Kristi Noem is Fired + Trump Widens His Reach

Summary

Podcast Summary: Bleep! with Ana Navarro

Episode Title: Kristi Noem is Fired + Trump Widens His Reach
Date: March 9, 2026
Host: Ana Navarro
Guests: Jorge Ramos & Paola Ramos

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Episode Overview

This episode of Bleep! with Ana Navarro unpacks an extraordinary week in U.S. and world politics, marked by Donald Trump firing Kristi Noem from her Homeland Security post, escalating U.S. involvement in Iran, and major shakeups across Latin America. Ana is joined by renowned journalists Jorge Ramos and his daughter Paola Ramos for in-depth analysis of recent events in Iran, Venezuela, Mexico, and Cuba, and a candid discussion about immigration, media, and their own family journeys. The episode highlights the personal and political consequences of the week’s news, always with Navarro’s trademark blend of sharp critique, bilingual flair, and deep empathy.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The U.S.-Iran Conflict and Trump's War Posture

[02:47–08:00]

• Ana sets the stage by stating, “We are now at war with Iran. And yes, it is war with Iran, no matter how much Republicans in Congress want to call it anything other than war. We are not stupid. We have eyes. We have ears.” (02:51)
• She notes the death of the Ayatollah Khomeini at the hands of the U.S., and Trump's escalated military aggression, drawing a line from recent regime change operations in Venezuela.
• Navarro warns, “He now thinks he is Tarzan of the jungle, can beat his chest and go around the world changing regimes willy nilly.” (04:38)
• Ana distinguishes Iran’s real military threat to the U.S. from more contained Latin American dictatorships, highlighting the gravity and unpredictability of this new front.

2. The Firing of Kristi Noem as Secretary of Homeland Security

[08:00–18:35]

• Ana's reaction: “Ding dong, the witch is gone. So Kristi Noem has been fired. Question I have is what the hell took so long?” (08:32)
• Noem was ousted after intense congressional hearings, especially following Senator John Kennedy’s grilling over Noem’s approval of a $220 million taxpayer-funded PR campaign featuring herself.
• Key quote: “It’s like she’s playing dress up on a daily basis on our dime.” (10:30)
• Scandals detailed: misuse of funds, procurement of luxury jets (ostensibly for deportation but “akin to buying a Rolls Royce and retrofitting it to become a Metro bus”), cronyism in ad contracts, and mishandled incidents involving DHS deaths of U.S. citizens.
• Ana speculates about the future: Noem is made "special envoy to the Shield of the Americas," a likely photo-op job with allied Western Hemisphere leaders.
• On her replacement, Markwayne Mullin: “He is a former MMA fighter...no national security or military experience. He is very experienced, though, in defending Donald Trump on TV.” (16:00)

3. Transition to Regional Analysis: Mexico’s Narco Crisis

[27:59–34:45]

• Jorge recounts the takedown of "El Mencho," the cartel leader of CJNG, with chilling detail about the cartel’s reach and U.S.-Mexican cooperation.
• Jorge Ramos: “Unfortunately, drug traffickers control parts of Mexico, regardless of the fact that the Mexican government doesn’t want to accept that.” (29:05)
• Paola offers an on-the-ground perspective from Tulum during the operation—locals react with fear and silence; American tourists remain mostly oblivious.
• Paola Ramos: “The contrast...locals disappearing...and American tourists aloof. Part of the way cartels are armed is with American guns...the real motor of these cartels is American consumption.” (31:15)
• Discussion of the inevitable violent aftermath—“not one but many Menchitos”—as U.S. pressure mounts on Mexico's president amid calls for U.S. intervention, which both Mexican and U.S. guests denounce.

4. Regime Change and Democracy in Venezuela

[39:14–47:09]

• Ana recounts her experience celebrating Maduro’s ouster in Madrid—“I may not agree with the way it was done, but we know how bad a guy Maduro is, and we know the suffering of the Venezuelan people.” (39:30)
• Jorge describes his personal risks interviewing Maduro and being jailed/deported (40:03), with a memorable “hell of an icebreaker” question: “‘Are you a dictator?’—obviously after that, things didn’t go well.” (40:29)
• Both express mixed emotions about U.S. involvement: “As a Latin American, I simply cannot support a U.S. Operation in Latin America...But I do understand the thousands...celebrating the end of the dictator.” (42:16)
• Paola critiques Trump’s transactional foreign policy: “This is someone that has no morals. So long as he can get something out of you...he can get oil, get money, he likes you.” (45:03)
• Jorge is hopeful, but sober about prospects for true democracy in Venezuela.

5. Cuba: Perpetual Crisis and Human Cost

[47:09–53:23]

• Ana and Paola reflect on generational trauma and hopes dashed for Cuba’s liberation: “What feels strange is that it feels like there’s no good ending to this story.” (48:56)
• They lament the intensifying humanitarian crisis—food, electricity, hope in short supply—aggravated by U.S. policy and lack of international coordination.
• Paola: “That kind of reality now, of being stuck between two swords...being deported in record numbers from the United States...and holding onto life in Cuba.” (50:58)
• They all urge for an allied, not unilateral, approach to supporting Cuban and Venezuelan democracy.

6. Immigration, Identity & the American Dream Under Siege

[53:23–61:01]

• Ana spotlights rising deportations, including long-settled immigrants, and the contradiction of supporting democracy abroad while banishing those fleeing dictatorships.
• Jorge: “I never expected...the attacks on Latinos, the attacks on immigrants...Immigrants contribute much more than what they take away from the system.” (54:55)
• Paola notes the backlash fueled by fear of diversification: “There are so many millions...outraged by the image of seeing people like us on their screens...this is what Trump promised.” (56:54)
• They debate optimism vs. skepticism about the future, with Jorge seeing “signs of resistance everywhere,” referencing protests even by children for immigrant rights. (59:26)

7. The State of Journalism & Media

[61:01–62:36]

• Ana and Jorge discuss the assault on the free press, comparing patterns from dictatorships they knew.
• Jorge observes the “shift of trust from big corporations to individual journalists,” highlighting the importance of independent and digital journalism. (61:01)
• He reflects on his own career pivot: “To be successful in journalism and relevant, you cannot be an anchorman. You have to be a surfer. You have to surf between platforms.” (61:46)

8. Personal Stories: Family, Legacy, and Assisted Dying

[67:06–80:01]

