Seeking Latino Support, Trump Raises Specter of Latin American Corruption

The day before former President Donald J. Trump was arraigned on federal charges, he gave an interview to Americano Media, a conservative Spanish-language broadcaster in South Florida, and described his indictment as a “regression” of democracy.

Minutes before he pleaded not guilty in a Miami courtroom on Tuesday, his spokeswoman told reporters that the episode was something “you see in dictatorships like Cuba and Venezuela.”

After he left the courthouse, Mr. Trump went directly to a popular Cuban restaurant in Little Havana and prayed with supporters.

As he mounts his political defense against a 37-count indictment, Mr. Trump has repeatedly invoked corruption and dysfunction in Latin American governments, casting himself in the role of oppressed political dissident.

It’s a clear effort to try to disparage the government’s case — but also a not-so-subtle play for the sympathies of Latino voters, both in Florida and far beyond.

“They really see it better than other people do,” Mr. Trump said Monday in an interview with Americano Media. The host, Carinés Moncada, repeatedly concurred.

“What we’re seeing here is the type of thing, Mr. President, that sadly happens in Latin America,” Ms. Moncada said.

Mr. Trump’s comparison is, to say the least, a stretch. The former president has been accused of possessing dozens of classified documents after he left office and repeatedly obstructing the government’s attempts to retrieve them from his Mar-a-Lago home. The indictment, which relies on his own lawyer’s notes and photos and aides’ communications, has been described as serious and damning by even some Republican lawyers, including his former attorney general.

The investigation was led by a special counsel to give President Biden, Mr. Trump’s former and possibly future rival for the White House, some remove from the case.

That evidence and measure of independence, however, have done little to persuade Republican voters. At least one early poll, conducted by CBS News/YouGov, suggests the vast majority of G.O.P. voters have accepted Mr. Trump’s defense that the case amounts to political retribution.

Mr. Trump has been particularly focused on persuading Latino voters on that point, a strategy that may be both political and legal. It is possible that the jury pool could be drawn from registered voters in Miami-Dade County, where nearly 70 percent of the population identified as Latino, according to census data.

More broadly, Mr. Trump sees his relative strength with Latino voters across the country as critical to his hopes of returning to the White House. He won about one-third of Latino voters in 2020, according to surveys of the electorate. That was up from 2016, when he received support from less than 30 percent.

In a May poll conducted by Quinnipiac University, Hispanic voters were about evenly split when surveyed about a rematch between Mr. Trump and Mr. Biden in 2024.

Mr. Trump has used a range of cultural and religious issues to connect with those voters, with success that ranges broadly across geography and demographics. He has also used messages aimed more specifically at voters with close ties to Cuba, Venezuela and Central America. In 2020, repeating language effectively used by Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, Mr. Trump repeatedly cast Mr. Biden as a “socialist,” playing on negative associations many Latin American immigrants have with the governments they fled.

His latest remarks go further. Mr. Trump has repeatedly alluded to Democrats as “communists,” including during a speech on Tuesday night at his club in Bedminster, N.J.

“If the communists get away with this, it won’t stop with me,” he said. “They will not hesitate to ramp up their persecution of Christians, pro-life activists, parents attending school board meetings and even future Republican candidates, which they do.”

Eduardo A. Gamarra, a professor of politics and international relations at Florida International University who is also part of its Cuban Research Institute, said the narrative woven by Mr. Trump and his surrogates, while false, was a shrewd one.

“It’s reinforced by local media, by much of what of the Trump campaign and other Republicans are saying: that this administration, the Biden administration, is behaving like the banana republics behave, so that’s resonated very intensely here,” he said. “It’s great politics, but it’s not true.”

Professor Gamarra, who was born in Bolivia, said Mr. Trump’s courtship was refreshing to many groups of Latino voters because some have been overlooked by many politicians. But he said that his latching onto the premise that he was somehow a political dissident was damaging.

“I think it just sort of propagates the stereotypes about Latin America,” he said. “It’s much more complex than simply the banana republic image.”

The symbolism in Mr. Trump’s cameo at Versailles Restaurant in Little Havana was clear. A landmark for the Cuban diaspora, the restaurant is frequently visited by politicians looking for support. In 2016, the restaurant hosted Mr. Trump and Rudolph W. Giuliani together after Mr. Trump’s first debate against Hillary Clinton.

On Tuesday, Mr. Trump soaked up support and prayers from the crowd. Paloma Marcos, a native of Nicaragua who has been a U.S. citizen for 15 years, rushed to Versailles with a Trump hat and a sign that said, “I stand with Trump.”

She said many Nicaraguans like her had an affinity for the former president, because he is against communism.

“He knows we support him. The Latino community has had an awakening,” Ms. Marcos said. “The curtain has been pulled back.”

The Rev. Yoelis Sánchez, a pastor at a local church who was born in the Dominican Republic, said she did not hesitate when asked to go to Versailles Restaurant to pray with Mr. Trump. Several religious people, including evangelicals and Catholics, prayed with him while her daughter sang.

“We prayed for God to give him strength and for the truth to come out,” she said. “We are really concerned for his welfare.”

Ms. Sánchez, who lives in Doral, Fla., was not yet a citizen in 2020. She would not say whether she plans to vote for him next year.

“I don’t think he came here just because of the Latino vote,” she said. “He came because he wanted to meet with people who have biblical thinking — he’s pro-life and pro-family and Latinos identify with that.”

The federal indictment of a former president is unprecedented in the United States, but many Latin American presidents have been prosecuted after leaving office.

Brazil’s current president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, served more than a year in prison after he left office the first time. Argentina’s former president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner was sentenced to six years for corruption last year. In Peru, Alejandro Toledo was recently extradited to face a bribery charge. Its former leader, Alberto Fujimori, is serving 25 years in prison.

Arnoldo Alemán of Nicaragua is one of the few former presidents who was arrested in a corruption case despite his own party being in power.

Mario García, a regular at Versailles who was tickled to see Mr. Trump visit the restaurant, said this pattern had shaped some Latino voters’ trust in politicians. He allowed that in some cases the corruption was real.

“But in those countries,” he said, “they do it for a good reason: because the presidents get caught robbing money.” Mr. García said he believed the government was targeting Mr. Trump “because they don’t have any other way to get him.”

Mr. García said he didn’t think Mr. Trump came to Versailles to court the Latino vote. “The votes here at Versailles are ones he already has,” he said. “He needs support. It’s nice to surround yourself with love when everyone is attacking you.”

Mr. Trump is far from alone in trying to compare his prosecution to corrupt and repressive Latin American governments. At a news conference one day before Mr. Trump’s arraignment, Senator Rick Scott, Republican of Florida, leaned heavily into a similar message.

“Here in Miami, folks know a thing or two about dangerous government overreach,” he said.

A former governor of Florida, Mr. Scott was joined by families from Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua, who he said “can tell you exactly what it’s like to watch a government punish its opponents while ignoring its own sins. That’s not supposed to happen here in America.”

Maggie Haberman and Nick Madigan contributed reporting.