Lorella Praeli on how Dems Can Win Back Latino Voters

0:00Ben Meiselas:Monday AI agents took over my work. And I absolutely love it. Chasing deadlines, writing status reports, updating stakeholders. Agents handle the daily grind now. They live inside Monday.com. So they see the full picture. My work, my team, the whole company. And I don't have to worry about the data. It's safe, which means I'm free to focus on the big stuff. Knowing everything runs smoothly in the background. It's completely shifted the way we work. Create your own AI agent in minutes on Monday.com. Donald Trump has gotten numerous disastrous polls since the election early in November. And one of the demographic groups that shifted to Trump in the 2024 election, but has now seemed to at least shift away from Republicans in the most recent November election, Latinos.

0:50Ben Meiselas:There's a recent poll out showing kind of massive, massive shifts just over the past few months alone. But let me just show you how they described it on CNN. Here they are. Let's play this clip. The Latino vote. What are we seeing among the polls there? Yeah. What are we seeing? You know, one of the big shifts in 2024 from 2020 was that shift towards Donald Trump. Right. Immigration played a key role. And then I want to start off with Latinos on Trump and immigration. You know, back a year ago, what did we see on the issue of immigration? Latino voters trusted Kamala Harris more than Donald Trump, but by just two points.

1:25Ben Meiselas:One, two. Look now at Donald Trump's net approval rating on immigration among Latinos. He is 38 points underwater. That is a 36 point shift, essentially, from where we were a year ago on immigration. Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are basically tied on the issue of immigration. And now on the issue of immigration, Latinos despise, hate Donald Trump. 38 points underwater. In their mind, he is doing something absolutely wrong when it comes to immigration. What about the Latino vote overall? What about the Latino vote overall? All right. How do Latinos feel about Donald Trump overall? Let's take a look here.

2:00Ben Meiselas:This, I think, sort of gives the game away. Yeah. Oh, my goodness. I mean, that is the phrase of the day. Trump's not approving among Latinos. In early February, again, he was just two points underwater. Look at where he is now. Late October, minus 34 points, 34 points underwater. A shift to 32 points over the course of this year. I should point out this is the CBS News you got, Paul. But I was looking at the average of polls. I was looking at a wrong poll. Very similar shift. 20, 25, 30 point shifts on the net approval rating away from Donald Trump among Latinos overall. Again, whatever Donald Trump is doing in office in the minds of Latinos.

2:39Ben Meiselas:It is not working. They have turned against him in massive, massive numbers. Right before that November 4th election, a few weeks back, Democratic Senator Ruben Gallego, who has been outspoken and fighting for bringing Latino voters back to the Democratic Party. And he was saying there was a lot of red flags heading into the 2024 election. Here's what he said before Election Day. Let's play it. Look, I can tell you what I I saw one of us campaigning in New Jersey and one of the most Latino areas of New Jersey when I was in Virginia, campaigning there in working class areas and Latino areas. People are worried about the cost of living.

3:17Ben Meiselas:And they're asking where it was and is the Republican Party and where is President Trump? They promised to bring down the cost of living. They promised to make things more livable. They promised to go after the criminals that are in our communities that are here illegally. Instead, what we're seeing is costs of everything going up and you're separating families and you're racially profiling Latinos. So I think you're going to see a very strong reaction tonight from very Latino areas of both states really putting a check on this presidency and the lawlessness that is occurring under the guise of these Republicans.

3:49Ben Meiselas:And we did ultimately see that happen on November 4th. And now we're getting more data. The latest Fox poll shows that Donald Trump's net approval rating is 38 percent. When you go into areas like the economy, I mean, he is deeply underwater. Only 61 % or 61 % disapproval on the issue of health care, 64 % disapproval. Here's how Brett Baer had to even address the issue on Fox here. Let's play it. But the issue of affordability, the issue of how people feel about the economy popping up in our latest polls, personal financial situation now, excellent, good, 40%, only fair or poor, 60%. You can see that changing from July.

4:32Ben Meiselas:Condition of the U.S. economy, also a perception totally upside down, 76 to 25, and that changing a bit. And then economic conditions for the nation and you personally, again, 25 percent positive, 76 negative for the nation, and then 60-40 personally. And as we see ICE agents invading areas, Charlotte, Chicago, Los Angeles, Portland, and frankly, other cities that deserve probably the same amount of attention. Those are some of the high profile invasions. We're hearing from Latinos in those communities who voted for Trump like this Latino for Trump man. And here's how he described the issue. Let's play it.

5:17Ben Meiselas:And Willie, you told me that you voted for President Trump in 2024. Do you regret that decision? ¿Te arrepientes esa decisión? Yes, 100%. Why do you regret that decision? That's because it's nothing that's true. It's not true. You know, and the first time he says something, and now, for example, and the Latino people, we see everything is different. And the first time example, he say he got to catch the delinquentes, criminals, criminals. Yeah. And right now, he don't follow to criminals. He go to a specific to Latino people. I want to bring in Lorela Praele right now. Lorela, it's great to see you.