• Ana invites reflection on parenthood, migration, and professional partnership between Jorge and Paola—stories of “taking back all the time that we lost.” (67:43)
• They share touching background about Paola’s education and Ana’s vital role in enabling it.
• Jorge tells a behind-the-scenes story about being denied an interview with Sarah Palin on Ana’s watch. (71:51)
• The episode ends with a poignant segment about Paola’s grandfather Carlos Alberto Montaner, his beliefs, and his brave assisted death in Spain—a moving meditation on dignity, freedom, and individual choice.
• Paola: “He wanted to die with grace because he couldn’t do what he loved most...Not to be able to say goodbye is now that I know what that looks like is a privilege, as hard as it was.” (76:46)

9. Heroes of the Week: Honoring Service Members

[80:41–End]

• Ana closes by naming six U.S. service members killed in the new conflict and insists on remembering their names and stories, not as political props but as the real human cost of war.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Trump’s regime-change mind:
  “He now thinks he is Tarzan of the jungle ... changing regimes willy nilly.” —Ana Navarro [04:38]

• On Kristi Noem’s scandal:
  “She would have made a great drag queen. It's too bad she seems to be against them.” —Ana Navarro [09:56]
  “It’s like she’s playing dress up on a daily basis on our dime.” [10:30]

• On LatAm regime changes:
  “As a Mexican, as a Latin American, I simply cannot support a U.S. operation on Latin America. The history is full of catastrophes.” —Jorge Ramos [42:16]

• On American tourists during cartel violence:
  “You had locals disappearing ... and these American tourists that were kind of aloof ... some people didn’t care. … American guns [are] in the hands of the cartels.” —Paola Ramos [31:15]

• On immigration policy:
  “It feels like not even being a U.S. Citizen gives you protection if you look like I do...” —Ana Navarro [55:56]

• On media’s shifting ground:
  “To be successful in journalism and relevant, you cannot be an anchorman. You have to be a surfer.” —Jorge Ramos [61:46]

• Family and legacy:
  “Not to be able to say goodbye is now that I know what that looks like is a privilege, as hard as it was.” —Paola Ramos, on her grandfather’s death [76:46]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Trump fires Kristi Noem & Iran escalation: 02:47–18:35
• Mexico - Cartel violence & U.S. ties: 27:59–34:45
• Venezuela - Regime collapse & democracy: 39:14–47:09
• Cuba’s crisis & U.S. policy: 47:09–53:23
• Immigration, identity & resistance: 53:23–61:01
• State of journalism today: 61:01–62:36
• Personal & family legacies: 67:06–76:46
• Remembering U.S. service members: 80:41–end

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Episode Tone & Language

• Candid, often irreverent: Ana’s quips (“ding dong, the witch is gone”; “she would have made a great drag queen”) set a tone that’s bold and unfiltered.
• Emotionally grounded: The conversation carries the weight of trauma, resilience, hope, and the burden of generational struggle.
• Bilingual inflection: Multilingual expressions (chingón, coño, Niño) and cultural context deepen the connection to Latinx experiences.

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Conclusion

This episode is a rollercoaster through current events, international relations, personal histories, and the ongoing fight for democracy—both in the Western Hemisphere and in the soul of the United States. Ana, Jorge, and Paola move fluidly from biting satire to grave reflection, always centering human costs, immigrant voices, and hope for transformation. The episode is essential listening for anyone seeking nuanced, passionate analysis on power, identity, and the importance of fearless storytelling.

Transcript

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our 2026 iHeart Podcast Awards are happening live at south by Southwest.

[Anna Navarro]

This is the biggest night in podcasting.

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We'll honor very best in podcasting from the past year and celebrate the most innovative talent and creators in the industry.

[Anna Navarro]

And the winner is.

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Creativity, knowledge and passion will all be on full display.

[Jo Winterstein]

Thank you so much iheartradio.

[Paola Ramos]

Thank you to all the other nominees.

[Jo Winterstein]

You guys are awesome.

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Watch Live next Monday at 8pm Eastern, 5pm Pacific [e-mail] or the Veeps app.

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[Anna Navarro]

