John Leguizamo is having a moment, a "Leguizamassance" to quote his own Instagram Bio. A month ago he went viral for smashing a piñata while hosting The Daily Show after coming to terms with the fact that Trump is currently winning over Latino voters. Now he's in the news again, doubling down on his anti-Trump discourse and proposing new insights as to why the shift in Latino voting trends as of late.
In a sprawling interview with Salon, the Colombian actor explained that although Latinos are blaming Biden for the economy, the focus should be going elsewhere. "COVID was the culprit and Trump not handling COVID was the culprit in damaging our economy", said Leguizamo. "But our economy is doing great. It's just inflation that's messing up everybody's paycheck."
Although his position against Trump is no secret, the actor didn't let Democrats off the hook either. When speaking about the Latino vote, Leguizamo explained that Latinos are not a monolithic group and "you got to come at us from all kinds of different angles and you got to come for us." He then added:
"the Democrats messed up in 2020 and did nothing. Did not spend dollars on us, did not have Latin consultants, did not fund our grassroots organizations, and our grassroots organizations gave us Arizona. They tried to give us Texas and they got close. Florida was difficult, but Republicans spent money, assets. They came at us through WhatsApp in Arizona and Texas and Florida, went to our radio stations, Spanish-speaking stations, gave them the right trigger words. Democrats need to step it up, need to fund our grassroots organizations."
In another passage of the interview, Leguizamo expressed his fear about the future of the United States, saying "our democracy is in grave danger." The outspoken actor did make it clear that he's in it for the long haul because he's still a firm believe of the American Dream: "we who love the idea of this country because I love the idea of this country, that we're all equal, but it's never really been that. But I love the promise of that, and that's what I fight for."
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