Bobby Pulido, a Tejano singer-songwriter running to oust incumbent Republican Monica De La Cruz, has been given a free pass.
Bobby Pulido, a Tejano singer-songwriter running to oust incumbent Republican Representative Monica De La Cruz, has been lauded by the media and Democratic strategists as a Democratic “unicorn” who may be able to finally flip a historically red south Texas congressional district.
Pulido, who led a recent Texas Southern University poll 51 to 44 percent, has for months benefited from a media willing to gloss over several of his controversies, the most contentious of which includes his relationship with his accordionist Frankie Caballero, a registered sex offender whom Pulido not only toured with for years after he was sentenced to prison for indecent contact with an 8-year-old girl — but whom he also admitted to helping get “out of jail.”
Despite the New York Post having first revealed the criminal allegations against Caballero, and Pulido’s role in getting him off the hook, back in April, local TV news outlets KVEO and KRGV have stayed quiet about the allegations on air. (Though KRGV runs Texas Tribune stories on its website through a syndication deal, and has therefore republished articles about the controversy online.)
The major Spanish-language newspaper El País similarly ignored the controversy altogether in a recent glowing profile that included an interview with Pulido.
Other outlets have covered the allegations, couched deep within more flattering stories about the political newcomer.
“This Texas crooner could help Democrats win Congress, one quinceañera at a time,” the Washington Post reported. A headline from The Guardian reads: “The Tejano singer trying to win back Latinos who voted for Trump, one quinceañera at a time.”
In a Washington Post column in April, Texas-based writer Joe Holley characterized De La Cruz’s highlighting of the Caballero story as an effort to “muddy her opponent’s image” and claims his various controversies “don’t seem to be sticking.”
Holley seems to take Pulido at his word that he was “not aware of the musician’s criminal history and fired him as soon as he found out.”
Several outlets, to their credit, have pressed Pulido on the issue, including the Texas Tribune and CNN.
Each time Pulido discusses the relationship, the details change.
Pulido acknowledged in a 2019 interview that he helped Caballero get “out of jail” in the mid-’90s.
Caballero had been charged in 1994 — before he ever started working with Pulido — with sexual assault. He walked on a $75,000 personal bond. While out on bond, he recorded “Desvelado,” the hit that helped make Pulido a Tejano music star.
Rene Guerra, Pulido’s great-uncle and a former district attorney in South Texas, dismissed the case in 2000 “in the interest of justice” along with a burglary charge, despite Caballero having skipped three court dates, resulting in the forfeiture of his bond.
According to the Washington Free Beacon, Pulido has claimed he first fired Caballero in 1996 for drug abuse, but his albums list Caballero as a contributor through 1999.
Caballero would go on to commit a slew of crimes after the pair parted — but that didn’t stop Pulido from rehiring him in 2017, now with an even more disturbing criminal record.
In the years that followed, Caballero was arrested for cocaine possession and forgery, though he again had charges dismissed by Guerra. In 2009, he was convicted in federal court for transporting an illegal immigrant across the southern border. In 2014, Caballero was indicted for indecent sexual contact with an 8-year-old girl. Though he faced 20 years in prison, Guerra agreed to a plea deal that would see Caballero serve just three years.
Shortly after he was released from prison as a sex offender, Caballero rejoined Pulido on stage in December 2017. In December 2018, Caballero was present when the band performed at a middle school benefit concert with children present. That same year, Pulido joked Caballero “went to Penn State,” where assistant football couch Jerry Sandusky was infamously convicted on 45 counts of child sexual abuse. Facing criticism of the comments, Pulido told Bloomberg he was referring only to Caballero’s time spent in prison, “They call the penitentiary ‘the Pen,’ and people say ‘Penn State.'”
Pulido has claimed he was unaware that his accordionist had a criminal history and that he knew only of his issues with drug addiction. He would later revise that to claim he knew Caballero was jailed but was not aware of his most heinous crimes, according to the Washington Free Beacon. He said he knew Caballero had “violated a lot of his paroles” and told him he went to prison for “transferring illegal aliens.”
