Broncano Faces Backlash Over Abascal Interview on TVE

Broncano Criticized for Hosting Abascal

There is an unwritten rule in the Spanish media ecosystem: interviewing a parliamentary political leader automatically makes you their accomplice. The latest victim of this norm is the host of La Revuelta, accused on social media of "whitewashing fascism" for doing what, according to debate materials, TVE had failed to do for three and a half years: seating Santiago Abascal on a public stage. The underlying argument has its irony: maintaining a joking tone trivializes the issue; changing it breaks neutrality. In other words, every option is guilty.

The Obligation No One Wanted to Fulfill

The detail lost amidst all the labels is that the interview did not stem from a whim of the presenter. According to debate materials, TVE had gone more than three and a half years without interviewing the Vox leader, and the Junta Electoral Central (Central Electoral Board) ultimately ordered the meeting. Taxpayers, some analysts argue, have the right to see that document. Not the headline, not the summary: the official record. Because the difference between a legal obligation and an editorial decision is exactly what separates journalism from propaganda.

Here lies the crux. If the interview is imposed by an electoral body, the presenter ceases to be responsible for the framing and becomes the executor of a resolution. Blaming him for the tone is like blaming the mailman for the content of the letter.

Tone as a Variable Crime

The accusation has two branches, and both contradict each other. One argues that the relaxed atmosphere, engaged audience, and jokes turn fascism into a friendly format. The other warns that changing the register for a specific candidate breaks the requirement for equivalent treatment compared to other leaders. Applied simultaneously, they leave no way out: the same program is guilty for what it does and for what it could do.

The pattern is not new. The fascist label functions as a scarce resource distributed within one's own camp: the closer one gets to the center, the easier it falls upon them. The distance between being pogre and being fascist is sometimes measured in decades. Other times, in twenty-four hours.

From Studio to Penal Code

The bar of the conversation rose several steps when someone proposed physically marking voters of a legal party so others could identify them. The historical comparison makes itself and needs no elaboration. It suffices to point out that such ideas, launched in a forum, describe the climate better than any editorial.

In parallel, the discussion drifted toward the US calendar and internal struggles within Vox, where other party leaders are missed. Politics as a spectacle of replacement: when the guest offers little material, those who left are debated.

What Remains to Be Seen

The question hovering over all this is not whether Abascal should have sat on that stage, but who decides what constitutes a bad interview. If the answer comes from an electoral board, the debate about tone is superfluous. If it comes from the presenter, then the problem is not the guest, but the criterion. And that criterion, for now, no one has published.