On this day in 2015, Univision anchor Jorge Ramos partook in one of the landmark media moments of the Trump Era: his expulsion from then-candidate Donald Trump’s press conference in Dubuque, Iowa. But, as Ramos himself would later admit, the whole thing was manufactured.
Watch as Ramos admits as much to anyone with a byline or a microphone, usually while promoting the book he would later write about the incident (click "expand" for 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.
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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
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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.
In the years since, Ramos has been left wondering why Hispanics continue to support Donald Trump. Perhaps it is due to his opinion columns, which seem inflammatory by design. For example, Ramos cheered the weaponized New York indictment of Trump on a Frankensteined business records case, calling it “a beautiful act”.
Ramos has been judged, and found wanting. Univision’s credibility took a huge hit after Ramos’ performative spectacle and it wasn’t until November of last year, over eight years later, that Trump finally granted an interview to Univision, which Ramos didn’t get.
The Regime Media’s decay has been decades-long in the making. But there is a direct line between today’s histrionic, open partisanship on display and the performative heckling of Donald Trump, deliberately staged by Univision’s Jorge Ramos on Tuesday, August 25th, 2015.
