Lucky Carlos Curbelo! He gets to be Joni Ernst's Spanish-language mouthpiece.
Every now and then, Republicans take a break from trying to pass pro-deportation laws and switch over to trying to rebrand themselves as sympathetic to the concerns of Latino voters. The policy may be all attack, but they'd like to put a "we care" veneer on it in hopes of getting a few Latino votes someday. The problem is, that veneer is really, really thin. More of a single coat of clear nail polish.
Take the State of the Union responses. Republicans will have an official response, delivered by Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst, and an official Spanish response, delivered by Florida Rep. Carlos Curbelo. However:
According to a press release from the House Republicans, Curbelo will not be sharing his own thoughts and words with the public. Instead, he will only be reading a Spanish translation of Ernst's speech.
Not just similar Official Republican content, but a direct translation. That's a direct translation, by the way, of a response from a senator who:
... has endorsed English as a national language and once sued Iowa's secretary of state for offering voting forms in languages other than English.
Yet here, her own party is putting her words in Spanish. So that's awkward.
How perfect an encapsulation of Republican efforts at Latino outreach is this? "Let's give the main platform to someone who hates immigrants—then get a Latino guy to repeat what she said, only in Spanish!"