Univision anchor ejected from Trump news conference
By Theodore Schleifer, CNN
Updated
11:52 AM EDT, Wed August 26, 2015
DUBUQUE, IA - AUGUST 25: Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump fields a question from Univision and Fusion anchor Jorge Ramos during a press conference held before his campaign event at the Grand River Center on August 25, 2015 in Dubuque, Iowa. Earlier in the press conference Trump had Ramos removed from the room when he failed to yield when Trump wanted to take a question from a different reporter. Trump leads most polls in the race for the Republican presidential nomination. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)
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Story highlights
Donald Trump headlines a rally in Iowa on Tuesday night
Trump is pressed on immigration by Jorge Ramos, a Univision reporter, during a press conference
Ramos is forced out of the room before being allowed to return
(CNN) —
Jorge Ramos, the Univision anchor and journalist, extensively squabbled with Donald Trump twice in testy exchanges at a news conference before his rally here Tuesday, with a security officer at one point ejecting Ramos from the event.
“Go back to Univision,” Trump told Ramos early in their first back-and-forth. Ramos had attempted to engage with Trump on his positions, though he had not been called upon, standing and lobbing concerns about Trump’s plan at the candidate.
“Sit down. Sit down. Sit down,” Trump said.
Trump spoke in Iowa as he collected a highly sought endorsement from a popular conservative activist, Sam Clovis – a reflection of Trump’s sudden political power thanks to surging poll numbers in the Hawkeye State. And the businessman is moving to hire experienced operatives in early states to replace what was at one point a green political shop.
But his fight with Ramos, an admired figure in Hispanic media, shows that Trump is still by no means an establishment figure – even as he tries to build out a more professional campaign.
“He was out of order. I would take his question in two seconds,” Trump said, adding that he wouldn’t mind if Ramos – “a very emotional person” – returned to ask a question politely.
Ramos did return, but the ensuing exchange was far from polite.
“Here’s the problem with your immigration plan. It’s full of empty promises,” Ramos said, when allowed back into the press room.
He charged that Trump’s agenda to deport 11 million undocumented immigrants and to stop giving automatic citizenship to their children born on U.S. soil was unrealistic, but Trump defended his plan as simple and possible. He reminded Ramos of his $500 million lawsuit against Univision and told him, “I have a bigger heart than you do.”
After Trump said Wednesday that Ramos was “ranting and raving like a mad man,” Ramos insisted Wednesday morning on CNN’s “New Day” that Trump was “the one who is out of line.”
Ramos said Trump has fostered hatred and division “and we have to call him out on that (as journalists).”
Those exchanges largely overshadowed an event that may have been meant to highlight Trump’s growing appeal. Seeming to work off a set of notes, the bombastic real-estate magnate was introduced by Clovis, who on Monday left the campaign of Rick Perry and will serve as Trump’s new national co-chairman and senior policy adviser.
And Trump pledged to engage on a new policy issue, college debt, telling reporters he would unveil his program in about a month.
The Republican front-runner has relished attacking his GOP opponents, usually training his daggers on the back-of-the-pack candidates who punch at him or at former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, who himself was once the national front-runner. But on Tuesday in Dubuque, Trump took his first shots at the other Floridian seeking the Republican nomination, Sen. Marco Rubio.
Trump at one point appeared to try to goad Rubio and Bush to squabble with another, suggesting that Rubio should not have challenged Bush, a man Rubio has described as his mentor, because it was not his turn. And he chided Bush for not keeping him at bay.
Photos: Donald Trump's rise
President-elect Donald Trump has been in the spotlight for years. From developing real estate and producing and starring in TV shows, he became a celebrity long before winning the White House.
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Trump at age 4. He was born in 1946 to Fred and Mary Trump in New York City. His father was a real estate developer.
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Donald J. Trump for President, Inc.
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Trump, left, in a family photo. He was the second-youngest of five children.
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Trump, center, stands at attention during his senior year at the New York Military Academy in 1964.
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Trump, center, wears a baseball uniform at the New York Military Academy in 1964. After he graduated from the boarding school, he went to college. He started at Fordham University before transferring and later graduating from the Wharton School, the University of Pennsylvania's business school.
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Trump stands with Alfred Eisenpreis, New York's economic development administrator, in 1976 while they look at a sketch of a new 1,400-room renovation project of the Commodore Hotel. After graduating college in 1968, Trump worked with his father on developments in Queens and Brooklyn before purchasing or building multiple properties in New York and Atlantic City, New Jersey. Those properties included Trump Tower in New York and Trump Plaza and multiple casinos in Atlantic City.
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Trump attends an event to mark the start of construction of the New York Convention Center in 1979.
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Trump wears a hard hat at the Trump Tower construction site in New York in 1980.
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Trump was married to Ivana Zelnicek Trump from 1977 to 1990, when they divorced. They had three children together: Donald Jr., Ivanka and Eric.
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The Trump family, circa 1986.
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Trump uses his personal helicopter to get around New York in 1987.
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Trump stands in the atrium of the Trump Tower.
