Eva Longoria says she has some advice for politicians: Don’t park a taco truck outside her door ahead of every election and expect to get her vote.
“I am an activist and an advocate for many things and many causes, but I don’t speak for Latinos. And I think that’s what politicians get wrong, is they want to speak for people,” Longoria said in a preview clip released Friday from an upcoming episode of “Who’s Talking to Chris Wallace?”
The interview with the former “Desperate Housewives” actor airs Friday morning on HBO Max and Sunday on CNN.
“What I try to encourage politicians to do is not knock on our door every four years with a taco truck and try to get our vote,” Longoria, who served as a national co-chairwoman on former President Obama’s 2012 reelection campaign, told Wallace.
“Don’t say our vote matters when our lives don’t matter,” said the performer and host of CNN’s “Searching for Mexico” program.
“You have to engage in these communities every day, not every four years,” Longoria said.
While Longoria hosted the first night of 2020’s virtual Democratic National Convention and delivered remarks at the same event for Democrats in 2012 and 2016, she said she has no interest in making the leap from Hollywood to Washington as a political candidate.
Asked if she’d ever consider running for office, Longoria replied, “No, and especially in this moment of politics. It’s so divisive, and I don’t see how there’s faith in politicians in this moment.”
“I can see where voter apathy comes in,” Longoria, 48, said. “And for me, I really strongly believe the most powerful part of democracy is the citizen. We have way more power as a citizen than as a politician.”