Visit Safeway or albertsons.com for more deals and ways to save. Hi, everyone. Welcome to bleep. I'm Anna Navarro, and it's been yet another crazy news cycle since the last podcast. We are now at war with Iran. And yes, it is war with Iran, no matter how much Republicans in Congress want to call it anything other than war. We are not stupid. We have eyes. We have ears. We realize what's going on in Iran is a war that, that Donald Trump has dragged us into. Am I happy the Ayatollah Khomeini is dead? Yes. And look, today we were going to do an entire segment about Iran, but on the way over here, something funny happened. On the way to the podcast, Donald Trump fired Kristi Noem. So we've got to figure out, like the rest of the country, how to roll with these shots and how to talk about it all and break it all down. So let's start with Iran. I am very happy the Ayatollah Khomeini is dead. As far as I'm concerned, the only good Ayatollah is a dead Ayatollah. These people hate America and they are a brutal regime that has inflicted the worst of suffering, death, poverty on their own nation. Just in recent weeks, the Ayatollah's regime in Iran killed countless tens of thousands of Iranians who were protesting. And we're going to bring experts in to break this down for us and so we can understand it more as the developments continue. For me, what really struck me about what's happening in Iran is Donald Trump and how he is acting and reacting since Venezuela. I think what happened in Venezuela with Maduro, which was only two months before he struck Iran, it was January 3rd, the Maduro operation, I think that has had a deep psychological impact and effect on Donald Trump. He now thinks he is Tarzan of the jungle, can beat his chest and go around the world changing regimes willy nilly. He thinks he can replicate the model of Venezuela where he went into a country, took out the leader, there were no American casualties, and in his mind, he managed to change the regime, though in truth, it's still there. But they are working with him and they're now his new best friends forever. What's happening in Iran is entirely different than what's happening in venezuela. In Iran. First, it's a country of over 90 million people. And I say this as somebody who's from Latin America who's lived under dictatorships in Latin America. Look, our dictatorships there are horrible. Lots of people suffer. They are oppressive. But those countries, whether it's Venezuela or Nicaragua or Cuba, they don't have the ability to inflict pain on the United States. They don't have the ability to wage war and attacks against American targets. And in the entire region. Venezuela, yeah, they have oil, but that's about all they had. They don't, they don't have warships and they don't have jets and they don't have missiles and they don't have the things that Iran is not only has, but is using. So I do think that talking about what happened in Venezuela has to be part of the conversation on what's going on in Iran. But okay, now let's talk about Kristi Nom, because ding dong, the witch is gone. So Kristi Noem has been fired. Question I have is what the hell took so long? Look, she was fired last week as a direct result of testimony she gave to the Senate and the House. In the Senate hearings, she was pressed by a Republican senator from Louisiana, John Kennedy, who asked her pointed questions about this ridiculous PR campaign, this ad campaign featuring Kristi Noem that she'd paid something like $220 million of our taxpayer money on. This was happening while the shutdown was going on. So at the same time that TSA agents weren't getting paid, Kristi Noam was on a horse with a cowboy hat, posing in front of Mount Rushmore and spending $220 million on an ad campaign featuring her likeness and herself with her fake eyelashes and her hair extensions. Not that I'm one to talk, but mine aren't paying, aren't paid by US Taxpayers. So John Kennedy of Louisiana, and again, I emphasize a Republican because I give him credit and kudos for doing his job of having oversight over that department. Way too many Republicans in Congress because these are cabinet members of Donald Trump, are not asking the tough questions, are not asking the follow ups, and are afraid of revealing the ugly truth of what some of these Cabinet members are engaging in. Hello, Pam Bondi. I'm talking about you. But what we saw from John Kennedy was that he asked the question. And the question, the part that really got to Trump was when Kennedy asked Noem if Trump knew she was spending $220 million on these glamour shots. I don't know if you've seen Kristi Noem, but she likes to dress up in costume. Really? She would have made a great drag queen. It's too bad she seems to be against them. One day she's Deportation Barbie with the ice vest and the gun. Another day she is Cowboy Barbie with the hat and the horse. Another. I mean, and you get the picture. It's like she's playing dress up on a daily basis on our dime. But frankly, that testimony was, I guess, the last straw that broke the camel's back. And what pissed Trump off was that she said he knew about it, that they had talked about it, and that he had approved that $220 million ad campaign. Trump says that is not true. That's the reason he ousted her from dhs. There's been tons of scandals under Kristi Noem, so let's go through some of them because there's been plenty of reason to fire her now for months and months and months. So let's start by the fact that her department, under her leadership, killed US Citizens, murdered US Citizens, and Kristi Noem rushed to the podium to call those innocent US Citizens domestic terrorists without any facts, without any evidence. She got asked about that, too, in the congressional testimony by Amy Klobuchar, who asked her if she would apologize to the families of Renee Good and Alex Preddy. And you know what she did? She lied. Lied like a rug. She said she had never said that they were domestic terrorists. Again, we know what we see, we know what we hear. But that's not all of it. There's so much more. In addition to the $220 million on an ad campaign, she wanted to spend close to $200 million on luxury jets. Yes. These jets with bedrooms, with a bar, so that she could, I guess, get her drink of choice. So these high, very expensive luxury jets, which she lied about, she said that she was going to buy those luxury jets and retrofit them and turn them into deportation flights. As Congressman Raskin said, that be akin to buying a Rolls Royce and retrofitting it to become a Metro bus. Makes absolutely no sense. We all know she was buying them for her use. She likes to fly around in planes with Corey Lewandowski. There's another scandal there. It's been widely reported and widely speculated that there is a romantic relationship that's going on between those two. I guess now that she's out of dhs, he's going to be out, too. He's been in some sort of weird special employee status. And he's. It's past his time. Those special employees have a limited amount of time for which, under which they can work. And, yeah, I guess now we're rid of her at dhs. And since they're attached at the hip, actually at the groin, I suspect he's going to be going as well. And we remember the reports that Corey Lewandowski had fired a Coast Guard pilot that was flying them around because Kristi Noem's blankie had been misplaced. Then they had to rehire the Coast Guard pilot because, turns out they had nobody to fly the plane. And then, of course, there's Minneapolis. There is Minneapolis, which was a disaster. We saw the cruelty. We saw the ineptness. We saw the lack of leadership, the lack of training by these federal officers under her leadership, or lack thereof. Donald Trump's numbers on immigration and in general are down in the dumps. And I think that's part of the reason that he got rid of Greg Bovino in Minneapolis, and it's part of the reason why he's getting rid of Kristi Noem. There's elections coming in just a few months. This guy can't afford to be where he is in the polls and changing. Some of these folks, like Kristi Noem and Bovino, who have brought him nothing but shame and embarrassment and awkward moments that are hard to defend or justify, is part of why he is so low in the polls. And one of the things that's the most egregious and hypocritical about Kristi Noem is that at the same time that she was spending hundreds of millions of dollars on an ad campaign at the same time that she was spending hundreds of millions of dollars on luxury jets, she instituted this rule at DHS that any expenditure over $100,000 had to be signed off by her and go through her desk. Which in turn meant that the requests by fema, that requests by contractors, emergency management contractors, were held up. Because when you are the head of DHS, a lot of things are over $100,000. But she wasn't giving the same level of scrutiny to the hundreds of millions that she was misspending, giving these ad contracts to a company linked to a Republican, a company that was founded like five or six days before this contract was issued to them with zero experience in government PR campaigns. She just gave it to somebody she knew. Cronyism at its best. And now what's going to happen to Kristi Nol? Well, first, DHS apparently is going to be now in the under the leadership of this senator from Oklahoma. Current senator from Oklahoma. He'd been in Congress before. His name is Mark Wayne Mullen. He is a former MMA fighter. He is staunchly maga. He has no national security or military experience. He is very experienced, though, in defending Donald Trump on tv. It seems to me every time I turn on cnn, there is Mark Wayne Mullen blindly defending Donald Trump and his policies. No matter what Trump does, this guy will go out there and defend him. And as we know, that is Donald Trump's priority and how he measures being qualified or not for a cabinet position. So, okay, Noem is out. Mullen is going to be in. He still has to go through Senate confirmation. I hope it's thorough. I hope he gets asked tough question questions. And what's going to happen to Kristi Nome? Where is that going? Well, we're not quite rid of her, even though, listen, what she's being given is an elegant exit. She is being made the special envoy to the Shield of the Americas. So basically a special envoy to the Western Hemisphere. This Shield of the Americas is an effort, is an initiative of Trump's. He's got a meeting in, in Miami with about 10 or 12 of the leaders of some of the allied countries, people who like him, like the president of, the president of Argentina, the president of Ecuador, Trinidad and Tobago, Dominican Republic. So he's meeting basically with his friends from the hemisphere, even though folks like the big guys like Brazil and Mexico were either not invited or are not attending. Anyways, off goes Christine Ohm to be head of that. I guess it's a brand new opportunity for her for photographs. She can now wear a Charo hat in Mexico. She can go to carnival. Maybe she can put on one of those carnival costumes in Rio. She's going to look great with a headpiece, dancing the samba. Or you know what, she could go surfing in Costa Rica. I mean, her Instagram pictures are going to be fire. So yeah, so that's what she's gonna go do. Obviously this lady knows shit from Shinola when it comes to Latin America. She doesn't know the difference between the country of Venezuela and Fernando Valenzuela, who used to be a pitcher for the LA Dodgers. She's from North Dakota or South Dakota, one of the Dakotas. And she, you know, she doesn't know much. I'll tell you what I'm happy about. Finally there was justice for Cricket. Yes, Chacha, this is the bitch who killed her puppy. So finally we're getting justice for Cricket. She was asked about that by another Republican senator in the hearings, and it looked terrible. So what we're going to do now, though, is we're going to talk to people who actually do know about Latin America. We're going to talk to people who have spent years of their lives covering the region, interviewing the actors there, and who know it intimately and are going to talk to us about it. So coming up, we're going to be talking to Jorge and Paola Ramos. Jorge Ramos is one of the most respected journalists Latin American journalists. I've grown up my entire life watching him and his daughter Paola. She didn't fall far from the tree. She felt right next to the tree. She, in her own right, is an extraordinary journalist.

