PALM BEACH — Organizers of a black-tie and glittering evening gown gala focused on Latino community success that was held at President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club offered a counterargument to a news cycle dominated by uproar over a deadly immigration siege in Minneapolis and polarizing debate over performer Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl 60 halftime show.
The Hispanic Prosperity Gala on Feb. 10 brought an eclectic guest list of corporate executives, MAGA world stars, singers and even nobles from Spain. But the common threat was extolling broad-based achievement in the U.S. marketplace — and crediting Trump administration policies as well.
Gabriela Berrospi, the event’s co-host and a founder of the multimedia platform Latino Wall Street, said the pitying “pobrecito” narrative of U.S. Hispanics as impoverished and needful of government help “ends here” at the event that drew 700 people.
“The message of this gala, for me, is very important to exhibit how successful we Hispanics can be,” she said.
“I’m tired of the pobrecito coverage. We want to demonstrate all the success stories in different industries, music, sports, business, finance, politics. We have abundant achievements, abundant talent. And we want to inspire.”
Hispanic Prosperity Gala has crimson political hue
The evening’s overtones were shaded in a decidedly crimson political hue.
In videotaped messages, the conservative president of Argentina, Javier Milei, who a year ago gifted a chainsaw to erstwhile DOGE chief Elon Musk, said his country was allied with the west and proud to join Trump’s Board of Peace in the belief that “commerce is the best route to peace and prosperity.”
In a similar presentation, the hard right leader of the government in Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, decried “ultraleft” politics that she said destroyed families and nations and said the Spanish capital stands united in “strength and valor” with the United States.
“Madrid is your house across the Atlantic,” she said.
Bob Unanue, a former executive with Goya Foods, said Hispanics are united by their work ethic and quest for prosperity. What the community wants most, he said, is a playing field that rewards labor and entrepreneurship, rather than government handouts that he said are favored by Democrats.
“When you’re handed stuff, it has no value,” said Unanue, who received significant blowback when he praised Trump during the president’s first term. “Fortunately, under President Trump, we’re getting there.”
That message was echoed by figures within the MAGA-verse.
Roger Stone, a longtime Trump confidant, noted the president’s success in 2024 among the Latino electorate. While Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden won Hispanic voters by more than 25 points in 2016 and 2020, Trump drew almost even with that electorate in 2024, according to the Pew Research Center.
“I am celebrating the incredible increase among Hispanic voters that Trump made in the last election,” he said. “This is a historical shift. That’s a trend that has to continue.”
Far-right activist and commentator Jack Posobiec, who is now aligned with the Turning Point USA organization, agreed.
“We are going to support the president’s agenda and you can’t do that without reaching out to the Hispanic community,” he said.
“This is the biggest swing that we saw in 2024, Hispanic voters coming over for the president and that isn’t just about votes. That’s about making sure you check in with the community. Make sure you’re out there and celebrate the wins when you have them.”
Trump dissed Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl show. Others called it ‘amazing’
The event’s imagery and rhetoric emphasizing unity and common purpose nonetheless clashed with prevailing headlines and narratives across the United States.
Still roiling a lot of the country’s body politic was the highly watched and anticipated halftime show during the Feb. 8 NFL championship game.
The Super Bowl show was headlined by Puerto Rican Grammy winner Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, known as Bad Bunny, who performed exclusively in Spanish. It was watched by as many as 135 million people and received critical acclaim.
But Trump angrily denounced Bad Bunny’s production, deriding the spectacle as “one of the worst” and “an affront” to the country.
“Nobody understands a word this guy is saying, and the dancing is disgusting, especially for the young children that are watching from the throughout the U.S.A., and all over the World,” he wrote.
That was echoed by much of the MAGA set.
Posobiec noted Turning Point’s alternative program aimed at drawing viewers away from the NFL show logged more than 6 million viewers, a top number for a YouTube telecast but a minute fraction of the audience that the Super Bowl performance captured.
“I think it shows a bellwether of where America is, and where a lot of middle America is, where so many people are sick of halftime shows that are just getting too egregious, very oversexualized with so much debauchery,” he said of why Turning Point’s show did so well. “What we offered was a family-friendly alternative that celebrated our country, that celebrated our faith.”
Not all attending the Hispanic Gala at the president’s club agreed with Trump’s appraisal.
Rhythm and blues artist Antonio Cruz, known professionally as Tony Sunshine, said the Super Bowl show was “amazing.”
“He represents love, he represents unity and that’s important for the culture,” said Tony Sunshine, who this year will release a crossover album titled “El hijo de Wanda” as a tribute to his late mother. “It’s sad to see how the world has divided at a moment where we’re all supposed to come together and cheer each other on. Music is music.”
Polls show immigration controversies souring Trump’s public approval
An immigration enforcement action in Minneapolis has turned violent with the killings of two U.S. citizens, Renée Good and Alex Pretti, by U.S. agents. Other images and videos have captured ugly scenes as agents have ethnically profiled the city’s residents, baited family members with a 5-year-old boy and even wrongly detained U.S. citizens and legal residents.
The enforcement efforts have proven to be political kryptonite for the Trump administration as polling on the topic of immigration, once a public-perception strength for the president, show the issue is now a serious liability.
An NBC News Decision Desk Poll released Feb. 11 showed 60% of respondents disapproved of the administration’s handling of immigration with 49% “strongly” disapproving. Overall, Trump’s approval rating dropped to 39%.
That survey followed a Feb. 4 Quinnipiac University poll showing 63% disapproval of the way U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is carrying out its mission to enforce immigration laws.
It’s not just polling that has proven problematic, but election results as well in sporadic contests across the United States since November. Republicans lost gubernatorial races in New Jersey and Virginia, two states where Trump made inroads in November 2024. GOP candidates also lost two state legislative contests in deep-red districts in Texas and Louisiana.
In December, the mayoral seat in Cuban-dominated Miami just a couple hours south of Mar-a-Lago went to a non-Hispanic Democrat for the first in three decades.
Stone and Posobiec conceded the trends but said they remain bullish on GOP chances for the midterms.
Stone said he reads little into current polls, saying the political news cycle is so volatile that controversies and crises of the present may well be overshadowed as clock ticks down to fall voting.
He said his reading of Hispanic voters is they “really have all the same concerns that all Americans, meaning they want lower food prices, they want safer neighborhoods, they want better schools job opportunities, lower mortgage rates, affordable housing.”
“It’s still the bread-and-butter issues that will drive the election,” he said.
Posobiec said the 2026 midterm would be an “up-the-ladder” slog for Republicans, but he was not discouraged by the string electoral defeats for the party over the past four months. He said state and municipal elections tent to ride on local issues rather than national trends.
He said he believes the White House’s recent pivot to emphasize “kitchen table” matters, like drug prices, will drive momentum.
“They don’t care about the identity issues as much as people think,” Posobiec said of what he has heard from Latino voters and leaders. “They tell me they care about making money, having money in their pocket. I think they speak the same language at the end of the day.”
Antonio Fins is a politics and business editor at The Palm Beach Post, part of the USA TODAY Florida Network. You can reach him at afins@pbpost.com. Help support our journalism. Subscribe today.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Bad Bunny, immigration crisis take back seat to Hispanic success at gala
Reporting by Antonio Fins, Palm Beach Post / Palm Beach Post
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
