Cozy relationships will only take you so far, as was proven when DNC Chairman Tom Pérez got caught trying to pull a fast one on Univision's weekly Al Punto talker.
Watch what happens as Pérez nonchalantly tries to explain away the explosive allegations contained in his predecessor Donna Brazile's new book, and is swiftly stopped cold by Jorge Ramos:
TOM PEREZ, CHAIRMAN, DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL COMMITTEE: Donna Brazile and other people said we have to improve the process.
JORGE RAMOS, HOST, AL PUNTO, UNIVISION: No, no she did not say that. That is not true. She said something else. She said the Hillary Clinton campaign had taken a part in and was a cancer inside the party, and that she had made a very difficult call to Bernie Sanders to tell him that this situation was a cancer inside the party. That it what she said.
It must be said that Univision was the earliest among the networks to cover Brazile's charges of primary-rigging by the Clinton campaign. Univision's doggedness in covering this story comes off as a shock, given the network's relationship with the Clinton campaign in 2016, and is a sure sign of the irreversible Clinton fade from the national political conversation.
The interview reminds us that Jorge Ramos has not entirely lost his capacity for committing acts of honest journalism. Tom Pérez, now stuck with the unenviable task of cleaning up the DNC, learned the hard way that there is really no such thing as a gimme "friendly" interview anymore.