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[iHeart Podcast Awards Announcer]

our 2026 iHeart Podcast Awards are happening live at south by Southwest.

[Anna Navarro]

This is the biggest night in podcasting

[iHeart Podcast Awards Announcer]

will honor the very best in podcasting from the past year and celebrate the most innovative talent and creators in the industry.

[Planned Parenthood Spokesperson]

And the winner is.

[iHeart Podcast Awards Announcer]

Creativity, Knowledge and Passion will all be on full display.

[Jo Winterstein]

Thank you so much iheartradio.

[Paola Ramos]

Thank you to all the other nominees.

[Jo Winterstein]

You guys are awesome.

[iHeart Podcast Awards Announcer]

Watch Live next Monday at 8pm Eastern, 5pm Pacific [e-mail] or the Veeps app.

[Jo Winterstein]

Hi, this is Jo Winterstein, host of the Spirit Daughter Podcast where we talk about astrology and natal charts and how to step into your most vibrant life. And I just sat down with a

[Anna Navarro]

mini driver, the Irish traveler said when I was 16. You're going to have a terrible time with men.

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Actor, storyteller and unapologetic Aquarian visionary. Aquarius is all about freedom loving and different perspectives and I find a lot of people with strong placements in Aquarius like are Misunderstood a Sun and Venus in Aquarius in her seventh house spark her unconventional approach to partnership.

[Anna Navarro]

He really has taught me to embrace people sleeping in different rooms, on different houses, in different places, but just an embracing of the isness of it all.

[Jo Winterstein]

If you're navigating your own transformation or just want a chart side view into how a leading artist integrates astrology, creativity and real life, this episode is a must. Listen Listen to this Spirit Daughter podcast starting on February 24th on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your podcast.

[Anna Navarro]

I am so happy this week because I get the great pleasure and honor of being with Two great journalists who I admire tremendously, but also friends that have been friends for decades. And Jorge and Paola Ramos also have a podcast on I Hearts my Cultura podcast network. It's called the Moment. They're a father daughter power duo. It's really fun to see them doing their thing together. Jorge was the face of Univision News my entire life growing up, and Paola is a different generation, and she's on Ms. Now. They're both authors, they're both journalists. I mean, these two don't stop. So thank you for making the time to join us today. And. And I want to tell you, this show, this podcast is called bleep. Because I. I find myself, given the.

[Jorge Ramos]

Given everything, I'm really afraid of that,

[Paola Ramos]

given everything that's happened, get my dad to not bleep.

[Anna Navarro]

I find myself cussing sometimes on network tv and they have to bleep me. And, you know, sometimes I cuss in Spanish thinking they won't notice. So now they just, like, if I say the word amigo, they'll bleep me because they don't know what I'm saying.

[Jorge Ramos]

But there was an issue with Bad Bunny, right? He said a word with a C, and then there was all this controversy. So if Bad Bunny has problems, you'll have problems, man.

[Anna Navarro]

Well, okay, but before I have problems, I want to ask both of you, what is your favorite cuss word in English or Spanish?

[Jorge Ramos]

Well, there's a word in Mexico that's now being used a lot for. From people from Puerto Rico and who's doing reggaeton. And it's. I'm sorry, chingon or chingada. And it comes. And let me put it in a little perspective so my reputation will stay clear. Octavio Paz has written about it extensively, and chingon could be used for anything. Anna Qingon could be someone really, really strong. Chingada could be someone who's been hurt or abused. So we use that word in all kinds of circumstances. And that's a word that for my first time in 40 years, I've said on the air. Thank you so much. Thank you.

[Paola Ramos]

That's fine.

[Anna Navarro]

I am so happy to be here. As you lose.

[Jorge Ramos]

For destroying my career, as you lose

[Anna Navarro]

your virginity and saying a cuss word in public.

[Paola Ramos]

By the way, I always thought being

[Anna Navarro]

called a chingona was a good thing.

[Paola Ramos]

It is a good thing. But what's your favorite? This just shows you how, like, truly, I actually don't think I have ever, ever heard my dad curse ever. I'm. I'm. I was literally trying to, like, Go back in time. But. But you really, you have never done that, which is incredible.

[Jorge Ramos]

And then the fact that I don't use it, I mean, I try to sort of control myself.

[Paola Ramos]

No, we know.

[Anna Navarro]

With Trump in office. And you don't cuss.

[Jorge Ramos]

Well, I mean, you know, the other day I was researching something on Walter Cronkin and he said, I think the quote correct is anchorman shouldn't cry. But he really meant that we should not express our feelings.

[Paola Ramos]

Sure.

[Jorge Ramos]

And I'm glad I'm not an anchorman anymore and that I'm a surfer and TikToker and YouTuber and Podcaster. But maybe, Anna, that's the problem, that for so long I was doing something as an anchorman that I stopped expressing myself. That's why I think you're gonna love this format. This is just beautiful. The audio has a connection that nothing else can do.

[Anna Navarro]

And how about you, Paola?

[Paola Ramos]

So I will say my brain is now fully functioning in English, but when I do cuss, it's always in Spanish. And my go to word. Thank you to my. To my grandfather, Carlos Escono. Siempre. And if I. Siempre. That is true. That is like the first, the first word that comes to mind if I go there and if I'm going to be even more Cuban, it's nyo, which he would often say, so gono. And then if I really want to do my Miami side, nio.

[Jorge Ramos]

So don't think you can get away with this, Anna, without telling us your. Your beautiful word.

[Anna Navarro]

Oh, you know, I'm. Nicaraguan is a word that we can use for anything and everything. It can be good, it can be bad.

[Paola Ramos]

That's the top.

[Anna Navarro]

Yeah, that is. Well, what you think I was going to give you a, like a, like a one syllable thing? No.

[Jorge Ramos]

Not even five minutes. And then it's bleep, bleep, bleep, bleep, bleep, bleep everywhere. I should have said no to this show.

[Paola Ramos]

Paola.

