Why is Ayuso being interviewed about Trump and Venezuela?

Many current affairs programs across all networks are delving into the conflict between the United States and Venezuela. The images we receive of Nicolás Maduro in the hands of US security forces are so striking and morbid that programs that never focus on international politics are suddenly reveling in this story in a clumsy and simplistic way. A lot of fat from supposed experts and theorists who are adding their two cents to the mix. On Antena 3, you only have to look at Sonsoles Ónega on the most sensationalist magazine program par excellence. She has replaced the events of the most sordid side of Spain with images of Maduro in handcuffs and a tracksuit getting off a helicopter.

But there is another, much more insidious way of approaching Trump's attack on the Latin American country. And that is when journalism doesn't seek to understand the conflict but to exploit it. This is the case with Susanna Griso in Public Mirror This Monday, Griso interviewed Isabel Díaz Ayuso via video conference as if she were a key figure in analyzing the diplomatic confrontation. Griso justified this by arguing that the Community of Madrid is home to a large part of the Venezuelan exile community. This argument is far-fetched: confusing demographic presence with political representation implies attributing to a regional president a voice that, in principle, does not belong to her. In any case, Griso had Díaz Ayuso live on air with her usual naive demeanor, a strategy that serves to camouflage the aggressiveness of her discourse. This docile and innocent theatricality is so exaggerated that it betrays the double standard of her message. The president of the Community of Madrid read the answers. She narrowed her gaze to follow a script written below the camera that focused on her, delivering a soliloquy that endorsed Trump's handling of the situation. Díaz Ayuso had no privileged diplomatic information, nor was she given an institutional mediating role, nor does she have any possibility of influencing the Venezuelan people. As a politician, she lacks the experience to support her influence in this type of international dispute. But it is interesting to understand why a program like Public Mirror This gives her such significant authority that she's given eighteen minutes of airtime. Ayuso presents the interpretation of freedom versus communism, and, above all, the conflict between the United States and Venezuela serves as a local metaphor. Thus, Public Mirror International tension and hostility between two antagonistic states on their own battlefield are what matters. The clash between Trump and Maduro is being transferred to Spain to be used as national ammunition. With an opaque and self-serving ideological approach, the program gives Díaz Ayuso symbolic weight under the guise of institutional legitimacy. The president of the Community of Madrid is useful for introducing the Trumpian narrative, but disguised as serving the public interest.