Nearly a year into the Trump presidency, Univision anchor Jorge Ramos says he’s experiencing “the worst moment I’ve had in the 34 years I’ve been living in the United States.”
“With Donald Trump there, I have never been treated so badly. I have never been insulted so much. We’ve never been attacked so much. They have never tried to run us out as much as now,” Ramos vented in an interview with the Spanish radio network Cadena SER.
Ramos, who proclaimed himself “if not an enemy, an opponent” of Trump in the interview, complained about the massive blowback he has received since deciding to use his media platforms to openly oppose the choice of over 62 million American voters in last year’s U.S. presidential election.
“Now the social media networks are terrible,” Ramos told his Spanish radio interviewer, Javier del Pino. “Before if someone wanted to insult you, they had to do it in person or by sending you an anonymous letter. Now they do it through the social media networks and the daily insults – you can enter my Facebook or Twitter – and they are there all the time,” lamented Ramos.
In the interview, Ramos continues to contend that Trump “was speaking about me” “he insulted me” along with the entire immigrant community in the U.S. on June 16, 2015 when during his presidential campaign announcement speech Trump slammed the lax border security that had permitted criminal elements from Mexico and other countries to illegally enter the United States.
“Donald Trump was blaming all of us for being rapists, criminals and drug traffickers,” said Ramos of Trump. Throughout much of the interview, Ramos also recounts his infamous encounter with Trump during the summer of 2015, when he was kicked out of a Trump press conference for failing to wait for the candidate to call on him as a questioner, and was only allowed to return to the press conference after agreeing to wait his turn and be called upon by the candidate.
Discussing the encounter, Ramos accuses Trump of “violating the first amendment” of the U.S. Constitution. He also expressed continued optimism about the eventual outcome of his journalistic jihad against Trump. “In the end, Trump is going to lose and the racists are going to lose,” Ramos assured his interviewer.
Below is the transcript of the above-referenced portions of Jorge Ramos’ interview with Javier del Pino, as aired during the December 14, 2017 edition of the program A Vivir, on Cadena SER:
JORGE RAMOS, SENIOR NEWS ANCHOR, UNIVISION: ... you can no longer be neutral when you face a presidential candidate who later becomes President and when he insults you and when he expels you from a press conference, now nothing is the same. It's like one of those great fights between a couple that you never, never return to being what you were before and once you declare yourself if not an enemy, an opponent, there is no turning back.
... on June 16, 2015 Donald Trump shows up, I do not know if you remember those images going down an escalator in his tower in New York, and he not only says he wants to be President, but starts to present some of his main ideas and he says the immigrants that Mexico sends to the United States - this is almost a literal quote - the immigrants that Mexico sends to the United States, bring crime, they are criminals and rapists. He did not say some, he did not say the most violent ones.
JAVIER DEL PINO: He was talking about you, too, everyone.
JORGE RAMOS: He was talking about me and he was talking about another seven million Mexican immigrants that we have in the United States. What nobody read, nobody paid attention is that after saying these Mexican immigrants, he continued saying that they also come from other Latin American countries and do exactly the same thing. If we see the entire paragraph, we'll see there are fifty-five million Latinos there, I estimate that more than half of those over eighteen come from another country, we're talking about twenty-five to thirty million, Donald Trump was blaming us all for being criminals, rapists, drug dealers. I knew that he was lying, but they did not pay attention to us and you, who lived in the States, you understand, when we started to denounce that this was racism and that this orange-haired candidate was blaming us for things that are not true and nobody paid any attention to us…
…Trump has done something that nobody, no candidate has done before, what no one does in the United States. In the United States, the First Amendment of the Constitution allows you and me, anyone, to say what you want, whether you are a candidate or against a candidate, whatever, the First Amendment protects you, and Donald Trump suddenly ignores the First Amendment and expels me from a press conference violating the First Amendment and puts himself if not at a criminal level, yes in violation of the laws of freedom of speech in the United States. Everyone understands, the, the press secretary realizes that this is going on, she follows me outside to the room where they have taken me, and tells me that I can go back inside. I tell her that the only condition I have to return is if they let me ask my questions. She tells me we are going to let you ask the questions, but you have to wait for him to tell you. Ok, ready, I went in, indeed, as it was, it was a theater, once I entered suddenly Trump sees me again, I stand up again, ask my questions and now they let me.
...
JORGE RAMOS: This is the worst moment I’ve had in the 34 years I’ve been living in the United States, the worst moment.
JAVIER DEL PINO: Are you sure about this? That’s very tough what you just said.
JORGE RAMOS: No, no, no, but without the slightest doubt. With Donald, with Donald Trump there, I have never been treated so badly. I have never been insulted so much. We’ve never been attacked so much. They have never tried to run us out as much as now. It is without a doubt the worst moment.
JAVIER DEL PINO: Look, a writer said the other day in this program that it’s the time when she felt the blackest in the United States, that she did not feel so until she got there and a little because of this because now she feels that many people can tell you what nobody used to say even though they were thinking it, which is bad, too.
JORGE RAMOS: Now the social media networks are terrible. Before if someone wanted to insult you, they had to do it in person or by sending you an anonymous letter. Now they do it through the social media networks and the daily insults – you can enter my Facebook or Twitter - and they are there all the time. And that is something totally new. In the end, Trump is going to lose and the racists are going to lose.
