Jorge Ramos’ most recent op-ed on Puerto Rico proves he’s never really cared about Puerto Rico, except as something to point at in his endless war against Donald Trump or in his quixotic promotion of Puerto Rican separatists.
His latest column, titled “Puerto Rico: the dead don’t hide” is an exercise in blame-shifting- and of furthering provable falsehoods in the name of the aforementioned blame shifting; to wit: that the Trump Administration is solely responsible for over 3,000 deaths in Puerto Rico as the result of the horrific onslaught of Hurricane Maria.
First, Ramos insists on pushing the ham-handed narrative that Trump’s paper towel-throwing was somehow a willful insult of the Puerto Rican people:
First, we saw the humiliating images of Trump tossing paper towels into the crowd during his brief visit to Puerto Rico.
That version of events was refuted right here on MRC Latino, by a volunteer who witnessed what happened, and provided an account that has gone grotesquely underreported:
To set the record straight: most of the President’s visit to Calvary Chapel was taken up with talking and taking pictures with the people near the tables of supplies, and then handing out those supplies. Near the end of the visit, after spending several minutes handing out supplies such as canned chicken, flashlights, rice and water, he spent about 30 seconds tossing rolls of paper towels to people further back in the crowd who were not able to move toward the front where he was handing things out.
The reality is that the President’s towel throwing took place because he saw how there were a lot of people behind those in the first few rows, who couldn’t reach him to receive anything. The President wanted to include them, since the activity was to distribute supplies. He wasn’t going to toss over to them bottles of water or canned food, which could hurt somebody, but rolls of paper towels, which wouldn’t hurt anybody.
Though it was portrayed as an act of disdain or contempt for the people, it was actually an act of frustration, due to the disorganization of the event. He wanted to reach as many as possible with the supplies, but wasn’t properly positioned to do so. From my vantage point at the event, I took photos of him in which he is clearly frustrated with the set-up of the activity.
It is difficult to square opposing Trump on the basis of incompetence with a parroting of the notion that Trump took the time, in the middle of a trip to a hurricane-ravaged territory, to learn a way to insult the residents of said territory. It makes absolutely no sense. But sense doesn’t stop Ramos from pushing that out.
Ramos, always willing to carry water for the corrupt Mayor of San Juan, finds time to bash Puerto Rico’s governor for trying to work with the Trump administration:
Even the governor of Puerto Rico, Ricardo Rosselló, who at times has been excessively diplomatic toward Trump, disagreed. Neither the people of Puerto Rico nor the victims deserve their pain to be called into question, the governor told me in a recent interview.
In Ramos-speak, “excessively diplomatic” is code for “weak” or “submissive”, as we recently highlighted here. Perhaps Ramos is still sore over how Gov. Rossello shut him down on his own show.
In terms of allowing demonstrable falsehoods to go unchecked, there is this line from Ramos:
The United States is the most powerful and sophisticated country, and has the most resources worldwide, Rep. Luis Gutiérrez, a Democrat from Illinois, told me.
But that’s not what Gutiérrez actually said. In fact, there’s a glaring gap between “The United Stated is the most powerful and sophisticated country” and “it’s already been a year” within the Gutiérrez quote. May we remind you that Gutiérrez actually smeared the U.S. Military, and accused them of being AWOL:
JORGE RAMOS, SENIOR ANCHOR, UNIVISION: So, did three thousand people die in Puerto Rico, or did they not die, per the President?
U.S. REP. LUIS GUTIÉRREZ (D-IL): Jorge, I was there ten days after the hurricane. Traffic...at noon...gridlocked. In other words, if you were sick you couldn’t get to the hospital. Ah?
RAMOS: But is that President Trump’s fault?
GUTIÉRREZ: This is the most powerful country, the most sophisticated, with greater resources than anywhere else. Did you see the U.S. Army? The most powerful, the most sophisticated army? They never went in. Did you see the resources? We’re a year out.
Interestingly, the original Spanish features the full Gutierrez quote.
Presumptively, this column was timed to drop after Ramos’ Puerto Rico-themed episode of “Real America, which we covered here, and was its own fetid display of separatist propaganda.
This column, awful on its own merits, is at least as bad as the Facebook Watch episode if not worse, because it displays what many of us have known all along: that Jorge Ramos doesn’t care to learn anything more about Puerto Rico beyond what furthers an agenda of politicization of human pain and suffering, and fueling an endless war against Donald Trump. In these pursuits, facts are optional.