6:04Ben Meiselas:Lorela was undocumented for 15 years of her life. She's now the co-president of Community Change. And it's great to have you here now for your whole life since you've been here and leadership roles or then you've been saying, got to focus on the immigrant community. You got to focus on immigration. You got to focus on immigration, Democrats. And I think they've ignored that in 2024 to their peril. And just because we see these results and this backlash to the horrific dehumanizing treatment by Donald Trump of the immigrant population, that doesn't mean that that's going to be a winning strategy approaching the midterms and in 2028.

6:46Ben Meiselas:So let's first, though, discuss what you saw happen. And then let's discuss what needs to happen, though, to bring back the trust. So first, Lorella, what happened? Well, Ben, I don't think anyone should be surprised by the kind of the numbers and the shifts that we're seeing right now, because when you do, when your government carries out this kind of coordinated campaign to tear millions of families and hardworking people from their communities, people who are raising children, building neighborhoods, creating the kind of culture and society and life that makes this country run and that makes this country what it is, people are going to turn against you.

7:25And so I want to start with where we are right now, because unless you're living inside of one of these communities, unless you've seen routines break down overnight, unless you've watched the fear on a parent's face when they hear a knock on the door, unless you've seen a child afraid to go to school, it's almost impossible to grasp the scale of what is happening right now around our country. And so the mistake and the strategic errors that Democrats have made time and time again is to pretend that it's not happening, to pretend that Republicans aren't leading with immigration as their issue.

7:59And to think that, you know, by not leaning in and by not having an affirmative vision on what to do on immigration, that that's enough, that it'll go away. And what I think is that the assault that we're seeing right now isn't only physical or psychological, it's also economic. And that's what the results of the off-year elections told us, that the administration's actions are hitting everyone's daily lives, and we can talk about that more.

8:27Ben Meiselas:Let's talk about that more right now, which is the economic impact. We know psychological. You see what's happening. literally invasions of cities, rounding up brown people, throwing them into concentration camps, going into restaurants, stores, Home Depot parking lots, food vendors, farms. And the Trump regime spokespeople are like, yeah, whatever, we do what we're going to do. They're, you know, making no distinction between criminals, as we saw that one person say before, And they view if you're here, whether you're undocumented or even if you were on temporary status or even if you're a citizen and your skin is brown, they round you up.

9:14Ben Meiselas:Psychological, physical. Let's talk about economic, though, because Trump went in and was also kind of promising economic riches right around the corner. And I'm going to uplift you. Democrats kind of ignored that. And so Trump's scam seemed to override any message about economic prosperity that could have been made. So talk us through that. Well, I think what you see across the country is that families are facing skyrocketing prices for food, for housing, child care, elder care and immigration policies directly tied to these. Right. And so recently we saw that the Department of Labor actually acknowledged that current policies are hurting farms.

9:54They're making it harder to hire workers. They're driving up the price of food. And so you have all these industries that rely on immigrant labor, construction, home health care, child care. They're also seeing the strain. And that translates directly into higher costs for everyday families. right? So groceries, housing, childcare, the building of new homes. These are policies that target the policies that target immigrant communities actually make life more expensive and more precarious for everyone. And so we have to think of immigration policy as economic policy. And here's the catch with Latino voters.

10:32It's not, it's not a net gain for Democrats when they turn against Trump because Democrats are not actually making a compelling case about what the future needs to look like. And so I think that that's where the opportunity is right now. And to understand that Republicans have said, well, we are not only against illegal immigration, we're not only trying to target and round up undocumented people, we actually want to shut down all legal avenues of immigration in this country. So they're against all legal channels. And what Democrats need to do in this moment is actually lay out that compelling economic vision and say, that is also how we lean into immigration in this country.

11:15But this idea that, you know, you don't have to talk about it creates a vacuum. And in that vacuum, the right fills it with lies, with scapegoating and with fear.

11:25Ben Meiselas:Let's talk about what the future needs to look like in just a moment. But one of the things I want to ask you is how should Democrats or just people in general handle the fact that Donald Trump has these kind of plants in Latino communities who are community leaders, who frequently sell out the community and they make these promises and they're trusted people sometimes on the media and the radio stations. Frequently, they start on the media like Congresswoman Salazar and then become Congress members because they were in people's living rooms and the people in Florida trust him. And she's got a compelling story.

12:07Ben Meiselas:Her family fled the Castro regime and she's Cuban. And I've been through communism and I'm here to stop communism and the left is communist and da, da, da, da, da. Let me just show you, you know, this is their message that they run with. And while we may go, and I think Democrats at their peril said, nobody believes this crap. We all know that she's, you know, this stuff worked in 2024. So let me to show you Congresswoman Salazar right after the 2024 election. She made a promise. I promise you, I spoke to Trump. He's only going after the bad guys, the bad hombres. He's not going after you. Trust me.

