It was a matter of time before Univision senior anchor and Special Editorial Advisor to the CEO Jorge Ramos weighed in on the controversy surrounding Televisa’s interview of former President Donald Trump. And, in a manner similar to his own interactions with Donald Trump, he made it all about himself.
The Trump interview happened nearly three weeks ago, but the Ramos response ran on Ramos’ website during a holiday weekend. Was The New York Times pitched but not interested? Or did Ramos wait for the holiday to drop his column? Weird timing.
The column, titled “The Danger of Not Confronting Trump”, wastes no time in going to the heart of the matter, which is Jorge Ramos.
Due to the strong criticisms after Univision aired an interview with Donald Trump on Nov. 9 -that put in doubt the independence of our news department, and created discomfort and uncertainty within the newsroom- it is necessary to take a step back from what was broadcast that day and explain, as always, my point of view.
Let’s begin with the most basic. Trump never would have given me an interview. On August 25, 2015, the then-presidential candidate ordered a bodyguard to expel me from a news conference in Dubuque, Iowa, after I tried to ask him some questions. “Go back to Univision!” he told me. I had gone to Iowa to ask him about his statements that Mexican immigrants were “rapists,” criminals and drug traffickers.
Of course, Ramos did not go to Iowa to ask Trump any questions, but to conduct a performative confrontation. He has admitted as much on many different occasions. See for yourselves (click “expand” to view transcript):
PETER MANSBRIDGE, CBC: Why did you make the decision that you had to go to Iowa to confront Donald Trump?
JORGE RAMOS, UNIVISION: As you know, television… television doesn't happen. Television is produced. It is created. And, so we brought three cameras, we brought microphones, and our purpose was to talk to Donald Trump. And confront Donald Trump. That was the purpose. As a journalist.
MANSBRIDGE: A confrontation.
RAMOS: I wanted to ask him a question- many questions, but (...) yes, it was going to be a confrontation.
...
MANSBRIDGE: You keep calling it questions, your “questions”, where in fact you didn’t ask a question. They’re statements, not questions.
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MANSBRIDGE: You can not deport 11 million people
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RAMOS: You can not deport 11 million… you can not deport 11 million people.
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MANSBRIDGE: You can not deport 11 million… you can not deport 11 million people
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RAMOS: You can not build a 1900-mile wall.
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MANSBRIDGE: You can not deny citizenship to children in this country.
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RAMOS: You can not deny citizenship to children in this country.
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RAMOS: I confronted him on the fact that he wants to deport 11 million people, and build a wall, and deny citizenship.
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RAMOS: We thought that in Dubuque, Iowa, there would be just a few journalists following the candidate. And we were right. So we showed up like two hours before, we brought three cameras, and then we made a plan. I was going to be wearing a microphone so my voice would be at the exact same level as his when we start editing
…
DONALD TRUMP: No, you haven’t you haven’t been called.
RAMOS: I have… I have the right to ask a question. And this is...no. And this is the question. You can not deport 11 million… you can not deport 11 million people. You can not build a 1900-mile wall. You can not deny citizenship to children in this country.
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RAMOS: Then we had the three cameras well-positioned, the lighting was right, and then I made a plan. (...) We planned everything.
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RAMOS: TV, television doesn't happen. You create it. You produce it. It doesn't happen just like that. And that’s exactly what we did. (...) We NEEDED TO CONFRONT HIM.
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CHRIS CUOMO, CNN: You wanted to get into a fight with him and you got your fight.
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RAMOS: We will be judged, as journalists, by how we responded to Donald Trump.
He wasn’t there to ask questions but to stage a show. And Univision’s news division has repeatedly indulged Ramos’ excesses, which is precisely why they didn’t get to handle the Mar-a-Lago interview. Ramos is the public face of a news organization known for being a repository of Democrat talking points, so he is correct to affirm that he would have never been granted that interview.
The media’s narrative surrounding the Televisa interview of Trump is not one of a corporate parent trying to restore balance to a property gone horribly wrong that has lost significant trust within its own viewing cohort, but of Univision’s brave struggle for editorial independence. But again, and so we’re crystal clear, by “independence” we mean the independence to remain a repository of Democrat talking points. Nothing else.
Over the course of the past several decades, Ramos has abused his editorial independence by using it to push extreme ideology upon his viewership, disguised as “journalism”. He has soft-pedaled “democratic socialism”, advocated for euthanasia, and suggested that vaccine skepticism is a “big lie” that endangers democracy. But most notoriously, Ramos has abused his editorial independence in order to spew racial demagoguery.
When asked about Hispanics who voted for Donald Trump in 2016, Ramos dismissed them as “immigrants…or children of immigrants who forgot their origins”. Ramos would later bemoan that Hispanics would “feel totally identified with this country”. These are but a handful among many such instances.
But there is one bit of good to come from Ramos’ column, which is that he all but admits to immigration advocacy as the center of his “journalism”. Immigration is the only issue that moves him ask tough questions of Democrats:
Of course we should not take sides, and we are obliged to broadcast the messages of all candidates in the 2024 presidential election. But at the same time we cannot surrender our responsibility to ask hard and precise questions. That’s what journalism is for. These journalistic principles apply to everyone.
For example, recently I wrote a column criticizing Joe Biden for breaking his promise not to build a single foot of new wall at the southern border during his presidency. Also, when Barack Obama was president I confronted him in a town hall meeting for not keeping a campaign promise. “A promise is a promise”, I told him. He broke a commitment to introduce immigration reform -that would have legalized millions of undocumented immigrants- during his first year in office, when Democrats controlled both chambers of Congress and the White House. So it goes both ways.
“Both ways” on an open border, one way on everything else. Whether it’s abortion, gun control, climate, or anything else on the leftwing policy pupu platter, Ramos is a reliable Democrat talking point regurgitator. For Ramos, making equal demands of all on immigration is proof evident of balance. And again, to be clear, this is the “editorial independence” that the rest of the navel-gazing media industry is willing to follow Ramos off of a cliff for.
The column closes with the throwing of a gauntlet:
For 39 years Univision has allowed me to report with absolute independence and freedom – and even to write columns like this one – and I will always be very grateful. That’s why I left Mexico and came to the United States.
This is what I believe, and I will continue to do it as a free journalist, wherever I might be.
Ramos quit Televisa to come to the United States in 1983, where he became what he has become, and is now hinting at quitting again. Although the circumstances are significantly different, it is nonetheless an opportunity for there to be the closing of a circle. In advance of a proper house cleaning at Univision, Televisa would be wise to let him walk again.
