The border is a bigger issue than the economy, Trump tells Hispanic voters in Miami

DORAL, Fla. — Former President Donald Trump made his closing pitch to Hispanic voters in South Florida on Tuesday, railing against the country’s “open borders” and warning that the U.S. political system could collapse in the same vein as Venezuela’s if he loses next month’s presidential election.

Speaking at a roundtable with Hispanic leaders at his Doral golf resort, Trump launched into a rambling speech in which he lamented the “crazy” impacts of solar farms on desert environments, attacked Vice President Kamala Harris as “grossly incompetent” and falsely claimed that the COVID-19 pandemic had allowed his opponents to do “bad things” with the results of the 2020 presidential election.

He then claimed that if Harris wins next month’s election, it could spell the end for democracy in the United States, comparing it to “Venezuela on steroids.”

“If we lose this election, we may not have a country anymore. And I’ve heard this from a lot of very smart people ... they say we may never have an election again in this country,” Trump said. He later added: “We all know what happened with Venezuela,” referring to the years of political strife under its former leader Hugo Chavez and its current President Nicolas Maduro.

The former president’s remarks — part of a “Latino Summit” put on by Trump’s campaign — came as the race for the White House entered its final two-week stretch. While Florida has largely been written off by Harris’ campaign and national Democrats as a likely win for Trump, the former president has ramped up his appeals to Hispanic voters in the state.

Recent polls show Trump leading Harris among Hispanic voters in Florida. If that advantage holds up in the actual election results next month, Trump would become the first Republican presidential candidate in two decades to win Florida’s Hispanic electorate.

Just last week, Trump attended a Latino voter town hall hosted by Univision in Doral.

Trump, in an event joined by Miami’s mayor and members of Congress, claimed on Tuesday that he is “leading with Hispanics” in the presidential race, and referred to his relationship with Latino voters as a “love affair” that began during his four years in the White House. Nationally, Harris is leading Trump among Hispanic voters, though the former president has narrowed the gap since 2020.

“I started producing for them and they produced for the country,” Trump said. “I like them and they like me.”

The roundtable was billed as a chance for Trump to pitch Hispanic voters on his economic vision and record on unemployment, housing and business. But Trump spent most of the appearance bouncing between various topics; he complained at length about electric vehicles and, at one point, said that the U.S. southern border was a bigger issue than the economy.

He also mocked Harris for “taking a day off” from the campaign trail with just two weeks to go before Election Day. Harris held events in three battleground states on Monday and is scheduled to sit for an interview with NBC News on Tuesday.

Sitting at the center of a banquet table beneath a crystal chandelier, Trump spoke to an energized audience of supporters. The event ended with a prayer by pastor Guillermo Maldonado, of El Rey Jesus, followed by chants of “Si, se puede.”

Before Trump took the stage, a handful of his allies spoke in support of Trump, pitching him as the natural choice for Hispanic voters in the presidential race.

Miami Mayor Francis Suarez, who briefly challenged Trump for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, said that Trump had “delivered a record — a record for Hispanics.”

U.S. Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar, who represents a majority-Hispanic district that stretches across much of coastal Miami-Dade County, said that Trump “would be for immigration what Nixon was for China,” a reference to Nixon’s 1972 trip to China that laid the groundwork for diplomatic relations between Washington and Beijing.

“He is the one who can fix it,” Salazar said.

U.S. Sen. Rick Scott, who is not Hispanic but has aggressively courted Latino voters in Florida throughout multiple political campaigns, said that the “Hispanic vote is the deciding factor” in the November elections in Florida, and cast Trump as the only presidential candidate who could

“The Hispanic vote is the deciding factor,” said Scott, who’s facing a challenge this year from former U.S. Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, an Ecuadorian immigrant. “If you want someone who’s gonna fight for Latin America, Donald Trump’s gonna do it.”