Donald Trump’s organization is quietly reaching out to a Hispanic media group with a very un-Trump-like request: Let’s meet and make peace.

Alex Nogales, CEO of the National Hispanic Media Coalition, a leading advocacy group, told POLITICO he received a call last week from Lawrence Glick, executive vice president of strategic development at the Trump Organization, proposing the meeting.


The tone of the call was very different from previous interactions the coalition has had with the Trump camp over the past few months, which involved threats of lawsuits over how the organization had characterized the billionaire real estate mogul’s comments on Mexican immigrants and his past business dealings, Nogales said.

The coalition sees itself as a watchdog against anti-Latino bias in the media, and an advocate for outlets that are more inclusive of Hispanic viewpoints and Spanish-language programming.

“[The first phone call] was to tell us if we continued our actions against his golf courses that he would sue us. … We had another call from another outside attorney [working for Trump] wanting to change the story of what he had said about Mexicans, that he was not against Mexican people that he was talking about the government, the most ridiculous assertion that could possibly be made,” Nogales said. “The third time, last week, was ‘Let’s get together to talk so we can solve our differences.’”

The Trump campaign declined to comment. The Trump Organization — the entity overseeing his golf courses, hotels, product lines and other businesses — also declined to comment. Lawrence Glick did not return requests for comment.

Still, the extension of an olive branch represents a sharp turnaround from Trump’s actions as a politician. He has publicly railed against the Hispanic media, cutting off Telemundo/MSNBC anchor Jose Diaz-Balart’s question at a news conference in Laredo, Texas, and bashing Univision for alleged bias, not to mention suing the network for dropping his Miss Universe pageant. The lack of love goes both ways, as Trump has been pilloried by Spanish-language radio and Univision/Fusion's Jorge Ramos, one of the most popular Hispanic anchors in the country, who recently dubbed him the “ loudest voice of intolerance, hatred and division in the United States.”

Trump may be realizing that in both politics and business, his war with Hispanic media may not be sustainable if he wants to be a serious candidate, Nogales said.

“They’re much clearer in Spanish language media,” Nogales said. “They’re calling a spade a spade, and they’re saying this man is a racist.”

Trump’s repeated depictions of undocumented Mexican immigrants as criminals and his recent immigration policy proposal, which includes deporting undocumented immigrants and revoking birthright citizenship for the children of undocumented immigrants born in the United States, have riled the Latino community, Ramos said.

“I think the first thing we have to say is that, for us, this is not politics. This is personal,” Ramos said in an interview. “That’s the big difference between Hispanic media and the rest. When Donald Trump is talking about undocumented immigrants and talking about denying citizenship to the children born here, he’s not talking about someone we don’t know. He’s talking about our parents, friends, coworkers and children that we know.”

Ramos and Univision have been one of the biggest targets of Trump’s wrath. Trump sued the network for $500 million after the network decided to drop Trump’s Miss Universe contest over his comments about Mexican immigrants during his campaign launch. When Ramos tried, via handwritten letter, to invite Trump to sit down for an interview, Trump published the letter on his Instagram account, which included Ramos’ personal cellphone number (the post has since been removed).

“I think that was very childish and immature, and it reflects that to have a lot of money you don’t have to have good manners,” Ramos said of the incident. “But I’m going to keep on trying. I think as a reporter, it is our responsibility to keep on asking questions, and I’m sure Mr. Trump is interested in explaining directly to Latinos what he really means.”

Ramos is a proud activist when it comes to the immigration issue, believing that the only path forward is for comprehensive immigration reform. On Twitter, in interviews and on TV, Ramos has called out Trump’s immigration plan as “wrong,” “absurd” and “impossible to achieve.”

But that doesn’t mean that Ramos isn’t going to keep trying to talk to Trump. Ramos said that his team was in “constant contact” with Trump’s camp until they were told they would not get an interview more than a month ago. Since then, Ramos said it’s been radio silence. Ramos did not discount the possibility he would show up at a Trump campaign event.

