Last week I had the pleasure chance to be able to head down to Northeast Iowa to cover for Reuters the inimitable Donald Trump at his “Make America Great Again” Rally at the Grand River Center in Downtown Dubuque.
Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump's greets the crowd during his "Make America Great Again Rally" at the Grand River Center in Dubuque, Iowa, Tuesday, August 25, 2015. REUTERS/Ben Brewer
From start to finish, it was truly an odd event, though the most notable part of the rally happened before “The Donald” ever set foot on stage.
During a brief press conference before going under the bright lights of the convention center, a few journalists began asking questions of the Republican Presidential candidate. Among those was respected Latino reporter Jorge Ramos, who began to press Mr. Trump on specifics of his immigration reform strategy.
In what I can only describe as the strangest presser I’ve been to before, Ramos was then escorted from the conference as Trump told him repeatedly to “Sit down, sit down” culminating in a belittling “Go back to Univision” as the doors of the press room shut.
Wow. Before I get into the realm of politics and what I think of Mr. Trump’s opinions and policy ideas … did he just kick a reporter out and essentially tell him to go home? Oh wait, a Trump supporter outside the presser actually did just that.
After being let back in to the conference, Ramos was “officially called on” (C’mon, really? We all know how press conferences go with every reporter trying to get the attention of the guy on the podium…) and began to spar with Trump on issues such as deportations, potential human rights abuses, and overall perception of Trump in the Latino community.
After all of those shenanigans finished up, I was able to get back to business photographing “The Donald” as he spoke to a packed house of eager supporters.
Probably most exciting about this rally was really being able to be in the right place as events unfolded and creating images that are being distributed all over the place— showing up in large publications like The Guardian, The New York Times, Newsweek, and more. Great feeling to be back in the news saddle and creating images being seen around the world. Here’s to more of this…but hopefully a little less Trump in the future.