Trump touts Hispanic record in Florida, but detractors say 'we know a dictator when we see one'

President Donald Trump appealed to Florida Hispanics on Friday even as his failure to commit to a peaceful transfer of power undermined his message with voters who fled oppressive foreign regimes.

In South Florida, Trump presided over a "Latinos for Trump" roundtable where mostly small business owners from Colombia, Honduras, Nicaragua and Puerto Rico shared their stories of success in America. They said their achievements were bolstered by Trump administration efforts, including the 2017 tax cuts and a focus on made-in-America manufacturing.

Trump touted what he claimed were record-setting successes such as the "lowest unemployment rate among Hispanics in the history of the country" and lifting 1.5 million Latinos out of poverty. In addition, he said Latino homeownership and household income "also reached all-time highs," and added that in the past four months 3.3 million jobs were filled by Hispanics in the economic recovery from the pandemic. 

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"It's about Hispanics and the relationship we have here, incredible relationship," Trump said during the event attended by 150 people at Trump National golf club in Doral. "Hispanic Americans enrich our nation beyond measure, they champion our shared values and embody the American Dream."

The president also warned about socialism, saying that what happened in countries like Cuba and Venezuela "could happen" in America, too, if Democrat Joe Biden wins the election.

"You know about the radical left almost more than any other people," he said. "You got big examples."

That theme echoed what Trump told a rally in Jacksonville Thursday night.

"The Democrat Party has been completely taken over by socialist forces and far-left extremists," Trump said. "They embrace the policies of communist Cuba, socialist Venezuela. They want to end the American Dream for Hispanic Americans."

Democrats are now calling Trump the radical candidate

However, the president's unwillingness this week to pledge to leave office peacefully if he lost the Nov. 3 election, one of the country's most sacred political traditions and constitutional duties, gave ammunition to Democrats who now paint Trump as the radical candidate who rejects the most cherished American ideals.

"Donald Trump is turning the country our families fled to into the country our families fled from," said Daniela Ferrera, co-founder of the Cubanos con Biden movement. "Cuban Americans, Venezuelan Americans, Nicaraguan Americans, so many in our Latino community, we know a dictator when we see one."

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The reference was to Trump's refusal on Wednesday, when asked, to commit to a peaceful transfer of power should he lose to the former vice president.

"We're going to have to see what happens," Trump said in the White House media briefing room. "I've been complaining very strongly about the ballots. The ballots are a disaster. Get rid of the ballots and you'll have a very peaceful, there won't be a transfer, there will be a continuation."

Trump's statement marked the first time in an election year that a sitting U.S. president put into doubt whether he would leave office if he lost a re-election bid. And it followed another unprecedented statement by Trump this summer in which he called for postponing the presidential election — something the country did not do at other crisis points such as during the Civil War and World War II.

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Trump's repeated claims of vote-by-mail fraud, without offering any evidence, was torpedoed Thursday by FBI Director Christopher Wray. "We have not seen historically any kind of coordinated national voter fraud effort in a major election, whether it's by mail or otherwise," Wray said in testimony before Congress.

Is Trump's focus on South Florida gaining traction with voters?

In South Florida, a region dominated by exiles and refugees who fled communist and right-wing military dictatorships, Trump's refusal to accede to America's most cherished constitutional principle landed with a resounding thud.

"This is a guy who pops off, who tries to distract when things go badly for him, so you have to take the stupid things he says with a grain of salt,” said former federal prosecutor Andres Rivero, who is supporting Biden. “But I will tell you this, my family fled an autocrat who refused to give up power. There are a lot of Venezuelans, Cubans and Nicaraguans who are allergic to that, to a [Fidel] Castro, [Nicolás] Maduro or [Daniel] Ortega. That kind of stuff, I think, won't work with people who know, particularly, about how things are done in other countries where there is not a peaceful transfer of power.” 

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Ahead of the president's visit, his Florida Republican allies touted the White House's latest rollback of the Obama administration's Cuba engagement policy by cracking down on purchases of rum and cigars in Cuba as souvenirs.

"These new travel restrictions and sanctions roll back Obama-era policies of appeasement to the Castro regime," said U.S. Sen. Rick Scott in a statement. "Cuba is the root of the evil we see in Latin America and we must continue to fight until we see a new day of freedom in our hemisphere.” 

But attorney Rivero said Trump's moves are blatantly hypocritical in light of media reports that his company explored hotel, casino and beauty pageant business in Cuba a decade ago. Commercial explorations that could have violated federal law at the time, Rivero said.

“I would love to prosecute that case,” said Rivero, who now runs a law firm that specializes in commercial litigation. "Why did he do all that stuff? He meant to put a Trump hotel in Havana and he meant to have beauty contests in that hotel while Cubans are being paid pennies. That’s what his intent was. And now today he is going to be the great defender of the right of the Cuban people? Please, that is absurd.”

Nonetheless, the "roll back" of commercial engagement has been applauded by many Cuban-American voters in South Florida. While a Wall Street Journal/NBC/Telemundo poll this week showed Biden with a nationwide 36-point lead over Trump, 62% to 26%, surveys of Hispanic voters in Florida have shown Biden underperforming compared to 2016 Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.

Some say Trump is winning over Cuban Americans

A major reason, pollsters say, appears to be that Florida's Cuban-Americans are backing the president in even larger numbers than four years ago when Trump carried Florida by just over 100,000 votes.