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Trump attends the opening of his new Atlantic City casino, the Taj Mahal, in 1989.
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Trump signs his second book, "Trump: Surviving at the Top," in 1990. Trump has published at least 16 other books, including "The Art of the Deal" and "The America We Deserve."
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Trump and singer Michael Jackson pose for a photo before traveling to visit Ryan White, a young child with AIDS, in 1990.
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Trump dips his second wife, Marla Maples, after the couple married in a private ceremony in New York in December 1993. The couple divorced in 1999 and had one daughter together, Tiffany.
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Trump putts a golf ball in his New York office in 1998.
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An advertisement for the television show "The Apprentice" hangs at Trump Tower in 2004. The show launched in January of that year. In January 2008, the show returned as "Celebrity Apprentice."
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A 12-inch talking Trump doll is on display at a toy store in New York in September 2004.
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Trump attends a news conference in 2005 that announced the establishment of Trump University. From 2005 until it closed in 2010, Trump University had about 10,000 people sign up for a program that promised success in real estate. Three separate lawsuits -- two class-action suits filed in California and one filed by New York's attorney general -- argued that the program was mired in fraud and deception. Trump's camp rejected the suits' claims as "baseless." And Trump has charged that the New York case against him is politically motivated.
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Trump attends the U.S. Open tennis tournament with his third wife, Melania Knauss-Trump, and their son, Barron, in 2006. Trump and Knauss married in 2005.
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Trump wrestles with "Stone Cold" Steve Austin at WrestleMania in 2007. Trump has close ties with the WWE and its CEO, Vince McMahon.
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For "The Apprentice," Trump was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in January 2007.
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Trump appears on the set of "The Celebrity Apprentice" with two of his children -- Donald Jr. and Ivanka -- in 2009.
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Trump poses with Miss Universe contestants in 2011. Trump had been executive producer of the Miss Universe, Miss USA and Miss Teen USA pageants since 1996.
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In 2012, Trump announces his endorsement of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney.
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Trump speaks in Sarasota, Florida, after accepting the Statesman of the Year Award at the Sarasota GOP dinner in August 2012. It was shortly before the Republican National Convention in nearby Tampa.
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Trump appears on stage with singer Nick Jonas and television personality Giuliana Rancic during the 2013 Miss USA pageant.
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In June 2015, during a speech from Trump Tower, Trump announced that he was running for President. He said he would give up "The Apprentice" to run.
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Trump -- flanked by U.S. Sens. Marco Rubio, left, and Ted Cruz -- speaks during a CNN debate in Miami on March 10. Trump dominated the GOP primaries and emerged as the presumptive nominee in May.
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The Trump family poses for a photo in New York in April.
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Trump speaks during a campaign event in Evansville, Indiana, on April 28. After Trump won the Indiana primary, his last two competitors dropped out of the GOP race.
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Trump delivers a speech at the Republican National Convention in July, accepting the party's nomination for President. "I have had a truly great life in business," he said. "But now, my sole and exclusive mission is to go to work for our country -- to go to work for you. It's time to deliver a victory for the American people."
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Trump faces Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in the first presidential debate, which took place in Hempstead, New York, in September.
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Trump apologizes in a video, posted to his Twitter account in October, for vulgar and sexually aggressive remarks he made a decade ago regarding women. "I said it, I was wrong and I apologize," Trump said, referring to lewd comments he made during a previously unaired taping of "Access Hollywood." Multiple Republican leaders rescinded their endorsements of Trump after the footage was released.
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Trump walks on stage with his family after he was declared the election winner on November 9. "Ours was not a campaign, but rather, an incredible and great movement," he told his supporters in New York.
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Trump is joined by his family as he is sworn in as President on January 20.
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“They’re hugging and they’re kissing and they’re holding each other, very much like Chris Christie did with the president,” Trump said, jabbing the New Jersey governor for his high-profile embrace of President Barack Obama after Superstorm Sandy in 2012.
Trump’s usual targets also re-emerged: lobbyists, who, he said, finance Bush’s campaign and expect favors; Mexico, which he pledged to hit with a 35% tax on auto imports; and most prominently, the media, especially Fox News host Megyn Kelly, who Trump said should apologize to him after asking him what he saw as unfair questions at the first GOP debate.
Trump spent much of the day Tuesday embroiled in a public spat with the chief of Fox News, Roger Ailes, who called Trump’s renewed attacks on Kelly “disturbing.”
Trump has drawn record crowds at some of his campaign rallies, bringing an estimated 30,000 Alabamians to a high school football stadium last week in Mobile.
Trump, who has dislodged Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker from his monthslong standing ontop of the polls in Iowa, has looked to assemble a professional political operation that can turn out voters in next winter’s caucuses. His campaign is using contests made famous on his NBC television show, “The Apprentice,” to recruit caucus leaders.
And on Tuesday, Trump showed signs of being a candidate who’s no longer satisfied just to lead polls, but wants to win elections.
“It’s one thing to have the summer of Trump. But it doesn’t mean anything unless we win,” Trump told his Dubuque crowd. “If you lose, what does it all matter?”
