Booker Pokes Fun at Fellow 2020 Dems for the Heavy Use of Spanish

Senator Cory Booker (D-N.J.) poked fun at his fellow 2020 presidential contenders after several candidates and ABC debate moderator Jorge Ramos flexed their Spanish-speaking skills.

Speaking Spanish has become commonplace in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary, and the third round of debates was no exception.

Former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julián Castro kicked off the Spanish speaking early, greeting the crowd with a hearty “Bienvenidos” — Spanish for “welcome” — during his opening remarks to the crowd.

Castro broke out his Spanish early. #DemDebate pic.twitter.com/nnRD6hE5q7
— IJR (@TheIJR) September 13, 2019

Several other candidates joined in on the Spanish, including former Congressman Beto O’Rourke also showed off their bilingualism during the debate.

While candidates like Castro and O’Rourke mixed in Spanish throughout the night, Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) landed a light joke at their expense. After being asked about changing meat consumption in the United States to combat climate change, Booker cracked a dad-joke about all the Spanish being spoken throughout the evening.

Watch Booker’s comments:

“First of all, I want to say no. Actually, I want to translate that into Spanish. No.”

Booker’s one-liner earned him a laugh from the crowd. He went on to explain why he feels banning meat consumption to combat climate change is one option that should be left off the table.

“Let’s just be clear: The factory farming, going on that’s assaulting. This corporate consolidation of the agriculture industry. One of the reasons why I have a bill to put a moratorium on this kind of corporate consolidation is because this factory farming is destroying and hurting our environment and you see independent family farmers being pushed out of business because of the kind of incentives we are giving that don’t line up with our values. That’s what I’m calling for.”

Booker may be mocking the field, but his joke was also a bit of self-deprecating humor. In the first round of debates, the senator attempted to speak Spanish, but many noted that his translation wasn’t very good, as IJR previously reported.

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Member

Screwtape

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It would have been “inclusive” of the DNC to provide English subtitles. After all, they don’t want to “marginalize” non-Spanish speakers. As it is, they excluded them.

It would have been hilarious if someone hacked the subtitles and substituted English translations of the Lefty-speak.
“This is not possible, but I’m promising it anyway.”
“This will raise your taxes.”
“You matter less to us as a citizen than a bunch of invaders.”

Member

James

Last I heard, this is the United States of America; an English language speaking Nation. IF you’re going to live here, work here or be a political parasite on the taxpayers here, English is the preferred language. If you can’t speak it; learn it. If you can’t learn it, you’ve got personal problems.