Sánchez pledges La Revuelta stays on TVE if he keeps governing, warns of censorship

A pledge to keep the show on air

Pedro Sánchez told David Broncano on La Revuelta, the late-night show on Televisión Española, that the programme would keep airing if he stays in government after the general election on 29 November. He put his ambition plainly:

I aspire to renew for four years, if La Revuelta wants four more years on Televisión Española.

He argued that public television should also make people laugh with smart humour and send them to bed happy and optimistic. As of Wednesday, 21 October, neither the PP nor Vox had answered the programme's invitation to their candidates, while Ada Colau confirmed she would attend.

Censorship and the Vox red line

Sánchez warned that PP and Vox would impose 'censorship' if they reach La Moncloa. He pointed to Castilla y León, where the two parties govern together, and said they would cancel film subsidies they consider ideological. He also cited a Lorca play that Valladolid had just suspended, saying such things do not belong in 21st-century Spain. A day earlier, at a pre-campaign event in Burgos on Wednesday, 21 October, he had made the same point before around 1,400 people, framing the vote as a choice between the past moving forward and Spain moving forward.

On Vox he drew a firm line:

When you put Vox into the equation, everything changes. We are talking about involution.

The PNV spokesperson, Maribel Vaquero, said the same day that a PP and Vox government would be a setback and an involution. Her party will not stand with PP and Vox at any point, but it will give no blank cheques and will be far more demanding if Sánchez needs its votes again after 29 November.

Majority, pacts and seat history

Sánchez said that if he were given 176 seats for a year that would be enough, but host Broncano interrupted before he could finish the sentence. 176 is the absolute majority in the 350-seat Congress, a threshold he has never reached, so in his eight years as head of government he has always had to strike pacts. In the November 2019 repeat election, after seeking a stronger result to govern alone, the PSOE won 120 seats, down from 123 in April of that year. The last single-party majority in Spain was Mariano Rajoy's in 2011.

In July 2023 the PSOE came second to the PP of Alberto Núñez Feijóo, yet Sánchez was re-elected with 179 votes, three above the majority line. Backing him were PSOE, Sumar, EH Bildu, PNV, ERC, Junts, BNG and Coalición Canaria, while all 171 deputies from PP, Vox and UPN voted against.

Rufián, Díaz and former presidents

Sánchez said he knew Gabriel Rufián's plan to lead a candidacy for the left across Spain would not work, because ERC is a pro-independence party, though he thanked ERC for its parliamentary cooperation. He praised his deputy prime minister and coalition partner Yolanda Díaz as one of the most in-form politicians at the moment, and said he was surprised to see her outside Frente Amplio. Felipe González confirmed on Thursday that he will vote blank on 29 November rather than back the PSOE. Sánchez said he does not feel closely identified with González's views now, although he joined the party because of him.

On José María Aznar, Sánchez said the former premier is in no position to give lessons, given how he left Moncloa after eight years. He recalled that Aznar was the first former prime minister to call him when he took office in 2018 after the censure motion against Mariano Rajoy, and told him:

I put myself at your service.

Ábalos, Ceuta and a joke about Pegasus

Sánchez called the corruption cases that hit his party, with former transport minister José Luis Ábalos at their head, a huge disappointment and admitted it was a mistake. The Supreme Court unanimously sentenced Ábalos, a former PSOE organisation secretary, to 24 years and three months in prison in the mascarillas case. The offences include criminal organisation, bribery, influence peddling and embezzlement, and the ruling became known in June. The programme did not address why Sánchez removed Ábalos from the ministry in July 2021 and brought him back as the PSOE's list head for Valencia in 2023.

On Ceuta, Sánchez conceded that the mass entry of migrants could objectively have been managed better. He said Spain needs Morocco to stop such arrivals, and that according to him 141 people died in those late-July days. He also joked that if anything was stolen from his phone after the Pegasus hack, it would be family photos.