UPDATE 10:28 a.m. ET: In a statement to Complex, Trump campaign communications director Hope Hicks said they had no knowledge of any press commitments with Stupenengo:
There is no truth to this whatsoever. There was no interview scheduled and we do not know this individual.
UPDATE 05/17/16 8:22 a.m. ET: Marcos Stupenengo offered a quick clarification on his run-in with the Trump campaign on Twitter, adding that he was declined the chance to procure a recording at Trump's campaign headquarters in Manhattan:
See original story from 05/16/16 below.
The Donald Trump campaign's history of beefs with Spanish-language media continued today, as a source told Buzzfeed a journalist who'd been granted an interview with the presumptive Republican nominee was hustled out of Trump Tower after staffers overheard him speaking Spanish.
Broadcast reporter Marcos Stupenengo, who is Argentinian, was on assignment for the Mexican television news network TV Azteca. The report claims Stupenengo had arrived and was waiting to speak with Trump when he received a phone call. After speaking Spanish during that call, he was told there'd be no interview and asked to leave the building.
Although Stupenengo declined to talk about the incident and told the website, "I can say that after 13 years of journalism worse things have happened to me," he was reportedly planning to reveal in a later broadcast for TV Azteca that he'd been kicked out of the building for his Spanish speaking.
Buzzfeed noted that Stupenengo's green eyes could have initially made him appear to be a white guy, right up until he started speaking Spanish. The source also said a Spanish-speaking Secret Service agent assigned to the Trump campaign told Stupenengo, who was on his way out, that he was sorry for what had happened.
Trump's campaign has been dogged with accusations of racism since last summer, when he called undocumented immigrants from Mexico "rapists." Earlier this year he got into a heated argument with prominent Univision anchor Jorge Ramos and had Ramos kicked out of a campaign event.
The Trump campaign didn't immediately respond to Complex's request for comment.
