The highest profile meeting of the institutional tour of the United States of the president of the Community of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, was the meeting this Friday with the Hispanic caucus in the Capitol. In the days before the event, his team claimed that the 38 members, all Democrats, had confirmed their attendance, but that it would be a hybrid: some would participate in person and others, the minority, by Zoom. Lunch would last half an hour. It was not so.
The regional leader of the Popular Party spent just 10 minutes in one of the annexed buildings of the Capitol, where the congressmen have their offices, and five members of the caucus participated, among those present and connected by videoconference, according to the list of organizers to which they had access. this newspaper and sources close to the meeting.
Ayuso came to the meeting with the congressmen, some of them representatives of indigenous tribes, after his controversial defense of Hispanity in which he described “indigenismo” as “the new communism.” The president of the Hispanic caucus, the Californian congressman of Mexican origin, Raúl Ruiz, expressed his disagreement with some of the comments made by the Madrid president during the tour, according to a source familiar with the meeting cited by EFE. The regional leader also charged in Washington against the apologies for “personal and social” sins offered by Pope Francis to Mexico on the occasion of the Bicentennial of Independence.
At the end of the brief event, Ayuso said that “he had launched this debate” on the questions about the Spanish legacy, but that they had not discussed it. In addition, when asked about the convocation, he stated that “physically there were five or six” congressmen and “about 10 or 12” for Zoom. The regional leader highlighted the presence of Democratic legislator Linda Sánchez, representative of a California district, and Loretta Sánchez, her sister, who has not held a seat in Congress since 2017.
To justify the low attendance, the Madrid president stated that “today is a very special day on Capitol Hill” and that “there are four historic votes that can change many things in American politics.” “That is what has a little busy today for all the congressmen,” he added. There are not four, but two, the votes that take place this Thursday in Congress: the bipartisan infrastructure plan and the extension of the federal government budget, which expires at midnight, to avoid the partial closure of the Joe Biden Administration.
It is tradition that the Hispanic caucus has several guests to eat once a month. The meetings with each one usually last half an hour, according to one of the managers. The menu for this Thursday were burritos. After Ayuso’s intervention, it was his turn to expose Carlos del Toro, secretary of the United States Navy. At least two more congressmen arrived at the offices of the building located in the east wing of the Capitol to participate in that meeting once that of the Madrid president ended. The regional leader’s team brought as a gift about two dozen bags in which there was a fan, a candle and masks, apparently with the logo of Spain.
Loretta Sánchez accompanied Ayuso until the start when the match ended. On the stairs, the former Democratic congresswoman met some acquaintances. He introduced the president of Madrid and added “she may be the next president of Spain, look how young!”, To which the regional leader reacted immediately, always smiling, that “no, no, no.” In his last press conference with journalists, all from the Spanish media, Ayuso listed the 13 institutional meetings that he held during the six-day tour of New York and Washington. According to her, in many of these, they had made her see that “taxes and excess bureaucracy are a drag on investment in Spain” that “hurts” Madrid.
What was going to be the grand finale of the tour, ended up being a brief meeting with very little attendance in one of the buildings near the Capitol and where the president of the Hispanic caucus himself reproached the vision of the president of the Community of Madrid on the Spanish legacy, precisely when the United States celebrates Hispanic Heritage Month (from September 15 to October 15). In an attempt to put cold cloths on the controversy that marked the trip of the Madrid president, Ayuso pointed out that “in the same way that social and socialism are not the same, neither popular nor populism, the indigenous are not the same as indigenism” .
Among the duties that he carries out, he said, is working to make Madrid and the region known in North America because “I did not know how little is said” of the Spanish capital in the world power. For that, one of its purposes is “to participate in more trips like this.”
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