On Sunday’s This Week, ABC’s Jim Avila gave Democrat Julian Castro, newly appointed Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, nearly 5 minutes of promotional airtime to play up his political ambitions.
The ABC reporter began the Castro advertisement by declaring “he's just 77 days into his new job, but ever since his swearing in, so many Democrats have skipped ahead trying to figure out what's next for the rising star? Could he be on a presidential ticket in 2016?”
Avila continued to heap praise on the Texas Democrat and hyped how “President Obama called him an all-star and made then 39-year-old Julian Castro the youngest member of his presidential cabinet, Housing and Urban Development Secretary.”
As the unofficial Castro commercial continued, the ABC reporter played up how Castro’s mother groomed him from an early age to be a Democratic politician:
The Texas Democrat picked by Barack Obama to keynote the 2012 convention was groomed by his political activist mother to break down racial barriers urging him to run for city council while still at Harvard Law School. And he's backed by his equally-political congressman twin brother Joaquin Castro.
Avila continued to push the idea of a Castro presidency or vice presidency despite the limited experience the Democrat has had in public life:
And he says, talk about him being on a Hillary Clinton ticket as the Latino to bring out the crucial Hispanic vote in 2016 goes way too far.. Are you in Washington, D.C., have you been brought here, are you at HUD, because you're being groomed?...Castro, who just turned 40, is now in charge of 8500 employees, the first HUD Secretary to run the very federal housing projects where his father was raised.
The Castro cheerleading concluded with Avila pushing the Democrat’s political ambitions one last time:
Castro says he plans to stay in Washington through the rest of President Obama's term and then it's back to San Antonio because while he may have never looked in the mirror and seen a president, he does admit to catching a glimpse of another reflection.
ABC’s This Week has a recent history of promoting Democratic politicians like Elizabeth Warren [1] and Al Franken [2] so their latest puff piece on Julian Castro is no surprise given the network’s history of promoting liberal Democrats.
See relevant transcript below.
ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos
October 12, 2014
MARTHA RADDATZ: And now we hit the road with HUD Secretary Julian Castro. He's just 77 days into his new job, but ever since his swearing in, so many Democrats have skipped ahead trying to figure out what's next for the rising star? Could he be on a presidential ticket in 2016? Here's ABC's Jim Avila.
JIM AVILA: President Obama called him an all-star and made then 39-year-old Julian Castro the youngest member of his presidential cabinet, Housing and Urban Development Secretary.
JULIAN CASTRO: America's cities are growing again, and housing is at the top of the agenda.
AVILA: But with a rapidly growing Latino voting population few believe he left his job as mayor of San Antonio, Texas, just to run a Washington bureaucracy. So this may surprise you.
JULIAN CASTRO: I'm not running for president. You know, I guarantee you that I'm not going to run for president and so—
AVILA: This time.
JULIAN CASTRO: Probably ever
AVILA: The Texas Democrat picked by Barack Obama to keynote the 2012 convention was groomed by his political activist mother to break down racial barriers urging him to run for city council while still at Harvard Law School. And he's backed by his equally political congressman twin brother Joaquin Castro.
JON STEWART: The Democrats have not only a rising Latino star in San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro; they have an extra one of him in case he breaks.
AVILA: They are identical. Julian older by just one minute and still frequently confused for one another.
JOAQUIN CASTRO: I always tell people that I'm the better-looking twin. My brother might disagree.
AVILA: The congressman says if anyone runs for president between the two, it will be his older brother. Their mother seems to agree.
ROSIE CASTRO: He would make a very good president or vice president. I will support him.
JOAQUIN CASTRO: Of course, any mother is going to say that.
AVILA: But Julian says with a straight face he does not have White House ambitions.
JULIAN CASTRO: I've never woken up in the morning and seen in my future when I look in the mirror and said, oh, I think I'm going to be president.
AVILA: And he says, talk about him being on a Hillary Clinton ticket as the Latino to bring out the crucial Hispanic vote in 2016 goes way too far.
JULIAN CASTRO: I don't believe that I'm going to be vice president.
AVILA: Are you in Washington, D.C., have you been brought here, are you at HUD, because you're being groomed?
JULIAN CASTRO: I'm here at HUD because the president asked if I would be interested in serving in this role. There's a tremendous upside in terms of the satisfaction of the work that we do.
AVILA: Castro, who just turned 40, is now in charge of 8500 employees, the first HUD Secretary to run the very federal housing projects where his father was raised.
JULIAN CASTRO: And I see folks who live in our public housing units as folks who have the same dreams, the same ambitions. That's part of what drives my work to create greater opportunity for them.
AVILA: This week in Providence, Rhode Island, 1 of 11 cities he's visited since taking over HUD, he toured neighborhoods he aims to revive with grant money for low-income housing. Castro is pushing mortgage banks to loosen credit restrictions that have stalled the housing market. We're still afraid of what happened in the bubble.
JULIAN CASTRO: Yeah.
AVILA: That some people got houses they couldn't afford because mortgages were too easy.
JULIAN CASTRO: The challenge now is that it's -- the pendulum has completely swung in the other direction. In fact, we estimate that there are about 13 million folks who would be able to access credit for a home that today are basically shut out.
AVILA: Castro says he plans to stay in Washington through the rest of President Obama's term and then it's back to San Antonio because while he may have never looked in the mirror and seen a president, he does admit to catching a glimpse of another reflection.
JULIAN CASTRO: There were definitely mornings when I woke up and wished there was a different governor of Texas. That's fair to say. I'm 40 years old right now and so I feel like I have a lot of time to figure out where the opportunities are.
AVILA: A political sprinter who has made it far and fast, acknowledging the marathon ahead.
JULIAN CASTRO: Hi, how are you?
AVILA: For This Week, Jim Avila, ABC News, Providence, Rhode Island.
— Jeffrey Meyer is a News Analyst at the Media Research Center. Follow Jeffrey Meyer on Twitter. [3]