That added enthusiasm among Cuban-Americans, pollsters say, is a reason why Trump looks to have evened his standing in the Sunshine State with Biden.

A Florida Atlantic University poll released Sept. 15 showed Trump sharply cutting into Biden's former lead in the state. The survey showed a statistical dead heat with Biden up 49% to 46%. The most previous FAU poll, taken in May, had Biden with a comfortable 53% to 47% advantage.

Jorge Duany, director of the Cuban Research Institute at Florida International University, said last week that Trump is winning the majority of Cuban American voters because he "overturned the Obama policy of rapprochement since 2014." Duany said he would not be shocked if the next round of polling by the institute "shows a substantial consolidation of the Cuban American vote for Trump and the Republican Party."

But Ferrara said the mushrooming popularity of the Cubanos con Biden movement — including 12,000 Facebook fans and a 200 car-plus caravan last weekend — suggests there is decided disenchantment with the president and his policies.

"There is a silent majority brewing out there of Cuban Americans, and Latinos in general, who because the Trump folks are so loud and aggressive have decided to be a little more low key about their support for Joe Biden," she said.

She was a Republican. Then 'the party took a very hard turn to the right'

Ferrara herself is a former Republican who joined the party four years ago at age 18 convinced, she said, the GOP would be "more of a bigger tent" that would "embrace diversity and immigrants."

She said she was inspired during the 2016 South Carolina primary while watching Florida U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, also a Cuban American, campaigning with U.S. Sen. Tim Scott, who is Black, and then-Gov. Nikki Haley, whose family is from India.

"I was really optimistic about the future of the GOP,"  Ferrara said. "To me, that was what the future of the GOP was going to look like. A diverse party. A party that was moving a little bit more to the middle. All of that until Donald Trump. Unfortunately, the party took a very hard turn to the right."

Now, she says, she is committed to electing Biden. She co-started Cubanos con Biden and is organizing phone banks, featuring "abuelos y nietos," where grandparents and grandchildren call voters together. Last Saturday, they paraded through Hialeah in a car caravan.

"I'm sick and tired of seeing Donald Trump ... exploiting trauma of the Cuban community for votes," Ferrara said. "We're changing the narrative. We're turning the tide."

The Trump campaign insists the president will again carry Florida, his adopted home state.

“President Trump re-affirms his commitment to the Sunshine State with every visit," said Trump Victory spokesperson Emma Vaughn in a statement. "Come November, Floridians will remember that President Trump came here to make his pro-growth, pro-America case in person as Joe Biden stayed away.”

But the Democratic National Committee blasted Trump's latest measures on Cuba policy, which it said amounted to pandering. 

"This is a desperate and hypocritical attempt by Trump to pander to Cuban-American voters in Florida," the DNC said in a statement. "American citizens are already banned from traveling to Cuba because of the coronavirus, and Trump has privately sought to do business with the country for years and ignored the embargo. He’s filed trademarks with the Cuban government to make money on golf courses, hotels, and more — but now that he’s lagging in the polls, he’s just using our foreign policy for his own political gain.” 

Election gamesmanship is in high gear in Florida

Trump's Florida campaign swing came as election-year political gamesmanship reaches a fever pitch in the state. This week, New York billionaire Michael Bloomberg offered $16 million to help former felons pay off fines and restitution so they can register to vote.

On the heels of Bloomberg's move, Gov. Ron DeSantis, Attorney General Ashley Moody and state Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis called for investigations into Bloomberg's benevolence, which is aimed at registering voters. 

And another liberal organization, Progressive Turnout Project, said it was working to erase Trump's 2016 victory margin in the Sunshine State. The organization said it has obtained 37,699 commitments from voters who say they will cast a ballot from more than 70,000 letters and phone calls.

The group said 30% "of its targeted voter pool in Florida did not vote in 2016, and 50 percent of its targeted voter pool is Black or Latin." 

"Joe Biden needs Florida to win this election,” said Alex Morgan, executive director of Progressive Turnout Project, in a statement. “That’s why our team is having in-depth, one-on-one conversations with inconsistent Democratic voters in Florida who we need to turn out this fall. We are talking with voters about what motivates them and what’s at stake on the ballot, and helping them make and execute a plan to vote.”  

Trump in Jacksonville on Thursday: 'I'm working my ass off'

Thursday's Trump rally at Jacksonville's Cecil Airport followed a format the president successfully used in 2016 to tenaciously barnstorm battleground states on his way to a stunning 304-vote Electoral College win.

"I'm working my ass off," Trump told the crowd, and he implored them to cast a vote.

"Get your family, get your neighbors, get your co-workers and get out and vote," he said. "We have to win this election, most important election we've ever had."

He added: "Forty days from now we're going to win Florida. We're going to win four more years in the White House."

Trump's speech hit familiar themes. He vowed the United States would not become a socialist country, he promised the nation would see an economic resurgence from the coronavirus pandemic and he pledged to support police officers and law enforcement agents.

"This is the most important election in the history of the country," he said, adding that Democrats "are going to raise your taxes and take away your Second Amendment" gun rights.

Trump then flew to Miami International Airport and spent the night at Trump National. From Miami, the president flew to Atlanta on Friday afternoon for another campaign event, titled “Black Economic Empowerment: The Platinum Plan.”

He then had another roundtable event scheduled at his hotel in Washington, D.C., that was to be followed by a campaign rally in Newport News, Va.