Donald Trump has used a Hispanic celebration at the White House to thirst over two sisters in the audience, rant about his ballroom project, and attack his predecessors over foreign wars.
Amid growing alarm that he is losing ground with Latinos ahead of November’s midterm elections, the president held a Hispanic Heritage Month reception on Wednesday, one year after shelving the same event after returning to power.
After keeping his guests waiting for almost 40 minutes in the East Room, Trump finally arrived, kicking off the event by announcing the complete withdrawal of the final U.S. forces from Iraq and then inviting his guests to tour his ballroom construction site once his speech wrapped up.
But it didn’t take long for the 80-year-old to veer into cringeworthy territory when he acknowledged two sisters in the audience: Fox & Friends co-host Rachel Campos-Duffy and her sister Leah, who is a U.S ambassador for the Dominican Republic.
“Your sister is here too, Rachel, I hear?” Trump said, surveying the room. “Oh, there she is. Oh, I don’t know who’s more beautiful. I can’t …”
“As a politician, you’re not allowed to talk about the beauty of a woman because it’s the immediate end of your political career—but you’re both very beautiful.”
Campos-Duffy, 54, the wife of Transport Secretary Sean Duffy, is a familiar face in MAGA world, having built a career as a conservative commentator and author.
Her sister, Leah Campos, 53, is a different kind of Trump-world player, now working as a diplomat after spending more than a decade in the CIA.
The pair were among hundreds of guests at Wednesday’s celebration, where Trump spent most of his speech touting his revamp of the White House, ranting about everything from fixing cracks in the columns to moldings and florals that had fallen to the ground.
“The press will say, why does he spend so much time fixing?” he said.
“To me it relaxes me, actually, and I’ve made this building more beautiful than it’s ever been.”
Trump also said his guests would be “the first people of consequence to ever step on the ballroom floor” as he invited them to tour the area.
But last week he also invited Chinese President Xi Jinping and his state dinner guests to do the same, raising alarms given that China is America’s most significant counterintelligence threat.
He also spent a considerable amount of time attacking former Democratic presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden over foreign wars, before transitioning to his own war with Iran, which he said was justified.
Many saw the Hispanic Heritage Month celebration as an attempt to claw back support among Latinos, who helped propel Trump to power in 2016 and 2024.
But there are signs that support among this crucial voting block is declining, and some Republicans are panicking in seats such as Texas and Florida, which have considerable numbers of Latino voters.
In an ominous sign, a recent Hart Research/TelevisaUnivision poll of Latino voters in 17 competitive House districts found Democrats leading the generic congressional ballot 58 percent to 35 percent.
In those districts, Latino support for Democrats has rebounded sharply since 2024—including among some voters who backed Trump.
The concern within the GOP was highlighted by Florida Republican María Elvira Salazar earlier this month, when she lashed out at Trump’s deportation policies for going “too far” and warned that Hispanics who helped elect him in 2024 “feel betrayed today.”
The warning lights are also particularly bright in Texas, where Vice President JD Vance campaigned today in the heavily Hispanic Rio Grande Valley, in districts that Trump won by comfortable margins at the last election.
The White House has put considerable resources into Texas and Trump’s embattled Senate candidate Ken Paxton, even heading to Dallas for an unprecedented midterm convention to raise money for his campaign and that of other vulnerable Republicans in swing districts.
But tensions escalated on Wednesday after Paxton was recorded saying the convention, dubbed “Trump-a-palooza” because it was centered around the president, may have damaged his election hopes.
“Do you feel like he’s a little bit of a drag?” a person could be heard asking Paxton in audio obtained by The New York Times.
“So to be honest with you, the numbers—when we did that convention—it dropped our numbers. Everybody’s numbers dropped,” Paxton replied. “Right now, yeah, not good.”