[Anna Navarro]

So let's. Okay, let's get serious now about some of the things that are going on that I think both of you have incredible insight into. Paola, I know you just got back from Mexico. Jorge, you are so knowledgeable and have been so knowledgeable about Mexico for as long as I can remember. Many Americans woke up the other day to the news that Mexico was paralyzed, was on fire, that there had been a operation that killed a drug trafficker cartel leader named El Mencho. I'm going to confess to you I had never heard of El Mencho like I know everything there is to know about El Chapo. And I was like, what, what is happening here? And so what? Give us the 101 for people who were just a little confused by what the hell is happening in Puerto Vallarta.

[Jorge Ramos]

Yeah, first as a, as a father, Ana, because I was, I was here in Miami in Paola, was already in Mexico, in Quintana Ro, one of the areas that was affected. So my first concern was not only about the country, but about what was happening with Paola in that she couldn't leave Tulum and Cancun. So that was my first concern. You're absolutely right. Many people have no idea who El Mencho is. He was the most important drug trafficker after El Chapo Guzman was arrested in 2016. So he, he left the so called Cartel de Sinaloa and he created a new cartel called Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generacion that has presence in at least 20 of the 32 states in Mexico. Brutal cartel in control not only of drug trafficking, but human trafficking and extortion. So they would get into a city and they would ask money from all the business people and if you don't cooperate, they would do something to you or even corruption with the police in Mexico. If A policeman makes $200 a month, or let's say $300 a month, and then they come, they come El Mencho and his people and say, well, you know, I saw your daughter, her dress was beautiful. The name of your dog is such and such. And then I know that your wife went yesterday to cut her hair. So what are you going to do? So, yeah, unfortunately, drug traffickers control parts of Mexico, regardless of the fact that the Mexican government doesn't want to accept that. And it was a very important operation with the cooperation of the U.S. by the way, intelligence cooperation. And they found El Mencho after visiting his lover. That's how he found him. That's where they found him. Yeah.

[Anna Navarro]

Como huy mexicano. He was visiting his lover.

[Jorge Ramos]

Well, they follow her Ana in an area in Guadalajara and in the area of Jalisco, the state. And once she left, then the US intelligence had found El Mencho. I mean if they found Nicolas Maduro in Nicaragua in a bunker, they could find in a Cavana in Jalisco.

[Anna Navarro]

Paola, what was it like to be there?

[Paola Ramos]

So I'll tell you, I think the, what I witnessed, I think is, is kind of a very telling image. So I was, I was in Mexico Sunday when the news broke and I, I was in Tulum. I was trying To. To make my way to Cancun for some research. But so it took a couple of hours until people in tourists really understood what was happening. But I remember kind of looking around me and all the locals were whispering, and I. It took me a couple of minutes to really piece everything together until I asked a waiter that was there. I was like, what's going on? And he whispered, and he's like, well, did you hear the news? He said a very, very, very, like, almost very silently and quietly, he said,

[Jorge Ramos]

yeah.

[Paola Ramos]

And within maybe five or 10 minutes, people within the restaurant told everyone and all the customers there that they were going early. And that's all they said. They gave no explanations, and things just started to shut down. And truly, for the rest of the night, no one was in the streets. All of the bars and all of the restaurants were completely closed. But I think what's telling is. Is kind of this. This contrast, right? You had locals disappearing, getting the motorcycles, going back to their homes, and then you had these American tourists that were kind of aloof and naively wondering what was happening. Some people didn't care. And I say this because one of the things that I to kind of remind myself in this moment are the ties and how we get to the places and why things happen. Part of the way that element is armed and that these cartels are armed have so much to do with Americans. Now, so many of the arms that end up in the hands of the Mexican cartels come from the United States are literally American guns that then have so much to do, of course, with the violence that you're seeing there. Not only that, the primary driver of the drug demand that is at the heart of the motor of these drug cartels is American consumption. Now, the heart of the fentanyl that ends up in American streets comes precisely because of American demand. And so I mentioned this because that image said so much to me, kind of these Americans, and everyone was wondering, like, what's happening? But I still want my margarita. And the Mexicans that were like, no, no, no, this is serious.

[Anna Navarro]

And what happens now? Because sometimes I feel like we get rid of one cartel leader and 10 more pop up. Right, so what do you think happens now?

[Jorge Ramos]

Yeah, what happens now? There's a conflict within cartel, Jalisco or Nueva Generacion, and there's going to be not one, but many Menchitos, and they start fighting, and it is going to be horrible. That's on one side. On the American side, Anna, what happens is that President Trump has been putting a lot of pressure on Claudia Sheman, the president of Mexico. She's incredibly popular. But Trump has offered on many occasions to send American troops to Mexico, and that's a no. No. I mean, since we're little children, we learned that Mexico lost half its territory in 1848, so the presence of US troops in Mexico would be catastrophic. However, Trump is pressuring so much and at the same time, Claudia Sherman is trying to prevent U.S. troops in Mexico, and she believes, and the Mexican government believes, that they can do it alone. It is incredibly difficult. Unfortunately, for the next few weeks and days, I think there's going to be more violence in Jalispa. No question about it.

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[iHeart Podcast Awards Announcer]

our 2026 iHeart Podcast Awards are happening live at south by Southwest.

[Anna Navarro]

This is the biggest night in podcasting.

[iHeart Podcast Awards Announcer]

We'll honor the very best in podcasting from the past year and celebrate the most innovative talent and creators in the industry.

[Anna Navarro]

And the winner is.

[iHeart Podcast Awards Announcer]

Creativity, Knowledge and Passion will all be on Full Disclosure.

[Jo Winterstein]

Thank you so much iheartradio.

[Paola Ramos]

Thank you to all the other nominees.

[Jo Winterstein]

You guys are awesome.

[iHeart Podcast Awards Announcer]

Watch Live next Monday at 8pm Eastern, 5pm Pacific [e-mail] or the Veeps app.

[Jo Winterstein]

Hi, this is Joe Winterstein, host of the Spirit Daughter podcast where we talk about astrology, natal charts and how to step into your most vibrant life. And I just sat down with a mini driver.

[Anna Navarro]

The Irish traveler said when I was 16. You're going to have a terrible time when with men.

[Jo Winterstein]

Actor, storyteller and unapologetic Aquarian visionary. Aquarius is all about freedom loving and different perspectives and I find a lot of people with strong placements in Aquarius like are Misunderstood a Sun and Venus in Aquarius in her seventh house spark her unconventional approach to partnership.

[Anna Navarro]

He really has taught me to embrace people sleeping in different rooms, on different houses, in different places, but just an embracing of the isness of it all.

