Trump, Ramos and the big moment of meh

By Victor Landa, NewsTaco

So here we are, talking about Trump, again.

Yesterday Fox News’s Megyn Kelly confronted Ted Cruz with a hypothetical question: “If a husband and a wife were undocumented immigrants and had two children who were born in the United States and citizens, would you deport the citizen children?”

Cruz danced, evaded, redirected, but Kelly pressed, “But that doesn’t sound like an answer.”

Finally Cruz capitulated. “No,” he said. “But Megyn, I’m not playing that game.”

No one noticed, because everyone was watching Trump spar with Jorge Ramos – a much better TV moment, to be sure.

This is where I’ll confess to being unimpressed with the whole Trump v Ramos thing. I couldn’t help but remain spinning in an overall “meh” kind of mood. As I see it, Ramos went into the press conference looking for a fight, and he found one. What did he expect, an answer to his questions? From Trump? After interrupting another journalist?

Because that’s what happened. Ramos was not called on to ask his question. Another reporter was. And it’s not as if there was a throng of reporters yelling questions at Trump. All were seated, ready to take turns, no decibel challenge as happens sometimes among jostling journalists.

Trump was rude. “Go back to Univision,” he told Ramos. “Sit down, sit down …” he said. Trump is often rude, that’s not an excuse, but neither is it a revelation. What happened next was. Trump clicked his tongue, and a guard moved to escort Ramos out of the room. Just like that. Not a word needed, just a click sound and the guard knew what to do.

Trump often says that he hires the best people to do what he needs done. He says he’ll do the same thing as President; need to build a wall? Hire the best wall builders, “it’ll be beautiful.” Need a pesky Univision Anchor removed from your press conference? Click your tongue and the guy you hired (in Nuevo Laredo we called them guaruras) does it. “It’s beautiful,” Trump would say.

Somewhere on cable news television this morning an anchor (Joe Scarborough) smirked that Ramos “got his 15 minutes of fame.” That says a lot about the state of TV news in general and the ignorance of the anchor in specific. Ramos doesn’t need his 15 minutes, and the anchor is emblematic of the ignorance of many folks in the U.S. when it comes to the Latino community.

Trump knows better, he knows who Jorge Ramos is, he used the moment for the kind of drama that keeps us talking about him.

His fans gobble that stuff like fried Snickers at the Iowa state fair. And apparently we do as well.

Some folks will say that Trump disrespected the entire U.S. Latino community when he disrespected Ramos. That’s like getting angry because the guy who punched you in the nose just poked you in the ribs.

Can Latinos get any angrier at Trump, feel any more disrespected by him?

Ramos came back to the press conference and Trump called on him to ask his questions. What ensued was two guys talking back and forth and past each other. No one is reporting on what Trump answered to Ramos’s questions. But everyone is talking about how Jorge Ramos got kicked out of a Trump press conference. Me included.

See what Trump did there? “It’s beautiful,” he would say.

Meanwhile, Ted Cruz said he wouldn’t deport the U.S. citizen child of undocumented parents, and no one noticed. And by the way, Trump said he would.