It's official. President Trump has a certifiable heavyweight champion in one of the national media segments that has been most hostile to him: U.S. Spanish-language television.
The certification came from the lips of none other than the most well-known personality in the domestic Spanish-language press corps, Univision anchor-activist Jorge Ramos, who on the March 12 edition of his weekly Al Punto program acknowledged what has become increasingly evident since last fall: that "it's never easy" when Trump advisor José 'Fightin' Joe' Fuentes comes on his program and delivers his unique brand of clear, combative defenses of the President and his policies.
By the end of the latest Ramos-Fuentes encounter, Fuentes had successfully positioned himself to not only elicit that admission from Ramos, but also maneuver Ramos into the unheard of position of concluding the interview on a positive note on the President's accomplishments in the area of job creation.
JORGE RAMOS, HOST, AL PUNTO: It’s never easy with you, but thanks for returning here to the program.
JOSE FUENTES AGOSTINI, ADVISOR TO PRESIDENT TRUMP: Listen, and notice how the economy is growing. 235,000 new jobs in 30 days. We’re headed in the right direction.
RAMOS: Exactly, 235,000 new jobs in the first complete month of Trump in the government.
It was Fuentes who, during the heat of the 2016 presidential campaign, first distinguished himself as being the only member of then candidate Donald Trump's Hispanic Advisory Committee to energetically confront and challenge Ramos on his incessantly repeated, dishonest characterization of Trump as having insulted all Mexican immigrants to the United States as criminals.
In a subsequent program, Fuentes not only once again tamped down Ramos on the same subject, but also pushed back hard when the wiley anchorman called Trump's border wall project a "useless wall."
This brings us to Fuentes' latest appearance on the March 12 edition of Al Punto, where the former Attorney General of Puerto Rico and prominent leader in the U.S. Caribbean territory's Republican Party set about dismantling Ramos' and Democratic activists' latest "separation of families" argument against the Trump administration's efforts, in marked contrast to those of the Obama administration, to effectively stem the tide of unauthorized entry into the U.S. along the country's southern border, and enforce the immigration laws that are on the books.
FUENTES: The Obama administration, what happened, was that they brought them (the unauthorized immigrants and their children) in. They arrested them. They let the entire family go with a summons that they had to appear at a court hearing on a certain date. The people did not appear in court. They disappeared inside the country. And no one would find them again.
RAMOS [interrupting]: But they didn’t separate mothers from children.
FUENTES: And that’s how the number of undocumented people kept growing. We are. No, no, no. Mr. Trump, President Trump ran on a platform that said they were going to enforce the immigration laws, and that is what he is doing. And if you enforce the immigration laws, you cannot keep those children with those families. So that is what is going to happen. It’s not that we are in favor or against. What is cruel and inhumane is that they force those kids to try to cross a desert to enter this country.
What Fuentes has done time and again - more than any other pro-Trump surrogate in Spanish-language media so far - is move Ramos off of his set questions and talking points, and lead the anchor-activist to where he is most uncomfortable and where he most often comes up short: actual debate. Even on an issue as sensitive as the separation of families, Fuentes successfully drove home the point that the real cruelty was the existence of a chronically dysfunctional system that has allowed children and families to be exploited for the sake of political expediency. In the end, Ramos was simply left with emotional arguments that had no basis in fact.
As the segment drew to a close, Ramos had no choice but to essentially acknowledge that Fuentes had once again ("It's never easy with you") gotten the best of him. Fuentes responded with a broad smile and the big league new jobs numbers posted during the President's first full month in office, which he stunningly got Ramos to repeat in the conclusion of the segment.
So it is that Fuentes has racked up an impressive record and reputation, directly calling out distortions, displaying mastery of the issues at hand and controlling the debate whenever possible, such as by closing with an issue of his own choosing. As conservative surrogates and analysts continue to engage on Spanish-language media, they would do well to follow the template set forth by the reigning champion, José 'Fightin' Joe' Fuentes.
