Donald Trump, the billionaire Republican presidential hopeful who made controversial remarks about Mexican nationals during a campaign speech last week, has banned employees of the Spanish-language television network Univision from entering his Miami-based resort.
In a letter sent to Univision chief executive Randy Falco, Trump ordered the network’s employees to stay away from his Trump National Doral resort in Florida and requested the company stop construction near his property.
The move came one day after Univision said they would no longer go through with plans to air Trump’s Miss USA pageant on a sister channel, UniMas, next month. The decision came after Trump made ill-received comments about Mexican nationals during a campaign speech in which the presidential contender accused Mexicans of “bringing drugs” and “crime” into the United States.
“At Univision, we see first-hand the work ethic, love for family, strong religious values and the important role Mexican immigrants and Mexican-Americans have had and will continue to have in building the future of our country,” Univision said in a statement.
The letter sent to Univision by Trump was first reported by ABC News on Friday. In an interview with ABC, Trump downplayed his comments, saying they had been erroneously perceived as an attack on Mexicans.
“I didn’t say it about Mexico,” Trump told ABC. “I said people from all over.”
Trump has announced plans to sue Univision “for a tremendous amount of money” over the network’s decision to drop the pageant. Miss USA is co-owned by Trump and NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast.
Trump ended his letter to Univision with a threat disguised as a political promise.
“Please congratulate your Mexican Government officials for having made such outstanding trade deals with the United States,” Trump wrote. “However, inform them that should I become president, those days are over.”
Univision, one of America’s largest and most-watched over-the-air television networks, is based in the United States, not Mexico.