“I will keep on trying to talk to him and we — in the Latino media and on Univision — we will continue trying to talk to him because what he is saying is incredibly important to our community. The only positive thing I can emphasize is that it is very important that he brought the issue of immigration to the forefront of the 2016 campaign, it is incredibly important. But his solutions are wrong,” Ramos said.

Ken Oliver-Méndez, director of the conservative-leaning Media Research Center’s Latino division, agreed that Trump can take credit for bringing more focus on the 2016 campaign to Spanish language media, but said that their treatment of him is likely exactly what GOP primary voters want to see.

“Having networks like Univision, Telemundo and Azteca America as open enemies of his candidacy, though, is almost certainly more of a boon than a bane in the minds of large numbers of GOP presidential primary and caucus voters. Actually, Univision and Telemundo’s open opposition to him, to the extent that it is known, probably only has the effect of elevating and endearing him even more to many of these voters,” Oliver-Méndez said.

Another target of Trump’s has been Jose Diaz-Balart. During his visit to the border near Laredo, Texas, last month, Trump cut off the Telemundo and MSNBC host as he started quoting Trump’s remarks about Mexican immigrants.

“That’s a typical case of the press with misinterpretation. … They take half a sentence, then they take a quarter of a sentence. They put it all together. It’s a typical thing,” Trump said before Diaz-Balart could ask a question. “You’re with Telemundo and Telemundo should be ashamed,” he added before cutting the news conference off.

Trump clearly recognized Diaz-Balart. In fact, one month before the Laredo trip, Trump gave Diaz-Balart what has been his only interview with a major Spanish-language outlet, on Telemundo’s Sunday show “Enfoque.”

“The Laredo moment was really, I think, more him utilizing the environment for his own political benefit than it was a personal issue,” said Diaz-Balart, who noted he asks for an interview with Trump once a week. “When he came into that meeting, I was the first person to have a question and he didn’t let me finish and then he walked out. So that moment he wasn’t interested in answering any questions and was able to use it as a way out.”

Unlike Ramos, Diaz-Balart said he tries to steer clear of the activist role, though he does not shy away from calling Trump out for what he believes are inaccuracies in his statements.

“I don’t see my role as being an activist. I see my role as being the person who has the privilege of sitting down with those who may or may not play a part in people’s lives in the future,” Diaz-Balart said. “And it’s not my role to be the person that’s important. I think that what’s important is making sure our community is served by having information that they can use to make their own opinions.”

Laura Vazquez, the Senior Immigration Legislative Analyst at National Council of La Raza, the nation’s leading Hispanic advocacy group, said that Trump stories are big business in Spanish-language media, which in some areas earn higher ratings than English broadcasts.

“Radio is also huge,” Vazquez said in an interview. “The radio shows are all having a lot of commentary in a huge way our community gets.”

Univision's Jorge Ramos. | AP Photo

Earlier this week, Los Angeles radio hosts “El Bueno, La Mala, ye El Feo” (The good guy, the bad girl and the ugly guy) interviewed a popular singer, Gloria Trevi, who said when confronted with Trump Latinos should react with “class, not react in the same way as we are being provoked. We are greater than that.” The hosts then joked they should send Trump a present — a toupee.

“In the radio shows where there’s more back and forth and with call-ins, there would be anger and outrage about the [immigration] proposal, but also a sense that this can’t be serious. It’s so outrageous how could this be taken seriously,” Vazquez said.

Though he may not be paying much attention to the Hispanic media, Trump has granted interviews to the likes of CNN, NBC, Time and POLITICO, while also finding time to continue his habit of personally reaching out to reporters and telling them exactly what he think of their work.

And the National Hispanic Media Coalition, for one, is willing to have the meeting with Trump’s representatives that Glick proposed, but aren’t necessarily eager to.

“I don’t care if [Trump’s people] call or not,” Nogales said. “I’ll sit down with him if he wants to talk. But I for one, am being less and less forgiving.”