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State-run media in Latin America criticize US government, candidates

Madrid — In their coverage of the U.S. presidential election, countries with repressive media such as Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela have taken aim at the American system of government and, to some degree, the candidates themselves.

Following the two assassination attempts targeting Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, Cuban state-run newspaper Granma ran a headline, “The guns speak again in the U.S. elections,” an apparent reference to gun violence in the United States.

But the newspaper made no mention on its front pages Wednesday of the previous night’s vice presidential debate between Republican JD Vance and Democrat Tim Walz in which the two candidates clashed on issues that included gun control. The paper did cover the face-to-face debate last month between Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris, saying they traded “low blows.”

Overall, Cuban press coverage of the U.S. has not favored either candidate during this election cycle, said William LeoGrande, professor of government at American University in Washington.

“The Cuban press has been very even-handed in coverage of the U.S. elections, mostly offering simple factual accounts of the campaign — no doubt because they will have to deal with whoever wins,” said LeoGrande.

“To the extent that they have offered any critical commentary, it can be summed up as a ‘plague on both your houses,’” he said.

LeoGrande noted that one Granma report said, “There is only one certainty: Whoever wins will be the face invested with the arrogance of the empire with a desire for power.” Cuba has long referred to the U.S. as the “empire.”

To understand how Granma views the U.S. election, VOA emailed its editor, Yailin Orta Rivera, for comment but did not receive a reply before publication. 

In Nicaragua, ‘hate and criticism’

In Nicaragua, state-controlled media have used reports about the U.S. election as a chance to repeat traditional criticisms of Washington, independent media monitoring groups say.

Abigail Hernandez, director of Galeria News and a member of the Independent Journalists and Communications of Nicaragua, said state media such as La Nueva Radio Ya have run reports critical of the American political system.

“These analysis reports concentrate on the judicial and electoral system of the U.S. and criticize the candidacy of Trump,” she told VOA. “I say ‘analysis’ because in reality, these articles are the traditional line of hate and criticism toward the U.S. empire.”

Hernandez added, “They try to say that the U.S. is a sham democracy and that the elections are a reflection of this.”

The government of Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega did not respond to an emailed request for comment before publication.

In Nicaragua, state media are controlled by Ortega or members of his family, independent media monitoring groups said.

In 2010, Canal 8, which had been an independent television network, had a new chief executive — Juan Carlos Ortega Murillo — the president’s son.

Until then, the channel had been known for scrutinizing governments of the left or right, the Reuters news agency reported. Its new owner is the wife of Rafael Ortega Murillo, another of the president’s sons.

Media analysts say that in Nicaragua and Venezuela, reports on the U.S. election criticized the U.S. political system in relation to key issues of interest to their core audiences, especially migration.

Tens of thousands of Nicaraguans desperate to escape the Ortega government have headed north, seeking to cross into the United States.

Earlier this year, the U.S. imposed sanctions on Nicaragua over issues related to migrant smuggling and human rights.

Venezuela, US in tense relationship

Venezuela’s government has also had a tense relationship with the United States over human rights and the conduct of elections.

Driven by political turmoil, 7.7 million people have left Venezuela since 2014, according to a United Nations report published earlier this year.

Most have headed for other Latin American countries or Spain. Others have ended up in the United States illegally, although there have been efforts to allow some Venezuelans into the U.S. lawfully, the U.N. report said.

Marivi Marin Vazquez, founder and director of ProboxVE, a nongovernmental organization that studies disinformation in Latin America, said state media in Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela all used reports about the U.S. elections to criticize the American political system.

“They all look at problems in the political system so they can justify their own systems,” she said in an interview with VOA from Washington, where she has lived in exile since leaving Venezuela four years ago.

“They pick holes in things like contradictions, inequality and the power of corporate interests.”

The Venezuelan government did not respond to emailed requests for comment on coverage of the U.S. election.
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Vance and Walz focus their attacks on the top of the ticket — not each other

Washington — Vice Presidential hopefuls Tim Walz and JD Vance squared off Tuesday night in what may be the last debate of the 2024 presidential campaign. It was the first encounter between Minnesota’s Democratic governor and Ohio’s Republican senator, following last month’s debate between the tops of their tickets, Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump. 

No more debates are on the political calendar before Election Day. Tuesday’s confrontation came as the global stakes of the contest rose again as Iran fired missiles at Israel. The vice presidential hopefuls sparred over the violence in the Middle East, climate change and immigration. Here are some takeaways from Tuesday’s debate. 

Mideast in turmoil 

Iran’s ballistic missile attack on Israel on Tuesday elicited a contrast between the Democratic and Republican tickets on foreign policy: Walz promised “steady leadership” under Harris while Vance pledged a return to “peace through strength” if Trump is returned to the White House. 

The differing visions of what American leadership should look like overshadowed the sharp policy differences between the two tickets. 