Below is transcript from most of the segment on immigration referenced above, as aired on Univision's Al Punto on Sunday, March 12, 2017.
JORGE RAMOS, HOST, AL PUNTO: Allow me to begin with information that we've received directly from the Trump Administration: In the first month of the Trump Administraton, in January, the number of undocumenteds (arriving) from Mexico into the United States dropped 40%. Why did it drop? How do you attribute this? How do you explain that?
JOSE FUENTES AGOSTINI, ADVISOR TO PRESIDENT TRUMP: Well, it's simple, Jorge. We are enforcing the laws that are on the books. That's all we are doing. And the people, when learning that the law is being applied, that they will face the consequences of the law, are ceasing to enter the country. We are looking at how we are also preparing plans on how to avoid that children -who are dying on the border- be used by their parents, and by coyotes that abuse them, in order to come into the country. You know that the laws compel us to...the laws and the courts force us to not hold children (that are arrested), and therefore...and not in the same facility as their parents. And so when a family is arrested, for example, we are in that discussion of what will we do with those children. And we are going to place them in homes where they will be cared for while their parents are processed. But all of this is being discussed, all of this is being planned out in order to ensure that we are being as humanitarian as possible. What we have to avoid is that these poor children die as they are attempting to cross those deserts.
RAMOS: I think everyone is in agreement that no one wants children to die and no one wants undocumented immigrants to die. But the Secretary of Homeland Security, General John Kelly, just said this week that he is willing to separate children from their parents when they arrive at the border. Mr. Fuentes, isn't that inhumane? Isn't that part of a dictatorship, and not of a democracy such as the United States? This is something (that is) cruel.
FUENTES: No, Jorge, what is cruel and inhumane is that those children be used, and that they (parents or coyotes) try to bring them across the border, and they be allowed to be abused and that they be allowed to die in the desert. THAT is what is inhumane. What the General is saying is that IF we were to take a family and arrest the entire family, that the courts compel us...it's not our decision. The courts compel us to separate these children because we have to place them where they are not with their parents and not restricted in a jail.
(CROSSTALK) RAMOS But, Mr. Fuentes...that's a decision (made) by the Trump Administration.
FUENTES: Therefore, we are talking about families...
RAMOS: That's a decision (made) by the Trump Administration, who wants to separate families. That isn't an order issued by any court.
FUENTES: No, no, no, this is a decision made by the courts. Jorge, you are wrong. The courts bar us from holding children in those institutions. We are forbidden. We have to separate them. We have to place them in foster care homes, which is what we are planning, so that those children can be with an American family that will care for them while the parents are processed. But that is NOT our decision. The courts are forcing us to do that.
RAMOS If the courts compelled that, then why didn't the same exact thing happen during the Obama Administration? In other words, the problem is that YOUR Secretary of Homeland Security is saying that he wants to separate families and you are supporting him. This seems to many like something from a different era, Mr. Fuentes.
FUENTES: You are wrong. The Obama administration, what happened, was that they brought them (the unauthorized immigrants and their children) in. They arrested them. They let the entire family go with a summons that they had to appear at a court hearing on a certain date. The people did not appear in court. They disappeared inside the country. And no one would find them again.
RAMOS [interrupting]: But they didn’t separate mothers from children.
FUENTES: And that’s how the number of undocumented people kept growing. We are. No, no, no. Mr. Trump, President Trump ran on a platform that said they were going to enforce the immigration laws, and that is what he is doing. And if you enforce the immigration laws, you cannot keep those children with those families. So that is what is going to happen. It’s not that we are in favor or against. What is cruel and inhumane is that they force those kids to try to cross a desert to enter this country. THAT is what is inhumane.
...
RAMOS: It’s never easy with you, but thanks for returning here to the program.
FUENTES: Listen, and notice how the economy is growing. 235,000 new jobs in 30 days. We’re headed in the right direction.
RAMOS: Exactly, 235,000 new jobs in the first complete month of Trump in the government.
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