Jorge Coronado, the Miami-Dade Democratic Party president, describes his experience as a Republican

Column: De León embodied the American dream. After racist audio leak, he’s living a political nightmare

“But you know, I don’t have to be a model citizen,” de León told the Miami Herald. “Being president is enough.”

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But now comes a new audio recording in which a Latino activist named Jorge Coronado is describing his experience on the job as the president of the Miami-Dade Democratic Party.

Coronado says he met with two local Republicans at a restaurant in Miami Beach, as the party’s candidate for state representative — a nonpartisan position elected on a citywide vote.

“So, I told the Republicans I wanted to talk to them,” Coronado says in the recording. “I had dinner at a restaurant, at a Cuban restaurant, had a couple of drinks with two Republicans, and they were Republicans, and I had no idea, no idea, who they were. And, you know, they were in the restaurant with two other guys and they were saying the things that they usually say.”

The four Cuban-Dominican men have been indicted in the death of an 82-year-old man, and authorities have said the attack was part of a broader pattern of voter intimidation.

It is, of course, true that Trump has made a name for himself as the “hateful” president of the United States, and his comments about Latinos were the most visible — but the president of the Miami-Dade Democratic Party was just as unapologetic.

“I really enjoyed meeting with him,” Coronado says in the recording.

Coronado was the first public supporter of de León’s campaign for president that was so clearly racist. His candidacy had been marred by a leaked audio recording, in which de León and his campaign manager, Jorge Enrique, can be heard referring to illegal immigrants as an “invasion force” and a “drugged up bazaar” filled with criminals and drug dealers.

In the recording, Enrique also says Democratic voters

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