After critical ad, Trump says Maria Elvira Salazar got elected because of him

President Donald Trump said Friday he still backs U.S. Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar of Miami for re-election even though she launched a campaign ad criticizing his immigration agenda, but also claimed she is only in office because of his support.

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“I’m very strong on the borders, and she isn’t,” Trump said from the Oval Office. “When I endorsed Maria, she ended up winning in the biggest surprise of all of Congress for that term. Maria won only because of me.”

The remarks come just a day after the Miami Republican launched an ad addressing the president directly over his immigration crackdown, with less than two months to go until the midterms. In the bilingual ad, which ran in South Florida, Salazar tells Trump that he’s gone “too far on immigration enforcement” and that Hispanics who voted him into the White House feel “betrayed.”

She also challenges the administration narrative that the focus of the immigration crackdown has been “criminals” and the worst of the worst. She pointed to a statistic that shows that 50% of Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainees had no criminal convictions or pending charges.

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Salazar, like other Republicans in Miami’s congressional delegation, has been battling backlash from her constituents to Trump’s mass deportations since he returned to office. She has had to balance policies that have directly harmed her constituents — like the rollback of deportation protections for Venezuelans and Haitians under Temporary Protected Status — with her support for the president and the national party.

The critical ad and Trump’s remarks raise questions about the future relationship between the congresswoman and the president, who has made immigration the cornerstone of his administration. Trump has previously been a vocal advocate for Salazar, who was first elected to Congress in 2021. He has repeatedly endorsed her and said on his social media platform Truth Social last month that she was “working hard” in Congress and doing a “truly fantastic job.”

While in Congress, Salazar has called for Trump to be a history-maker on immigration and introduced her own bipartisan immigration reform bill. Hardline Republicans have slammed the proposal, saying that it’s a mass amnesty measure. She has countered that the bill requires immigrants to pay taxes and fulfill other requirements to be put on a path to legalization.

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