On a night where Pitbull came to show off his best fancy white pants, he also took some time to address Donald Trump and other presidential hopefuls on stage at Premios Juventud. Before he got into his speech, he gave a shout out to his beloved 305 and then told the candidates they had to do better in the most Miami way possible. “I just want to say, look, I’m not a politician, I’m a musician, but more than anything, I’m Latino,” he said. “So for all my people out there, I want to tell Marco Rubio, ponte las pilas; Jeb Bush, ponte las pilas; Hillary Clinton, ponte las pilas, because Donald Trump can’t be president… And Trump, be careful with El Chapo, papo.”
Pitbull got a big applause, because he knows exactly what gets Latinos hyped. He didn’t know it then, but he also managed to make it endlessly entertaining for us to see how the American media covered the event. While ponte las pilas is known by many Latinos to mean step your game up, some publications literally translated it to mean put on your batteries, which what? To you newspapers: Ponte las pilas.
Jorge Ramos also attended Premios Juventud to talk about Trump, saying that Latinos are not all drug traffickers and criminals, as some people believe. “The day of the elections we are going to remember who was with us and who was against us,” he said. Trump has yet to realize this.