Univision’s Ilia Calderón, who will co-moderate the second Republican presidential debate, is a staunch critic of former President Donald Trump, having accused him of empowering white supremacists and “racist” rhetoric in the past.
Fox News and Univision announced that Calderón, along with Fox News’s Dana Perino and Fox Business Network’s Stuart Varney, will moderate the September 27 debate at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California.
Calderón, who co-moderated the last Democrat presidential debate in 2020 between Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and President Joe Biden, has railed against Trump on the social media platform X, formerly Twitter, over the years.
After the first 2020 presidential debate on September 19, 2020, Calderon joined others in accusing Trump of not condemning white supremacists when moderator Chris Wallace asked if Trump would condemn them and militia groups and say that “they need to stand down.”
While Trump said “sure,” he caught criticism for stating, “Proud Boys, stand back and stand by,” as Breitbart News Senior Editor Joel Pollak pointed out in a fact check at the time. “Wallace is the one who introduced the “stand down” language — not Trump, who was doing what he was asked,” Pollak emphasized:
“A dangerous moment of the debate,” Calderón tweeted