[Jo Winterstein]

If you're navigating your own transformation or just want a chart side view into how a leading artist integrates astrology, creativity and real life, this episode is a must. Listen Listen to the Spirit Daughter podcast starting on February 24th on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast or wherever you listen to your podcast.

[Anna Navarro]

So if we can now move from Mexico, I want to do like a tour of the Western hemisphere because there's a lot of activity going on Right now, if we can talk about Venezuela. And I was actually in Madrid when Maduro got captured January 3rd. And I immediately went out to La Puerta del Sol, where so many Venezuelans showed up to celebrate. And there were many Americans and many people who follow me who were surprised to see me celebrating. And look, I may not agree with the way it was done, but we know how bad a guy Maduro is, and we know the suffering of the Venezuela people. And Jorge, you interviewed Maduro, I remember, and you were put in jail.

[Jorge Ramos]

We were. We were detained for. For 24 hours, and then we were deported. What happened a few years ago, I. Maduro was still in power, obviously, and then he needed international support, and he had given a couple of interviews to the BBC and to someone in Spain. So I asked for an interview, and he said, yeah, come to. To Palacio de Niraflores. So we did the interview. And then I was thinking about. About the first question. And the first question was, are you a dictator? Obviously after that, things didn't go that well. It only lasted.

[Anna Navarro]

That's a hell of an icebreaker, Jorge.

[Jorge Ramos]

I was following the Ana Navarro method. So what happened is that after 17 minutes, somebody came and said, this is not the interview that we had authorized. Nicolas Maduro stood up, and then they arrested us, a team of seven. They confiscated our cameras, the video cards. And we were so afraid that we were going to be sent to El Alicoide, which is a torture center. Fortunately, we were able to use a tweet to communicate with our boss. And then everybody knew that we had been detained. And then, incredibly, the US Embassy and the Mexican Embassy came to our rescue, and we were detained in the hotel. And then after that, we were deported the following day. Something funny really quick is that we obviously lost the interview, but someone within the Maduro government found a copy of that interview that they had taped, and they sent us that interview two or three months later, and that's the one that I was able to broadcast.

[Anna Navarro]

And were you like me on January 3rd, having mixed emotions? Cause, you know, part of me, I don't like the way this was done. I didn't like the bombing of the fishing boats, but I. You know, it's been 25 years of dictatorship in Venezuela, and I know that the Venezuelans couldn't get rid of this guy by themselves. God knows they tried. They went out and voted against him massively, and he just sat his ass there and refused to leave. So. So I was happy. I was concerned. I'm very nervous about the future But I don't know what were your. What were you feeling that day?

[Jorge Ramos]

I think it is very complicated because I think Latin America is better without another dictator. We can talk about your Nicaragua and then we can talk about Cuba later. But on the other hand, as a Mexican, as a Latin American, I simply cannot support a US Operation on Latin America. The history is full of catastrophes, of American presence and American interventions and American invasions. Nicaragua, it happened, obviously it happened in Mexico. It happened in Puerto Rico and Guatemala, the presence of US Advisors in Chile with Pinochet. So I cannot support that kind of operation. But I do understand the thousands of people that I saw at Larepasso here in Miami celebrating the end of the dictator, because that's something that everybody wanted. I mean, everybody wanted to see Fidel Castro detained. It didn't happen. I'm sure everybody wants to see Daniel Ortega detained. It hasn't happened, but it did happen in Venezuela and that's what people were celebrating. And I completely understand.

[Anna Navarro]

And your girlfriend, your life partner, Chikinkira, is in Venezuela. Venezuelan. How was she feeling?

[Jorge Ramos]

I saw my phone in the morning, dozens of messages and said, cheeky, cheeky Agarado and Amadoro. She stood up because she's been telling me for years that that was going to happen, that one day we were going to wake up and then Maduro was going to be gone. Like that small tale in Spanish. You woke up and the dinosaur was still there. Well, in this case, we woke up and the dinosaur was not there. And it was. I mean, I do understand why people do celebrate. I mean, they've been having a really incredible discussion.

[Planned Parenthood Spokesperson]

Okay.

[Anna Navarro]

But I'm very confused and concerned about the relationship of like. And I'm trying to make sense of it. So I don't know if it makes sense to you guys, the relationship of Trump with Maduro's vice president, who is now the president of Venezuela and who Donald Trump is. Donald Trump does not give great compliments to many people, particularly not Latinos. And here he is talking about how great it is to work with this woman. He mentioned it. Del C. Rodriguez mentioned it in the State of the Union. And at the same time, every time he gets a chance, he finds a way to belittle and humiliate Corina Machado, despite the fact she gave him her Nobel Peace Prize. So again, the question is, what's the end game there? What's the future, you think?

[Paola Ramos]

I mean, look, I think we spend so much time, and I do too, trying to make sense of the science behind what Leader Trump likes. Why does he get along with Russia? Why does he get along with Kim Jong Un? What does he see in Del C Rodriguez? And I think at the end of the day, this is someone that has no morals, right? And so long as he can get something out of you, so long as you can benefit him, so long as there's some type of transactional advantage for the United States, he likes you. I think in Del C. Rodriguez, right now, suddenly someone that he literally called at the State of the Union, our friends, our new friends in Venezuela, which is a true slap in the face for someone like Maya Corina Mansado. I think it's kind of the most simple answer, which is he can get something from. From Venezuela and from this apparatus that continues to be the very same sort of pulse of the Maduro regime. He can get money, he can get oil. He can do it in a relatively easy way. And so I think, unfortunately, there's like no science to who he likes. I mean, as we're speaking, he's literally meeting with Zoram Hamdani, someone that he's called the communist, someone that on paper he's completely against. But he likes the guy. And he likes the guy because perhaps it's just as simple as he thinks. He's just like a cool, you know, other cool New Yorker that maybe he can get something out of.

[Jorge Ramos]

Yeah, I hope something's going to happen in Venezuela because it will be a transition. People are talking about elections in 10 to 11 months maybe, but definitely this is not what we expected. We didn't expect that dictatorship to be. To stay, to stay completely intact, except for Maduro. And now elections are complicated. I'm thinking there's 8 million Venezuelans living outside of Venezuela. If all of them want to vote, or let's say only 4 million of them want to vote, just imagine going through the process of getting an id, a passport, setting the system ready for their vote. It is complicated, but I certainly hope that Marco Rubio is right and that there's going to be a transition to democracy in Venezuela. This is not democracy.

