbing. Here is the gun control question in English:

...and now dubbed into Spanish. Biden is made to sound so good here that the dubbing is almost election interference. 

And finally, an Oval Office reminder that Biden has little to offer in terms of Hispanic messaging beyond a noun, a verb, and Cesar Chavez:

The interview is by no means a game-changer. While it was very soft and deferential, it was no softer or more deferential than what a replacement-level Democrat would garner at Univision. The left may probably feel occasion to exult about the interview and proclaim it Univision's return into the fold. 

But, in fairness, Univision never left.

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