12:49Ben Meiselas:And she does it in her very charismatic way. Here, play this clip. I am sure that we're not, that the Trump administration is not going to be targeting those people who have been here for more than five years that have American kids, that don't have criminal records, that have been working in the economy and paying taxes. I am sure that they're going to hone in on the criminals who arrived less than four years ago. Because I wrote the Dignity Act, and I am the first one who understands that you have to give some type of dignity to those who have been here for more than five years. People who have roots in the country, not people who are coming to commit crimes.

13:23If I can just clarify from you, have you received those kinds of details from anyone in a potential Trump administration? because so far what we've heard is proposal for mass deportations. We have about 30 seconds left. Have you gotten those assurances? Mass deportation to those who are committing crimes who have been here for less than five years. You understand that you have millions of undocumented who are contributing with the economy and are helping our country to be a better one.

13:52Ben Meiselas:You know, I haven't been undocumented in my life. I come into this interview and life with a degree of privilege that I just hope every day I can utilize it to shed light on certain issues. But I understand how an undocumented population that is trying to live what they view as an American dream sees a compelling person like that on TV, you know, and she's well-spoken and she's energetic and she goes, I promise you, he's not doing this. Look at me. I'm like you. And then boom, they destroy. How do we deal with that? Well, I think there are a few things. One is the Democratic Party lost credibility with Latino voters for many years, right?

14:40Every year, every four year cycle, they would make this promise. We're going to do comprehensive immigration reform. We're going to legalize people who have been here for a long time. That's one. So they lost credibility. In this last election, what we saw is, and people said, well, they're not going to do anything about it. Trump is going to target criminals. And so instead, we want to vote for someone who has something to promise and something promising to say about the economy and that's how they end up voting for trump and now there's trump the trump administration and the way that it is not bringing down cost of living you know we have an affordability crisis in this country and also in the ways in which they are targeting communities across this country they're racially profiling you if you speak spanish if you are brown if you're latino you they've been authorized to go after you based on what kind of occupation you do.

15:29So they're going into people's lawns and targeting workers. What happens now is what is the vision that Democrats have that actually pull that Democrats have that can pull Latinos back into a place of, I can vote for you with more confidence. And that is not going to happen. Just to be really clear, been only by being against Trump. And by the way, I don't see enough of our national democratic leaders making the case today or being outraged about what is happening, but also putting forward a new vision. And so we can't go back to a system that didn't work because the system we've had for a long time doesn't work.

16:09And, and you know, it doesn't actually benefit working families and communities that are struggling across the country. But we, so we have to push back against the cruelty while also saying we can build an immigration system that allows families to reunify, that allows us to have farm workers to feed the country, that allows us to have home healthcare workers for our elders and entrepreneurs to create jobs. And this is a place where they can actually lead, showing that immigration policy can be humane and also strategically align with the future of this country. And so that's the work ahead and you have to do it by investing on the ground.

16:53Right. So I also did Latino vote work before in the electoral context. And what we've seen for a long time is that Republicans have been making investments over time, building these trusted voices, building these trusted messengers. And Democrats have totally abandoned that because they have always made this wrong assumption about us and the Latino electorate, which is you're just in a mobilization category. I don't have to do any work to persuade you. You're already going to vote for us. And I think Latinos got fed up and they said, absolutely not. You are not delivering from my community right now.

17:28And I am not going to give you my vote. You're not actually earning it. And that's the opportunity now.

17:34Ben Meiselas:And I think it's an opportunity that should absolutely not be squandered. there's clearly a openness right now for any trust that may have been breached heading into 2024 because of just the horrific treatment by the Trump regime I think there's now a hey you're gonna you're gonna support me because I don't want to support this but are you with me in a way though that I think everybody recognizes we don't want criminals here you could still say all of these things. No one wants criminals. No one wants terrorists. We should absolutely make sure that people are brought to justice who engage in all of that.

18:13Ben Meiselas:But we also need a humane, dignified process that recognizes the way the country works. And I hope there's an openness for that now and an honest dialogue about that and a view that we should defend basic human dignity, like basic humanity, because seeing these ICE Gestapo roam the streets like SS troopers, you know, and go through neighborhoods. I mean, it is it is a tragic thing indeed. Anything you want to say before we go? Well, Ben, in every way, every day, ordinary people are already leading the way. Right. So all of these neighborhoods around the country that are organizing and taking matters into their own hands, they are already doing that with courage.

18:54They're already being brave. They're already showing up. And so So I actually think this is a time when elected officials need to follow the playbook of people on the ground and get that courage themselves, find that fire themselves, because we're absolutely, absolutely not going to come out of this moment stronger or with a winning path for the future unless they get the cojones to actually lead in this moment.

19:17Ben Meiselas:Well, Lorella Pirelli, it's great to have you here. Great to have this conversation. A compelling story, Lorella, just the fact that you were undocumented for so long, leading in the community in a positive way, co-president of Community Change. Thanks so much for joining us. Thank you, Ben. Everybody hit subscribe. Let's get to 6 million subscribers. Want to stay plugged in? Become a subscriber to our sub stack at MidasPlus.com. You'll get daily recaps from Ron Filipkowski, add free episodes of our podcast and more exclusive content only available at MidasPlus.com.