Univision senior anchor Jorge Ramos' latest interview of Carmen Yulín Cruz (the absentee mayor of San Juan, Puerto Rico) proves that if you are a radical separatist and #Resist Donald Trump, you too can receive VIP treatment on the network's Sunday political talker, Al Punto.
Here's Cruz spinning Jorge Ramos' straightforward question about how many people have left Puerto Rico since the hurricanes into a hot take on gentrification and the looming Bitcoin Bro invasion:
JORGE RAMOS, SENIOR ANCHOR, UNIVISION: How many people have left Puerto Rico since the hurricanes?
CARMEN YULÍN CRUZ, MAYOR OF SAN JUAN: Well, the estimate is that 317,000 have gone to Florida alone. And the total estimate is that 500,000 have left Puerto Rico. Uh...excuse me, excuse me, yes, 500,000 persons. Interestingly, 500 millionaires have moved to Puerto Rico over the past year and a half. And so, this theory - wherein things are being allowed to decay so that these millionaires, some of them without scruples, can come purchase properties at very low prices and that there may be a sort of gentrification, no?...of Puerto Ricans leaving to other places - is taking hold in Puerto Rico. The entire...the entire Bitcoin group is moving to Puerto Rico....
RAMOS: Yes.
CRUZ: And saying that they will build a new city there.
Where have we previously heard these conspiracy theories regarding the displacement and depopulation of Puerto Rico via willful neglect and subsequent gentrification for nefarious purposes? I'm glad you asked, and here's convicted FALN terrorist Oscar López Rivera making that same argument to chavista mouthpiece Telesur, just two weeks after being released pursuant to the terms of his commutation:
OSCAR LOPEZ RIVERA, CONVICTED TERRORIST: I’m surprised, it may have been just two weeks but in that time I have had a lot of experiences that I did not anticipate; encounters with many people, seeing things that I have not seen for a long time both positive and negative experiences. I was really shocked for example about the gentrification, depopulation and displacement going on. The houses that are being built in Puerto Rico are obviously for rich people and not for the Puerto Rican workers. There is so much emphasis on foreign investment instead of incentives for workers.
They invest in cruise ships and fishermen have almost nothing, there is no incentive for the ports. The brain drain is another thing that I found going on in Puerto Rico. And Alaska and Hawaii came to mind; which became states but not to favor their Indigenous people. In Alaska, it happens on the reservations where we see the destruction of the culture, the loss of love and their reason for being, life there loses value, and that has happened and can happen in Puerto Rico; they are the result of such policies which are a strategy of dehumanization.
In setting up her parroting of a terrorist's conspiracy theories, Cruz first churned out a cloud of disinformation. It has been widely reported that the number of Puerto Ricans moving to Florida is closer to 50,000 than to the 317,000 cited by Cruz- much to the chagrin of those who wish to commoditize human tragedy for electoral purposes in the 2018 midterm elections.
Let's face it: Jorge Ramos indulges Cruz' fact-challenged demagoguery because she is loudly anti-Trump AND because she wants independence for Puerto Rico, as do convicted FALN terrorist Oscar López Rivera and frequent guest Chicagoland Congressman Luis Gutiérrez. Thus, there were no follow-ups to her statements and no tough questions. One such question that comes to mind is: who's running the city while Cruz is out for over a week, doing media and award shows on the mainland?
It bears noting that Sunday's puff interview was built around Cruz' selection as one of Time Magazine's 100 most influential people of 2018. Given that El Nuevo Día's post-hurricane poll shows Cruz to have a net negative 20% approval rating among those who know her best, it begs the question: who, exactly, is she influencing?
