Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar (R-FL) said Sunday that some of President Donald Trump’s advisers “are compromising his legacy,” sharpening a critique she has been making for months about the administration’s immigration enforcement, according to an interview on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”
Appearing on the program, Salazar was pressed by host Margaret Brennan about a recent advertisement in which the congresswoman went further than her prior commentary, contending that the same Hispanic voters who helped Trump win the White House in 2024 now “feel betrayed,” and that enforcement efforts “have gone too far.” The ad also cited the figure that half of the 50,000 people detained in July had no criminal record.
“A Very Good Conversation”
Brennan noted that Salazar had spoken with the president after releasing the ad and asked whether he had taken any of her advice.
Salazar described the exchange in warm terms, saying the president was “a gentleman, very courteous, very receptive,” and that she repeated her message to him directly. She framed her argument around the political capital Trump built with Hispanic voters in 2024, telling him he has “this moment in history where you can keep the pot of gold that you brought to the GOP in 2024.”
Drawing on her own background — she noted she spent 35 years covering Spanish-language television — Salazar said no other president had been able to convince Hispanic voters to support a GOP president by 55 points, and urged him to “please preserve that fortune that you have brought to the party.” Her stated rationale was electoral: the party needs to keep winning, she said, because of “this very big threat called the socialists on the Democratic side.”
Brennan Pushes on Who Is Giving Bad Advice
Brennan responded that it did not sound as though the president had agreed to take her advice, then turned to another line from Salazar’s ad — that Trump is receiving bad counsel from his advisers — and asked her to name who she meant.
Salazar did not identify specific individuals. “I think that some of his advisers are compromising his legacy,” she said.
The exchange reflects a continuing tension inside the Republican coalition over the scope and presentation of the administration’s immigration enforcement, and over how those policies are landing with the Hispanic voters whose 2024 shift toward the GOP Salazar has repeatedly held up as a political prize worth protecting. Salazar’s ad, as described on the program, paired her concern about the direction of enforcement with a specific statistic about the detained population.
The congresswoman did not, in the segment, announce any change in her support for the president or for the party’s broader agenda — her argument was framed as a warning aimed at preserving an electoral advantage rather than a break with the administration. Nor did she say whether she had received any commitments from the White House following the conversation she described.
Salazar’s remarks add to a running conversation among Republicans about how far enforcement should extend and how the party should talk about it heading into future election cycles. For now, her public message remains that the president’s political gains with Hispanic voters are an asset she believes is at risk, and that the counsel he is receiving is part of the reason.
Source: www.breitbart.com — https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2026/09/20/rep-salazar-some-of-trumps-advisers-are-compromising-his-legacy/