Mexico’s President-Elect Claudia Sheinbaum and her political allies reacted to a series of comments made by Presidential Candidate Donald Trump that were not directed at them but at U.S. President Joe Biden. The premature reaction by Mexico’s political elite appears to have been fueled by Mexican journalists who mistranslated and widely shared the comments from a poorly edited video on social media.
The diplomatic error began on Saturday night when Trump was speaking about how he was able to pressure Mexico with the threat of tariffs into sending troops to stop migrant caravans heading north. After that comment, Trump referred to Joe Biden, claiming he had a low IQ of about 50.
Mexican journalists fell for a poor edit of the video that cuts right before Trump calls Biden by name and mistook the comment as him referring to then-Mexican Foreign Relations Minister Marcelo Ebrard. In a matter of minutes, Mexican President-Elect Claudia Sheinbaum posted on social media a message reacting to “obscene language” and defending Ebrard, calling him a brilliant public servant and her future Economy Secretary.
Ebrard and various members of the same political party reacted in a similar fashion, claiming that they would defend Mexico’s interests and that he was not intimidated by Trump.
Mexico’s former diplomat Martha Barcena took to social media to point out the mistake by Sheinbaum and criticized the haphazard response by her advisors who failed to pick up on the diplomatic intricacies and fell for the social media fake news.
Some of Mexico’s top foreign correspondents noticed the translation error and began pointing out the diplomatic blunder.
Several national news outlets in Mexico ran with the mistaken information to highlight Sheinbaum’s reaction.
The social media and media firestorm continued until former U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Christopher Landau began posting responses to news articles and comments by journalists warning them not to fall for fake news.
Ildefonso Ortiz is an award-winning journalist with Breitbart Texas. He co-founded Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles project with Brandon Darby and senior Breitbart management. You can follow him on Twitter and on Facebook. He can be contacted at Iortiz@breitbart.com.
Brandon Darby is the managing director and editor-in-chief of Breitbart Texas. He co-founded Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles project with Ildefonso Ortiz and senior Breitbart management. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook. He can be contacted at bdarby@breitbart.com.