In the United States, with the help of presidential son-in-law Jared Kushner, Alfonso de Angoitia, and Bernardo Gómez strengthened Donald Trump’s campaign for the Latino vote, transforming Univision, traditionally critical of the New York magnate, into what some now call MAGAvision, the Hispanic voice of the Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement.
Meanwhile, in Mexico, within Televisa, the same duo has for years hosted the largest fake news and dirty campaigns uncovered so far in the country, colloquially known by its operators as El Palomar (because it is attached to the base of the company’s television tower in the center of the capital) and by the journalists who exposed it, as #TelevisaLeaks.
These are no small pickings. TelevisaUnivision, formed after the merger of Grupo Televisa and Univision Communications in January 2022, is the world’s largest Spanish-language media company, focused on television, streaming, radio, and content production. It operates in Mexico and the United States, reaching more than 100 million Spanish speakers daily across multiple platforms, including its ViX streaming service.
For three generations Televisa was the preserve of the Emilio Azcárragas patriarchs, but the latest pretenders to the throne had to step down after being investigated for corruption in the United States, leaving control to the consortium’s co-CEOs, Alfonso de Angoitia Noriega and Bernardo Gómez Martínez. Following the merger with Univision, the former is president and the latter a member of the Board of Directors of TelevisaUnivision.
Along with Wade Davis, who was CEO until September 2024, the pair met several times with Trump at his Mar-a-Lago residence, first to propose and plan, and then to receive his thanks.
And it is assumed that both, as superiors of Javier Tejado Dondé, the former Vice President of Information exposed as the head of El Palomar, were the recipients of the reports he himself prepared on TelevisaLeaks’ extensive defamation campaigns. These were so virulent and boundless that, in an effort to derail the judicial career of his father, a judge, they included fabricating a story that a child had raped a schoolmate and falsifying the corresponding evidence.
“The owners of Univision like me”
On December 8, 2023, eleven months before the presidential election, Univision didn’t task a journalist experienced in U.S. politics with interviewing Donald Trump. Instead, it brought in a popular news anchor, Enrique Acevedo, from Mexico City. The New York Times describes it as follows: “with its gentle questioning and limited follow-ups from the interviewer, Enrique Acevedo — has confirmed their fears since the traditionally left-leaning network merged with the Mexican broadcaster Televisa,” with which it “was taking a troubling turn to the right under its new owners, who have a reputation for cultivating relationships with leading politicians in Mexico, where Televisa has been a feared kingmaker for more than 50 years.”
One must question what the New York Times refers to as “left-leaning.” Yet, Univision has definitely shifted from its confrontation with Trump -sustained both during his campaigns and during his first administration and throughout almost his entire period as an opponent of Biden- to becoming overly friendly with him.
And he with Univision. If in 2020 he described Univision as “a leftist propaganda machine and a mouthpiece for the Democratic Party,” in 2023 he went on to lavishly proclaim, “just look at the owners of Univision. They are incredibly entrepreneurial people, and they like me.”
As the Times noted, by late 2023, “To even a casual viewer, there is no doubt that Univision has been more friendly to Republicans lately. Conservatives appear more frequently on the air. Coverage of immigration — long the network’s bread-and-butter news — has become more skeptical of President Biden’s policies. Regular programming has been interrupted to cover Mr. Trump’s remarks live — something even Fox News generally avoids. The network’s streaming platform, ViX, has recently introduced several shows with decidedly conservative hosts.”
TIMELINE OF A CHANGE IN DIRECTION
A look at the timeline of the Trump-Univision relationship makes it clear that the turning point was when it merged with Televisa:
2015: In June, Trump announced his presidential candidacy, making disparaging remarks about Mexican immigrants, calling them “rapists” and “criminals.” In response, Univision canceled the Miss USA pageant, a Trump-owned broadcast, breaking a five-year contract. The magnate responded with a US$500 million lawsuit. In August, during a press conference in Iowa, Trump expelled Univision anchor Jorge Ramos, telling him to “go back to Univision” after the journalist tried to question him about his immigration policies.
2016: In February, Univision and Trump reached an out-of-court settlement, the terms of which were not made public. During the campaign, the network maintained critical coverage of Trump, particularly regarding immigration, while Jorge Ramos and other journalists questioned him in interviews and debates.
From 2017 to 2020: During the first Trump administration, Univision critically covered the cancellation of DACA (the “Dreamers”), the separation of families at the border, and the ban on visits from Muslim-majority countries.
April 2021: Televisa and Univision announced their merger, completed in January 2022.
2023: On November 9, Bernardo Gómez, Alfonso de Angoitia, and Wade Davis meet with Trump at Mar-a-Lago, at the invitation of Jared Kushner.
Hours later, Univision broadcast Trump’s exclusive interview with Acevedo, who was criticized for his friendly tone, lack of live fact-checking, and failure to challenge Trump’s claims. The Washington Post notes that the interview “was notable for its gracious tone, starting with a question about how well he is doing among Latino voters in early general election polling.” Acevedo published a column in which he asserts that “it was a soft interview by design, not by accident or imposition, as some have suggested,” as he wanted to give Trump ample space to speak so the audience could hear and judge for themselves. Jorge Ramos published an article on his website questioning the independence of the news department.
In addition, Univision cancelled the participation of Joe Biden’s director of Hispanic media, Maca Casado, to respond to the interview and decided not to air the Democrat’s campaign ads that were scheduled to be broadcast during the interview.
The operation caused great discomfort. More than 70 Latino organizations signed a letter expressing their “disappointment and deep concern.” Actor John Leguizamo questioned whether Bernardo Gómez’s relationship with Kushner influenced the coverage.
2024: In September, Jorge Ramos announced that he was leaving Univision, after a 40-year career with the company. Although he did not cite a specific reason, his departure was believed to be due to the change in editorial policy.
In October, already in the final stretch of the campaign, the network organized a town hall meeting with Trump in Miami, moderated again by Enrique Acevedo, with the participation of undecided Latino voters. The event was criticized for allowing Trump to repeat falsehoods without live fact-checking. Joaquín Blaya, former president of Univision, called it an “infomercial” and lamented the absence of Jorge Ramos.
After Trump’s victory in November, Bernardo Gómez and Alfonso de Angoitia returned to Mar-a-Lago, where Trump thanked them for Univision’s “balanced coverage” of the election.
“We have a long-standing friendship with President Trump,” de Angoitia and Gómez said in a written response to the Wall Street Journal. “He invited us and expressed his appreciation for our neutral and balanced news coverage.”
The title given to its report by the Wall Street Journal—a bastion of right-wing journalism—is quite eloquent: “How Mexico’s Soap-Opera Tycoons Became the Country’s Donald Trump Whisperers?”
Look for the second part of this article next week at Mexican Press Agency: #TelevisaLeaks
Related: For Mexico, the screwworm is an economic problem, not a political opportunity
Mexican Press Agency is part of ALMA, which is dedicated to news and information about Mexico and Mexicans in the United States and is a fiscally sponsored project of Social Focus, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization based in Redwood City, California.
