Univision’s Soft Interview with Kamala Harris: Media Double Standard?

It’s been close to three months since former President Donald Trump sat down for an interview with Televisa anchor Enrique Acevedo. The Acela Media flew into an outrage and (falsely) accused Acevedo of conducting a “soft” interview with Trump. But now that Univision has done an even softer interview with vice President Kamala Harris, does that standard still apply? Will there be the same level of scrutiny or will the interview be found to be acceptable by the Acelas because it amplifies the Biden campaign?

Here’s a sample of how the interview went, with Vix (Univision’s streaming service) anchor Carolina Peguero asking a pleasing question seemingly crafted to elicit a three-minute word salad response, and (in this case) Harris botching the answer and suggesting that something might be wrong with President Joe Biden(!):

CAROLINA PEGUERO: President Biden’s age is on voters’ minds, especially during this election, and you work side by side with President Biden. What do you have to say to Americans that are concerned by his ability to run the country and your readiness to step in- in any given moment to help? 

VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS: Well, of course, I’m ready. Um- But that’s not the point. He is going to be fine. Let me just say this. He is fine.

A reasonable person might determine that the precise point where the video cut off might have been a good time for, say, a followup question on the president’s health. Something along the lines of: “Madam Vice President, can you clarify what you meant by ‘he is going to be fine’? Is he not fine now?” 

But, alas, that didn’t happen. In fact, NO follow-up questions were asked throughout the interview. In total, Peguero asked six questions on:

• Abortion: “How will you continue to fight to make sure that all women can make decisions over their own bodies now?”
• The economy: “How can you assure Hispanic voters that they should trust and believe in the economic Biden Harris plan for a second term?”
• Immigration: “What is different between President Biden, shutting down the border versus Donald Trump, shutting down the  border?” 
• Israel-Hamas: “Could (Biden’s support for Israel) alienate democratic progressives and also perhaps create a divide within the party during such a decisive election year? 
• Biden’s age: “What do you have to say to Americans that are concerned by his ability to run the country and your readiness to step in- in any given moment to help?” 
• A day in the Vice President’s life: “tell our viewers what a typical day as Vice President Harris looks like and how you shape policy, and why it’s so important to have a woman in the White House.”

Six questions which were not so much questions as they were talking point prompts. Delivered nervously. Which begs an entirely different set of questions. 

Did the White House choose Peguero to conduct this interview, or did the brass at Univision? Why did Univision send someone relatively inexperienced to interview the Vice President of the United States, and not a more experienced anchor (such as Ilia Calderón, for example)? 

Why was the interview not conducted with the same standard that the network’s internal dissenters claimed was absent from the Trump interview? Say what you want about that interview, but there was an exchange. Acevedo asked follow-up questions. What he DIDN’T do was to go off the top rope and Trump and make himself the story.

Unfortunately, this interview is a story- but for all the wrong reasons. 

The left’s lack of reaction to this interview stands as an indictment. At the core of all the outrage over the Trump interview was a sense of entitlement. The left genuinely feel entitled to control how news gets delivered to the Spanish-speaking community. Trump’s interview broke that sense of entitlement, and that’s why they howled like wounded wolves. 

This interview should’ve elicited the same outrage for the same reasons, but didn’t, because Kamala Harris got to air unchallenged talking points in front of a nice anchor who seemed happy to be there and didn’t ask any tough questions. And so the left, the Professional Latinx, the Immigration Industrial Complex, and the Acela Media all bit their tongues at this embarrassment of an interview, which might as well be an in-kind contribution to Biden-Harris 2024.

A double standard isn’t really a standard at all.  

Click “expand” to view the transcript of the full interview as broadcast on Univision Noticias’ YouTube page on Monday, January 29th, 2024:

CAROLINA PEGUERO: Thank you, Vice President Harris for your time; for letting us spend the day with you and accepting this interview. 

VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS: Thank you. 

PEGUERO: The message in this re-election campaign is clear. Restore Roe versus Wade. And a recent medical study showed that more than 64,000 rape-related pregnancies of young girls and young women occurred in abortion ban states. How will you continue to fight to make sure that all women can make decisions over their own bodies now?

HARRIS: So the tragedy of it is that the highest court in our land took a right that had previously been recognized, which is the right of women to make decisions about their own body, not having the government tell them what to do. And I think on this point, most of us agree, you don’t have to abandon your faith or deeply held beliefs to agree the government should not be telling her what to do. If she chooses, she will talk with her priest or her pastor, her rabbi, but not the government telling her what to do. And so on this issue, one of the ways that we will restore the right, including in those states that have made no exception, even for rape or incest, is we need to put back in law the protections. And the way we do that is we vote into Congress people who support the right of women to make decisions about their own body, who trust women to know what’s in their own best interest. And President Joe Biden has been very clear when we are reelected and that happens, he will sign the bill into law. 

PEGUERO: Now, I would like to talk about the place where we are today where you have been campaigning. We are in the battleground state of Nevada where a quarter of the population is Latino. And one of the top issues for Hispanic voters in the country is the economy. It’s tough. People are struggling to make ends meet. And I would like to ask you: How can you assure Hispanic voters that they should trust and believe in the economic Biden Harris plan for a second term?

HARRIS: So I’ll start by saying that we still have work to do to bring down prices. But the work we have done has been historic in terms of strengthening the economy and think about it in terms of when you’re talking with families. If they have a family member who has diabetes and are seniors, 70% of Latinos are, um, 70% more likely to be diagnosed with diabetes. And for too long, our seniors had to decide whether they could afford to pay for insulin or pay for food or rent. We have now capped the cost of insulin at $35 a month for seniors. This is very big progress. Seniors were some- in some cases spending hundreds of dollars a month on their insulin. We have capped the cost of prescription medication on an annual basis to $2000 a year, meaning our seniors will not pay more than $2000 a year for all of their medication. So this is about bringing down the cost. What we have done on student loan debt. We know that our Hispanic and Latino students, many are first in generation to go to college and have worked their way through and are now dealing with the burden of student loan debt. We have forgiven billions of dollars in student loan debt to the point that over three point- 3.5 million people have already been relieved of their student loan debt, including people who are in public service. The work we have been doing has been about supporting small businesses. We have seen historic growth in Latino owned small businesses in our country, led by Latinas and it’s been my work and the work of our administration to make sure we have access to capital for those small businesses which is through community banks, making sure that they are respected and that they are understood and that they are given access to the money they need to start a business or grow a business. These are economic issues that affect people on a daily basis and this is some of the work we’ve already accomplished. But there’s more to do. 

PEGUERO: There’s more to do. There’s other issues obviously across the country including in non-border cities across the nation that are feeling the effects of the border crisis. We have a Senate that has failed to reach a bipartisan deal and Trump continues to blame the Biden administration for chaos at the border. But President Biden says he is willing to shut down the border. What is different between President Biden,…