[Anna Navarro]

No, this is not democracy. And talking about things that are not democracy. Cuba. So what happened in Venezuela has had a very direct impact and quick impact on the situation in Cuba. But, you know, I don't know. I don't know about you guys, but I am. I watch everything with, With. With cautious optimism when it comes to Cuba because I've lived in Miami now 46 years, and there's been so many times when we have thought that the regime was about to fall. There have been so many times when Cuba has gone through what they refer to as special periods of great economic distress, and yet they've somehow managed to survive. They're like the. The. The. They're like. Like a cat. They're like a cat in politics. They have nine lives now. What they're going through right now is very difficult. They have no access to oil. That just has changed some in recent days. They don't have a godfather like they once did with the USSR during the Cold War. They don't have the allies they once did. I don't know. How do you. Do you guys? And I also don't even know what a change in regime in Cuba looks like, because it's a country that's lived under dictatorship for almost 70 years. So, yeah, it's. You know, there's generations and generations now, multiple generations of Cubans that don't know what democracy looks like.

[Jorge Ramos]

Talk to you about that so much.

[Paola Ramos]

Yeah, I mean, look, I mean, Anand obviously knows my. My grandfather so well, so obviously my. My grandmother. For listeners and viewers to understand. No, he Cubanized out. He was a political prisoner under the Castro regime, and he managed to escape. And so. So much of my childhood, Carlos, Alberta, so much of my childhood, Ana, as you know, was. Was really. All of it truly revolved around the idea of one day being able to go back to Cuba. In fact, one of the last things that my grandfather wrote in his memoirs was that the biggest regret that he had was that he never had a chance to go back. No. And he writes it like that, that I never had the chance to go back and to see the island where I grew up one more time. And. And that is what I grew up with. No. So I. I understand the sort of political trauma that still runs so deeply in Miami. I grew up with. That. I grew up with. With. With, you know, that's 50% of my identity. But I think what feels so strange right now, and I think perhaps the three of us feel it, is that it feels like there's no good ending to this story. You know, it feels like every option around and that's surrounding the island isn't a good one. We, of course, the island is collapsing, and in theory, that's a good thing because that means that you're strangling what is left of this, you know, communist regime that seems to hold on to everything. But we forget that the people that are in the island are suffering. I mean, I'm in contact with people that are like, we could. We can barely get by? No. Like, they're on the verge of. Of something that looks more like death than being alive. And so that's, you know, that's a sad ending to a story. The idea of a revolution and an uprising is also, like, it's almost been gone. And then one of the things that I think a lot about, and I always wonder what my grandpa would be thinking about right now, is that now suddenly Cubans are kind of trapped in this impossible sort of scenario, right? They're being deported in record numbers from the United States. Cuban asylum seekers can no longer come to the United States.

[Jorge Ramos]

That was going to happen.

[Paola Ramos]

Cuban asylum seekers can no longer come to the United States in the same way that my family came and was able to sort of achieve that American dream. And then on the other side, you know, you're. You're literally stranded and holding onto your life in Cuba. And so that, that kind of reality now, of being stuck between these two swords like that is a. I think that that's very hard for me to wrap my head around because it goes back to the same question that we have in Venezuela, which is like, where does this leave, you know, the Cuban people and their voice and their say? And there's not good, good options here.

[Anna Navarro]

I feel the same way you do because I, you know, sometimes it's very easy, particularly if you don't have family over there, to say, okay, they have to, they have to feel some pain. Yes, they're going to feel some temporary pain for there to be freedom. But that's very hard to say when you have people you love that have now no electricity, no food, no transportation, you know, none of those things. It's just, and it feels a little, to me, I don't know, tone deaf, right? To be saying it from our homes in the United States with our air conditioning and all of that. There is a humanitarian crisis going on in Cuba. We all want to see freedom in Cuba. But this feels to me as somewhat callous and ad hoc where it hasn't been thoroughly thought out. And I just wish the US Wasn't doing these things against Venezuela, against Cuba alone. I wish there was an alliance of Western democracies doing this along with us. We all want to see Cuba free. We all want to see Venezuela free. So why is it just that the United States is acting and can then be criticized for imperialism or colonization or whatever?

[Jorge Ramos]

But also, you see, there's no international support to do something like that in Mexico. As you know, the Mexican government for decades has supported the dictatorship in Cuba and Now, because of Donald Trump's pressure, Claudia Schaimann has been forced to stop the oil shipments to Cuba the same way as it has happened from Venezuela. But the fact is that you don't want to affect the people of Cuba. You want to affect the regime, but not the people in Cuba. And that's the most difficult, the most difficult thing.

[Anna Navarro]

So we mentioned briefly the idea that Cubans are getting deported. And not only are they getting deported to Cuba, they're getting deported to Mexico, they're getting deported to Sudan, they're getting deported to Eswatini, they're getting deported to, you know, far off third countries. Venezuelans are also getting deported. Trump has tried to take their temporary protective status TPS away and have get rid of them. And so it's part of this big immigration mess that Trump has created, this very draconian and cruel immigration policy that he is implementing. We have seen it play out in the streets of America. To me, it makes no sense that as we are trying to rebuild Venezuelan democracy, as we are trying to force Cuban democracy, at the same time, we are deporting people who sometimes have been in the US for decades and decades, contributing and working. But you all have seen we live that. But you guys have also been in Minneapolis recently, and you've been covering what's been happening in the streets of America. And so I guess my question is, did you ever think the things you are seeing play out would happen in the United States? Because it kind of shocks my immigrant conscience to see it.

[Jorge Ramos]

I never expected to see that. Paola, I don't know about you, but

[Paola Ramos]

in 40 years, I think we have different opinions.

[Jorge Ramos]

40 years here in the United States, I've never seen anything like that. That the attacks on Latinos, the attacks on immigrants. And also, just to listen to this narrative from President Trump and his followers, immigrants are not criminals and not terrorists, not rapers. They are here in this country to contribute. Immigrants contribute much more than what they take away from the system. And we forget that we depended on them during the pandemic. And then suddenly, just to see them being persecuted, families separated. The other day I was checking some numbers, Anna. 3,800 children have been separated from their parents. And who knows the real number? So, no, I never expected that from the United States. I think right now we're in the middle of the storm. Maybe in the midterm something's going to be balanced. But at this moment, Paola, I don't

[Anna Navarro]

know how you say it, but you know what, Jorge, you just said that they were Attacking Latinos. And they are, they're racially profiling and attacking Latinos. But they've also killed blue eyed blond haired Americans standing up for their neighbors and their friends and their community. Renee Good, you know, is a US Citizen Alex Preddy, US Citizen Ruben Ray Martinez, the young man they killed in Texas, U.S. citizen Mary Martinez, the woman who they shot five times. U.S. citizen. It doesn't even, it feels like not even being a US Citizen gives you protection if, if you look like I do or, or you do or, or speak like I do or like you do or, or even happen to be at the wrong place at the wrong time, standing up and protesting, which is as American a right as there can possibly be.