The Iranian threat to the region and U.S. interests around the world opened the debate, with Walz pivoting the topic to criticism of Trump. 

“What’s fundamental here is that steady leadership is going to matter,” Walz said, then referenced the “nearly 80-year-old Donald Trump talking about crowd sizes” and responding to global crises by tweet. 

Vance, for his part, promised a return to “effective deterrence” under Trump against Iran, brushing back on Walz’s criticism of Trump by attacking Harris and her role in the Biden administration. 

“Who has been the vice president for the last three and a half years and the answer is your running mate, not mine,” he said. He pointedly noted that the Hamas attacks on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, happened “during the administration of Kamala Harris.” 

Vance and Walz punch up 

Vance and Walz trained the bulk of their attacks not on their on-stage rival, but on the running mates who weren’t in the room. 

Both vice presidential nominees sought to convey a genial mien as they lobbed criticism at Harris and Trump, respectively. 

It was a reflection of the fact that most voters don’t cast a ballot based on the vice president, and on a vice presidential nominee’s historic role in serving as the attack dog for their running mates. 

Walz pointedly attacked Trump for failing to meet his pledge of building a physical barrier across the entire U.S.-Mexico border at the country’s southern neighbor’s expense. 

“Less than 2% of that wall got built and Mexico didn’t pay a dime,” Walz said. 

Underscoring the focus on the top of the ticket, during a back-and-forth about immigration, Vance said to his opponent: “I think that you want to solve this problem, but I don’t think that Kamala Harris does.” 

Climate change 

In the wake of the devastation of Hurricane Helene, Vance took a question about climate change and gave an answer about jobs and manufacturing, taking a detour around Trump’s past claims that global warming is a “hoax.” 

Vance contended that the best way to fight climate change was to move more manufacturing to the United States, because the country has the world’s cleanest energy economy. It was a distinctly domestic spin on a global crisis, especially after Trump pulled the U.S. out of the international Paris climate accords during his administration. 

Walz also kept the climate change focus domestic, touting the Biden administration’s renewable energy investments as well as record levels of oil and natural gas production. “You can see us becoming an energy superpower in the future,” Walz said. 

It was a decidedly optimistic take on a pervasive and grim global problem. 

Immigration 

The two running mates agreed that the number of migrants in the U.S. illegally is a problem. But each laid the blame on the opposing presidential nominee. 

Vance echoed Trump by repeatedly calling Harris the “border czar” and suggested that she, as vice president, single-handedly rolled back the immigration restrictions Trump had imposed as president. The result, in Vance’s telling, is an unchecked flow of fentanyl, strain on state and local resources and increased housing prices around the country. 

Harris was never asked to be the “border czar” and she was never specifically given the responsibility for security on the border. She was tasked by Biden in March 2021 with tackling the “root causes” of migration from the Central American countries of Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador and pushing leaders there and in Mexico to enforce immigration laws. Harris was not empowered to set U.S. immigration policy — only the president can sign executive orders and Harris was not empowered as Biden’s proxy in negotiations with Congress on immigration law. 

Walz advanced Democrats’ arguments that Trump single-handedly killed a bipartisan Senate deal to tighten border security and boost the processing system for immigrants and asylum seekers. Republicans backed off the deal, Walz noted, only after Trump said it wasn’t good enough. 
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Trump declines to be interviewed for ’60 Minutes’ election special

NEW YORK — CBS News said Tuesday that Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has declined to participate in an interview with “60 Minutes” for its election special, which will go forward next Monday with Democratic opponent Kamala Harris alone.

Television’s top-rated news program regularly invites the two presidential contenders for separate interviews that air back-to-back on a show near the election. This year, it is scheduled for Monday instead of its usual Sunday time slot.

Asked for comment, the former president’s campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung said, “Fake news,” adding that there were discussions, but nothing was ever locked in.

“60 Minutes” said Trump’s campaign had initially agreed to an interview before telling CBS that the former president would not appear. The network said its invitation to sit for an interview still stands, and correspondent Scott Pelley will explain Trump’s absence to viewers.

Vice President Harris will appear in a pretaped interviewed with Bill Whitaker.

There are currently no other scheduled opportunities for voters to compare the two candidates together. Harris and Trump previously debated on Sept. 10. Although Harris has accepted an invitation from CNN for a second debate later this month, Trump has not accepted.

The interview special is scheduled to air Monday instead of the usual “60 Minutes” time slot because CBS is showing the American Music Awards on Sunday.

Trump’s interview with “60 Minutes” correspondent Lesley Stahl prior to the 2020 election proved contentious, with the former president ending the session early and his campaign posting an unedited transcript of the session.

CBS News was hosting Tuesday’s vice presidential debate between Republican Ohio Sen. JD Vance and Tim Walz, Minnesota’s Democratic governor.
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