Megyn Kelly and Jorge Ramos bonded on Wednesday night over newfound common ground: They have both felt the wrath of Donald Trump during his surprisingly successful presidential campaign.
“What is it like to be caught in the crosshairs of a billionaire presidential runner?” Kelly asked the chief news anchor for Univision while interviewing him on her Fox News show, “The Kelly File,” about his confrontation with Trump.
“Well, you know exactly how it feels,” Ramos said.
Ramos was escorted out of Trump’s Iowa press conference on Tuesday after firing off questions at the GOP frontrunner about undocumented immigrants, and Ramos sees no fault at what he did.
“All I wanted to do was ask a question,” Ramos told Kelly. “Many weeks ago, I requested an interview with Mr. Donald Trump. I sent him a handwritten note with my cell phone. Instead of calling me, he published it online, and he just didn’t want to give me an answer.”
And he’s got more than a few questions for the aspiring politician, who has yet to reveal very many specifics about new policy he would implement if elected to the Oval Office in the White House.
“How is he going to deport 11 million undocumented immigrants? How is he going to deny citizenship for the children of the immigrants here? How is he going to build a 1900 mile wall?” Ramos asked on air. “We needed answers, so we decided to go to Iowa and ask those questions. Clearly, Donald Trump didn’t like my questions and that’s what happened. He tried to silence me. In this country, you cannot do that. I’m a U.S. citizen, I’m an immigrant, I’m a reporter, and I have a right in this country to ask any question I want to whomever I want.”
Although Kelly admitted it wasn’t “unusual for a reporter” to do what Ramos did, she encouraged her guest to look at it from Trump’s perspective.
“Why would he want to engage with you when you are on the record as calling him the most hateful divisive figure running for president right now?” Kelly asked.
“There are questions that need to be answered,” Ramos replied. “He isn’t used to being questioned, he doesn’t like uncomfortable questions. It happened with you, it happened with your colleagues at Fox News… He hates it when he’s being confronted. As journalists, we have to take a stand when it comes to racism, discrimination, corruption, public lies, dictatorships and human rights.”
Ramos was allowed to return to the press conference, where he initiated a heated on-camera exchange with Trump over his proposal to expel undocumented immigrants and to deny U.S. citizenship to children born in the country to non-citizens.
“You can’t just stand up and scream,” Trump had said about the incident. “He’s obviously a very emotional person. So I have no problem with it. […] Certainly, he was not [chosen]. He just stands up and starts screaming, so maybe he’s at fault.”