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Trump v Univision
It’s 3:00 a.m in Paris, and I’m awake owing to a cat-related incident. After realizing that no, I wasn’t going to be able to fall asleep, I checked the news. As one does. Headlining: Donald Trump kicked TV’s most influential Latino newsman out of a press conference. Oh, I thought. Is this really the most important thing happening in the world right now? To judge from the headlines, you’d think so. Here’s the first part of the exchange:
And here’s the second:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7_HaEOIJhM
Two quick observations:
1) The Washington Post says, “The lasting image will be that of Ramos — who serves as Univision’s lead anchor and is effectively one of the (if not the) most powerful newsmen on Spanish-language TV — being hustled out of the room after trying to ask Trump a question.”
Perhaps. But that may be because that’s the easiest image to find. You have to work a bit harder to find the images of Ramos coming back and asking his questions. It’s not impossible. We looked for it backstage and it took us about five minutes. But clearly the Post and many other news agencies quickly decided what the “lasting image” would be and furnished it: In most of the videos in the headline news, the clip ends with Ramos being hustled off.
As you can see from the second clip, however, that’s not where the story necessarily ends. So I’m not sure the Post is correct about what the “lasting image” will be.
2) As we were looking for the full clip — not the “lasting image” clip — I said, “From abroad, it feels as if Trump is already the president.” It wasn’t a deep thought: It was just something that occurred to me. Nachtgedanken, so to speak. The Yeti said, “You should post that.” To which I responded that I wasn’t sure what I meant by it:
Claire: He gets more news coverage; he seems larger-than-life.
Yeti: I assume it means that Trump is suffocating every other candidate’s media oxygen.
Claire: Not only every other candidate — but the seated president.
I don’t know if that observation is meaningful. All I can say is that those words occurred to me while reading the news at 3:00 am in Paris.
And now I can’t sleep.
Published in Elections, General, Politics
What I see is a pushy foreign national trying to conduct his own personal filibuster during Donald Trump’s press conference. From the clip above, Trump appeared quite gracious and willing to honestly answer the questions asked of him.
Hold on, wait — I’ve screwed up, that’s only the second part of the clip. I need to find the full thing, start to finish.
I was the first to say Trump was done after his McCain crack… Obviously way wrong.
So, to borrow a term from Wall Street, I’m capitulating. Trump probably just secured votes from some Hispanic group that hates Ramos and we will surely see his numbers grow. It’s come to this.
Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together… mass hysteria!
Okay. ;-)
My apologies: Now you’ve got the whole thing — I think.
The fact that we have ‘Spanish language TV’ is part of the reason Donald Trump is going to be a burr under the saddle for a while.
Not from here, it does not. It feels as though we are spending some time in fantasyland where it is fun to pretend Trump is President. It’s still August.
No major candidate wants to be the first to take on Trump, but somebody will. It’s one thing to read that Trump manufactured in Mexico. It’s another to see that picture Brian Watt posted on the Member Feed, with some of his quotes playing in the background. It’s one thing for Trump to casually praise healthcare in Canada and Scotland. It’s another to see that quote before and after a few details about how that system actually works, and maybe a personal story — closing with the question of whom you want tackling Obamacare. It’s sort of funny for Trump to say he learns about the world “from the shows.” It’s not so funny when you’re considering mushroom clouds.
That’s what SuperPACS do. He won’t be President.
Trump is replacing tact, not political correctness, with pompous bluster. He is the epitome of the self-made man who worships his creator. He is glorying in the controversy and in the adulation of people who do not know the difference between statesmanship and demagoguery. He is no more prepared to be president of the United States than Obama was, perhaps, even a bit less. For all of Obama’s petulance, he doesn’t carry on Twitter wars with news people who he feels insulted by. These latest tweets against Megyn Kelly, when that whole thing had died down and to all appearances with no longer even in the rear view mirror, are the actions of an adolescent whose ego won’t be healed until he has totally demolished someone who he felt was disrespectful to him. He lacks the ability to rise above the fray, to be noble, to be mature. He only knows how to attack and attack and attack until he feels he has been vindicated. Is this the kind of man we want in the White House? Is this the kind of man we want to represent the United States of America? Is this the man we think belongs in the same position as Abraham Lincoln? I don’t think so.
Just watched the whole thing.
My prediction: pain for the ethnic grievance lobby.
Are you not entertained?!
why yes… yes i am…
Ramos is a US citizen.
I’m not a Trump fan but he was more than fair with that jerk. As for how it looks, or how it can be made to look, how did Bernie Sanders look letting those kids take over the stage at his rally? Trump insisted this man would ask his question when he was called. Good for him.
Trump to reporter: “I have a bigger heart than you do.”
I guess this reporter is supposed to be somebody. He means nothing to me.
An Hispanic Alistair Cooke? I’ve never seen him on TV.
Trump is giving me schizophrenia: Part of me is saying “Go get ’em.” The other part of me is saying “We have had enough ‘cult of personality’ already.”
An “Anchor Anchor?”
My lasting impression is that for the first time Trump said something that pleased me. When Ramos said “no person can be illegal”, Trump waved his arms and said “Welll…when they cross the borders, from a legal standpoint…they’re illegal if they don’t have their paperwork.”
I’m not a Trump fan, but listening to someone pushing back against an obnoxious reporter and simply insisting that words have meaning is quite pleasant
True, but perception is reality. Optics.
“… LaRoche entered his surprising postmodern phase in the summer of 2016.”
Exactly. I remember the
bumper stickers in Venice Beach 20 years ago, and thinking “Um, it is if there’s a law against it.” I feel exactly the same about illegal immigration.
I thought it was in the 1960s.
Oh, wait. That was LaRouche. Carry on.
Being of French ancestry, I reckon it was inevitable. ;-)
As of right now on SFGate:
Headline:
Trump has Univision anchor removed from news conference
First paragraph:
DUBUQUE, Iowa (AP) — Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump engaged in a prolonged confrontation with the anchor of the nation’s leading Spanish-language network during a news conference Tuesday, first having the well-known news personality removed before allowing him back in.
Crazy old Uncle Lyndon. The family will never live that down.
I’m assuming he was talking about Megyn Kelly when he said “no, she should be apologizing to me.”
Get some sleep!
Watch the video. Trump was brusque, but polite. When Ramos came back into the room, Trump welcomed him back and engaged with him.
What I saw was a rude journalist getting the boot. Given the low opinion people have of journalists, I don’t think Trump’s going to be hurt by this.
And Trump looked pretty damn commanding. No weakling he.
Postmodern rhetoric feels an awful lot like pre-Socratic rhetoric.
I think Walter Russell Mead has it right: Trump is a nihilist populist, and I’m embarrassed to say: man do I find that appealing. I’m sick to death of being treated like dirt by America’s neoaristocracy.
Why can’t any of our other candidates talk this way? We need a real candidate.
On one hand, while I’ve not been shy about my anti-Trump-ism, it’s pretty obvious even from the short clip that Ramos was speaking out of turn and trying to prevent another reporter from asking a question. Even I can’t find much to complain about here…
…except for the fact that it’s been almost three weeks and he’s still whining because Megyn Kelly asked him a difficult question?! Is this what the Trumpistas mean by, “He fights”?
“Sit down. You haven’t been called.”
Honestly, how many of us have been waiting for years to hear that one?