Immigration grievance is evidently going to be a large component of Univision's news programming going forward. This was made crystal clear during a recent episode of the network's Sunday Al Punto public affairs program.
During the episode, senior news anchor Jorge Ramos and one of President Trump's most prominent Puerto Rican allies, former Puerto Rico Attorney General José Fuentes-Agostini, went back and forth over Trump, the border wall and immigration policy overall.
Here are two key exchanges that pretty much sum it all up. In the first, Ramos takes aim at the administration's border wall project, directly labeling it 'useless.' In response, Fuentes points out that it wasn't that long ago that Senators Obama, Clinton, and Biden ALL voted for the Secure Border Act, which calls for fencing as well as other means of securing the United States' southern border.
JORGE RAMOS, HOST, AL PUNTO: So why build a useless wall? If Trump is so intelligent and such a good businessman like he says he is, why build something that isn’t going to work?
JOSE FUENTES-AGOSTINI, ADVISOR TO PRESIDENT TRUMP: Well look Jorge, we differ on whether it is going to work or not. You would note that Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Vice President Joe Biden - the three of them – in 2006 voted to build that wall. So it is very hypocritical of them to now say the wall should not be built. The people obviously understand that the wall will work. You would note that Mexico, Mexico, is doing the same thing in Guatemala. They are not building a physical wall, but they certainly have a barrier that they have built.
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Fuentes dispenses with much of the hypocrisy surrounding the immigration debate by pointing out both past Democratic support for the current border wall policy of the United States, as well as Mexico's efforts along its own southern border. Furthermore, we are reminded that Ramos consistently opposes ANY serious effort to curb illegal immigration. Recall that as recently as December of last year, Ramos came out against deportation of aliens with a record of criminal offenses.
The second clip shows Ramos and Fuentes once again relitigating Trump's June 2015 presidential campaign announcement speech - the ongoing basis for much of Ramos' non-stop grievance-mongering over the past 18 months:
JORGE RAMOS, HOST, AL PUNTO: But most immigrants in this country, and you are well aware of it, are not criminals nor rapists, as many have wanted to portray. I want to raise another point with you. The policy…
JOSE FUENTES-AGOSTINI, ADVISOR TO PRESIDENT TRUMP: And that is how Mr. Trump has said it. And that is how Mr. Trump has said it. He is very clear about that.
JORGE RAMOS, HOST, AL PUNTO: Well, not necessarily. On June 16, 2015 he said that Mexican immigrants were drug traffickers, criminals and rapists, and that is an absolute lie. And so now President Donald Trump said something that wasn’t true.
JOSE FUENTES-AGOSTINI, ADVISOR TO PRESIDENT TRUMP: Jorge, we have had that conversation.
JORGE RAMOS, HOST, AL PUNTO: I know.
JOSE FUENTES-AGOSTINI, ADVISOR TO PRESIDENT TRUMP: You and I have had that conversation before. We have discussed before…
JORGE RAMOS, HOST, AL PUNTO: Agreed.
JOSE FUENTES-AGOSTINI, ADVISOR TO PRESIDENT TRUMP: …all your many viewers and it is clear that he clarified what he wanted to say with that.
Expect Ramos to continue pushing these points on his audience going forward, despite the fact that Fuentes got him to concede that the horse was both dead and well-beaten.
This pretty much sums up where things stand, at both Al Punto and Univision News, at the dawn of the Age of Trump.
