Thursday night on Fox News Channel’s “The Kelly File,” while discussing his TIME Magazine op-ed calling on journalists to let go of their neutrality and call out Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump for “lies” and “racism,” host Megyn Kelly flipped the argument on Ramos when she asked if journalists should call Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton a liar because “70 percent of the American public think that Hillary Clinton is a liar.”
Partial transcript as follows:
JORGE RAMOS: There are certain instances in which you have to take a stand. For instance, you did it. In that first question in that first debate when Donald Trump was confronted with the fact that he had insulted women and you took a stand, that’s exactly what I’m saying. I’m not saying we should put aside objectivity; I am saying neutrality is not an option.
MEGYN KELLY: Let me ask you about that, Jorge, because that was not me taking a stand. That was me taking a question. I identified an issue and found it worthy of a question. It wasn’t ‘Here’s what Megyn Kelly thinks of you, Donald Trump.’ Is that what you’re advocating, that we as journalists should inject our opinions and say that’s racist or that’s sexist?
RAMOS: No, what I am saying in certain instances that I just mentioned — including racism, sexism, and discrimination — I think we have to take a stand.
KELLY: I understand. if you’re interviewing somebody and they drop the N-word on you, you stop and you say, ‘Inappropriate, you don’t talk like that in this broadcast.’ But, you know, Trump and his supporters would say it’s in the eye of the beholder, and they think that it’s not racist to try to protect our borders and, you know, build a wall and deport people who came into the country illegally. You disagree with that. So it is injecting a journalist’s opinion when it’s not staring you in the face, black and white.
RAMOS: It is not exactly an opinion. I don’t know if Donald Trump is a racist. I don’t know what’s in his head, but I do know what’s coming out of his mouth. And when he says that Mexican immigrants are criminals, rapists, and drug traffickers, that’s a racist remark. When he says that a judge, simply because of his ethnic heritage, cannot be part of a case simply because of that, simply because he’s Latino, that’s a racist remark. And I think we as journalists, we have to call it out.
KELLY: But here’s a question. Here’s a follow-up question for you…
RAMOS: Maybe Donald Trump does not consider himself a racist, but 73% of Latinos think that he is.
KELLY: Okay, but 70% of the American public think that Hillary Clinton is a liar. So by that same token, what are we supposed to do? Every time we’re supposed to do a story about Hillary saying something, should we be saying, by the way, she’s a liar. Liar, Hillary Clinton. You sort of go down the rabbit hole once you start injecting these judgments on the candidates as a journalist.
RAMOS: More than judgments, I think it is our social responsibility as journalists to confront those who are in power.
KELLY: But your detractors have said you have a daughter, Paolo, who is working for the Clinton campaign, and did you disclose that in your opinion piece pushing for journalists to, quote, take a stand. Is this personal for you, in that way?
RAMOS: I think it’s a fair question. I’ve disclosed that Paolo works for the Hillary campaign many, many times. Every time I talk to Hillary Clinton I disclose that. It’s on the Univision webpage. In other words, that’s her decision, and I have absolutely nothing to do with that.”
Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN
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