Jorge Ramos: The Danger of Not Confronting Trump – Dos Mundos Bilingual Newspaper

I believe that Trump must be questioned and confronted, for democracy, for the rights of immigrants and, simply, to do good journalism.
After the criticism of the interview with Donald Trump broadcast by Univision on November 9 – which questioned the independence of the news department, and which created discomfort and confusion within the newsroom – it is necessary to distance ourselves from what came out on the air and explain, as I have always done, what my point of view is.
I start with the most basic. Trump would never have given me an interview. In 2015, the then-presidential candidate ejected me and a bodyguard from a press conference in Dubuque, Iowa, after I tried to ask him several questions. “Go to Univision,” he told me. I had gone to Iowa to question him about his statements in which he called Mexican immigrants “rapists,” criminals, and drug traffickers.
What few know is that, after that incident, Trump allowed me to return to the press conference and ask him several questions for more than 10 minutes. I confronted him about his intentions to build a wall on the border with Mexico and deport millions of undocumented immigrants. I mentioned to him that many Latinos despised him for his anti-immigrant statements and that, contrary to what he believed, he would not win the Latino vote. (And he didn’t win it in 2016 or 2020.)
Our job as journalists is to question those in power. That’s what reporters are for. That’s what I did in Iowa and what I’ve done with Trump since he announced his first presidential bid.
In June 2021, during a public event in Texas, I asked Trump if he was finally going to acknowledge that he had lost the previous year’s presidential election. “We won the election,” he answered me falsely. That is what is known as the “big lie.” Official data from the November 3, 2020 election indicates that Trump lost the electoral vote and the popular vote. In addition, Trump lost all the lawsuits he filed in court to delay or block Joe Biden’s legitimate victory as president.
Trump has been a sore loser.
Trump has 91 charges against him for different alleged crimes, including conspiring against the democratic system. In a recording, Trump is heard requesting 11,780 votes from the Georgia secretary of state, presumably to reverse the election result. And after a speech on January 6, 2021 – in which Trump told thousands of his followers that if “you don’t fight like in hell, you are going to be left without a country” – a violent insurrection occurred at the Capitol. .
Thats not all. Trump separated thousands of children from their families, has made offensive comments against migrants, sued the company where I work in 2015 and has questioned the capacity of people – such as Judge Gonzalo Curiel – for the simple fact of being Latino.
We cannot normalize behavior that threatens democracy and the Hispanic community, nor offer Trump an open microphone to spread falsehoods and his conspiracy theories. You have to question and verify everything he does and says.
That is why it is very dangerous not to confront Trump. And that is why it is our moral obligation to confront it every time there is a journalistic opportunity to do so. But I understand that not everyone thinks the same and I open the debate here.
I am convinced that journalists have two great responsibilities: one, to report reality as it is, not as we would like it to be; and two, question and demand accountability from those in power.
Of course, we must not be partisan and we are obliged to give space to all candidates for the elections on November 5, 2024. But, at the same time, we cannot renounce our responsibility to ask tough and precise questions. That’s what journalism is for.
For example, I recently wrote a column here criticizing Joe Biden for breaking his promise not to build another foot of wall on the border with Mexico during his presidency. That is, the criticism goes both ways.
Democracy is something that must be defended every day. And for journalists the way to do it is to ask. Even if it hurts. Although it is uncomfortable. Silence almost never leads to good journalism.
For 39 years Univision has allowed me to report with absolute independence and freedom – and even write columns like this – and I will always be very grateful. That’s why I left Mexico and came to the United States.
This is what I believe in and this is what I will continue to do as a free journalist, wherever I am.