Wikileaks: Univision Chairman Urged Clinton Campaign To Be Tougher On Trump's Immigration Stance

Matt Vespa | October 26, 2016 6:00 PM

Wikileaks revealed earlier this month that the chairman for Univision Haim Saban thought the Clinton campaign was being too soft on Donald Trump’s hard stance on immigration, an issue that catapulted the billionaire to clinch the GOP nomination. Saban, who is also a wealthy businessman himself, as his career in music and television (his company produced Power Rangers) made him a billionaire, emailed Clinton’s aides in June of 2015 to demand they hammer Trump more aggressively on his proposals, which Team Hillary agreed (via McClatchy):

…a series of emails pirated from the Democratic National Committee and published in the past week by the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks show that within days of Trump’s June 16, 2015, announcement of his candidacy, Univision’s chairman, Haim Saban, was urging the Clinton campaign to take a tougher stance on Trump’s anti-immigrant agenda.

“Haim thinks we are underreacting to Trump/Hispanics. Thinks we can get something by standing up for Latinos or attacking R’s (Republicans) for not condemning,” Clinton campaign Chairman John Podesta wrote July 3, 2015, in an email to other Clinton staffers.

The email drew an immediate response from Jennifer Palmieri, a former White House spokeswoman who is communications director for the Clinton campaign: “Haim is right – we should be jamming this all the time.”

[…]

A spokeswoman for Saban, Stephanie Pillersdorf, said the media tycoon’s support for Clinton’s presidential bid had not influenced Univision’s news coverage. “Not even one iota. Zero, zero, zero,” Pillersdorf said.

“He has been a supporter of Hillary separate and way before his involvement with Univision,” Pillersdorf said.

McClatchy, who gave a shout out to our sister site Hot Air, also mentioned that Saban’s involvement with Univision is separate from his support of Hillary Clinton, and that he doesn’t his news department what to cover after former associate editor Noah Rothman (who has since moved over to Commentary) wrote how Univision is a being used as a hub of pro-Clinton coverage, a deluge of good press.

“I have nothing to do with it. I NEVER tell our news DEP what to cover . . . unlike some of my peers,” Saban wrote in an emailed response to this post to the Clinton team.