He also attempted to shift the blame for his rehiring, saying his manager hired Caballero back in 2017 and that it isn’t industry standard to do a background check.
A former Hidalgo County prosecutor who worked for Guerra at the time told the Washington Free Beacon that Pulido “is the last person in Hidalgo County who can claim he did not know of this man’s crimes.”
“Mr. Pulido has repeatedly lied about his ties to Caballero,” the former prosecutor told the outlet. “An honest man tells the same story every time and Bobby Pulido has told at least four different versions of what he knew about Frankie Caballero’s criminal past.”
The former prosecutor also said, “Three failures to appear in a felony rape case would have landed any other defendant in jail.”
Guerra, for his part, told the Free Beacon he doesn’t “have any knowledge” of Caballero and hadn’t heard of him until Pulido started his campaign.
In 2020, while a member of Pulido’s band, Caballero was arrested for strangling his own daughter. He was later sentenced to five years in prison. More than a year after his arrest, Caballero was still playing on stage with Pulido, according to Axios. He was “fired immediately” after Pulido’s management company learned the accordionist “engaged in domestic abuse,” a campaign spokesperson told the Texas Tribune.
Looking back on his career in a 2023 interview, Pulido says “It’s a shame how good of an accordion player he is and he just can’t stay out of trouble.”
“He’s the best accordion player I’ve ever heard,” he added.
Pulido has also come under fire for his past controversial social media posts espousing homophobic views and promoting pornography.
He’s also landed in hot water for making demeaning comments about women’s bodies, including in a June 2016 tweet where he shared an image of then–Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and actress Chloë Grace Moretz each holding up donuts, with the hole of the donut held by Clinton appearing much larger than Moretz’s. He wrote, “Mija, esto es lo que te pasa después de un parto natural . . . ” or “Girl, this is what happens to you after a natural childbirth. . . ” in an apparent reference to female genitalia.
Despite the numerous controversies, Democrats identified Pulido as a top recruit for this cycle, according to Politico.
“I have strongly encouraged Bobby to run for Texas 15,” former Democratic congressman Filemon Vela told the outlet. “His professional popularity, his political acumen and his center-right disposition make him the ideal candidate for that district. The Democratic Party needs to start getting smart about the candidates that we put forth. Bobby will take that seat back.”
Headline Fail of the Week
ESPN reports “Trump criticizes LeBron James for not standing still during the national anthem.”
But James wasn’t merely “not standing still,” he was practicing his golf swing and his jump shot while the national anthem played.
AP News similarly obscured the facts at hand: “Trump blasts 76ers star LeBron James as ‘disgrace’ for not standing still during national anthem.”
Media Misses
-The BBC’s Paris correspondent James Waterhouse described recent rioting across France as “mostly peaceful.” “In Paris and beyond, half a million people had filled cities across France to protest over the future of their country. They were mostly peaceful, but as we saw in the capital, in the wings were those who wanted to take advantage of the disorder,” Waterhouse said on-air. Thousands of people have been arrested in connection with the demonstrations, which have left nearly 1,000 law enforcement and emergency personnel injured. Rioters also burned cars and looted businesses. The BBC defended its coverage in a statement to Fox News: “No one watching, reading or listening to BBC News coverage of the France protests and riots can be in any doubt as to what was happening — there is coverage of the fires, the looting and violence. James Waterhouse and the team of reporters in France over the weekend gave broader context to the protests and riots — making the point that as well as the destructive scenes, several hundred thousand people were on the streets in peaceful protest, and those carrying out the violence and looting were a small fraction of that number.”
-The Detroit Metro Times says it will no longer seek comment from the campaign of Republican Senate candidate Mike Rogers because of the campaign’s “repeated lies and bigoted attacks.” Rogers “keeps targeting Abdul El-Sayed’s Muslim faith,” Detroit Metro Times investigative reporter Steve Neavling said in announcing the decision.