[Paola Ramos]

I mean, I'll say I, I grew up, I graduated from college when, when Barack Obama makes it to the White House, right. And so I, I think I, I very much, at the beginning when I left campus, like I very much believed in kind of that theory of change that like this country was sort of evolving towards this like very real multiracial, pluralistic, multi ethnic coalition, right? And like I, I'm a product of the American dream. I believe that my whole life. I think I have become way more skeptical than my father. I think throughout the last couple of years. And I think when I put on cnn, no. And I see and I'll add it on my screen, I am full of pride and I want to keep listening and I want to and I feel represented when people put on, have put on when they see my dad on tv. That is what we believe most people feel. However, I think there are so many millions of people that are so outraged by the image of seeing people like us on their screens and taking space and being loud and being who we are. And I think so much of the moment that we're in right now is truly, I think like a very real concerted push by people like Stephen Miller that have been thinking about this, mulling over exactly this moment for decades at this point point, and really trying as hard as they can to kind of stop this inevitable shift of a country that is and will look more like us is I think I always get a little bit, a little bit maybe frustrated when people say, well, this isn't what we voted for, right? He was only going to go after the bad guys. That's not true. I mean this, this is a president that promised the largest mass deportations in American history. Like this is exactly what it's supposed to look like now. This is an administration that genuinely like fundamentally believes that the Children of immigrants, which the Supreme Court is about to hear this case, that the children of immigrants do not deserve to be American now, that they are not worthy of that status. And so I think what we're truly, like, witnessing right now, I think, is, like, this country that is genuinely trying to figure out, like, what is the ethos and, like, what does it mean to be us. And so I am, like, skeptical in that sense that I. I love. Like, I love the opportunities that I've been given. And, like, I am like you. Like, I am so, so outraged by the images and what my dad and I saw in Minneapolis. But I am also, I think, very rooted in, like, why this is happening and how much fear and resentment and hatred people can get in their bones when they see people like us on their screens. And that. That's something. That's parliament.

[Jorge Ramos]

But. But I also see signs of resistance, Hannah. I mean, I see signs of resistance everywhere, with the Supreme Court telling President Trump no on. On tariffs, with. With Bad Bunny in the super bowl, with all the protests. We saw children marching, Anna in Minneapolis, children, American citizens protesting for Liam Conejo Ramos, who had been arrested by ice. So I'm seeing signs of resistance everywhere. This conversation is a sign of resistance. So I believe maybe this is my immigrant soul. And that's where Paola and I might disagree. I still believe that this country will do the right thing at the end because I'm a product of the American dream. And I do believe. I don't think we are in a dictatorship right now. There's many elements that are not present just to be a dictatorship, but I think we have to be aware of that. And I see the fight everywhere on that.

[Anna Navarro]

So one of the things that dictatorships do. And Jorge, you lived under one in Mexico. I lived under one in Nicaragua. I lived under two, actually, in Nicaragua. A right wing one and a left wing one. One of the things dictatorships do, one of the first things they do is attack journalism, attack freedom of the press, attack freedom of expression. And we are seeing very concerted attacks on journalism and the free press in this country, whether it's Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel or Don Lemon and Georgia Fort. You name it, we're seeing it, we know it, we feel it. How do you see what's happening in journalism?

[Jorge Ramos]

It is very complicated to be independent nowadays. And then I think there's a shift of trust from big corporations to individual journalists. That's why I think independent journalism is so important nowadays. And also there's at the same time that there's a shift of trust. I think there's a shift of audiences going from legacy media to digital media to what you're doing right now, Anna and I think this shift is incredibly important. So I think we have to follow to be relevant. We have to follow both shifts, the shift of trust and technology shift towards where people are getting their news, which is this.

[Anna Navarro]

Do you miss network TV?

[Jorge Ramos]

I did the beginning, honestly. But then, then I realized that my impact in terms of numbers and it's incredible just in YouTube you can compete with any newscast anywhere in the country. That's one thing. The other thing that I learned more on a personal basis is that I am not my role. You're not so in position. I learned, I thought for 38 years that I was the anchorman. And then I understand that nowadays to be successful in journalism and relevant, you cannot be an anchorman. You have to be a surfer. You have to surf between platforms. And I'm learning this new form that I'm sure you're going to love because it has a human connection that you cannot find anywhere else. So yes, at the beginning I did. Not anymore.

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[Planned Parenthood Spokesperson]

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[iHeart Podcast Awards Announcer]

Monday, our 2026 iHeart Podcast Awards are happening live at south by Southwest.

[Anna Navarro]

This is the biggest night in podcasting.

[iHeart Podcast Awards Announcer]

We'll honor the very best in podcasting from the past year and celebrate the most innovative talent and creators in the industry.

[Anna Navarro]

And the winner is.

[iHeart Podcast Awards Announcer]

Creativity, knowledge and passion will all be on full display.

[Jo Winterstein]

Thank you so much iheartradio.

[Paola Ramos]

Thank you to all the other nominees.

[Jo Winterstein]

You guys are awesome.

[iHeart Podcast Awards Announcer]

Watch Live next Monday at 8pm Eastern, 5pm Pacific [e-mail] or the Veeps app.

[Jo Winterstein]

Hi, this is Jo Winterstein, host of the Spirit Daughter podcast where we talk about astrology, natal charts and how to step into your most vibrant life. And I just sat down with a

[Anna Navarro]

mini driver, the Irish traveler said when I was 16. You're going to have a terrible time with men.

[Jo Winterstein]

Actor, storyteller and unabashed, apologetic Aquarian visionary, Aquarius is all about freedom, loving and different perspectives and I find a lot of people with strong placements in Aquarius like are misunderstood a Sun and Venus in Aquarius in her seventh house spark her unconventional approach to partnership.

[Anna Navarro]

He really has taught me to embrace people sleeping in different rooms on different houses in different places, but just an embracing of the isness of it all.

[Jo Winterstein]

If you're navigating your own transformation or just want a chart side view into how a leading artist integrates astrology, creativity, and real life, this episode is a must. Listen Listen to the Spirit Daughter podcast starting on February 24th on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your podcast.

[Anna Navarro]

I want to ask you both something. You know, I know you both so well, but Paola, you grew up in Spain mostly with your mom, your grandparents. And then you came to the United States when you were almost about to, when you came in 10th grade to the United States.

[Paola Ramos]

Yeah, I remember.

[Anna Navarro]

So you didn't grow up with your dad. You would see him, of course, but you didn't grow up on a daily basis with your dad. How is it to be getting to know each other this well as adults, as humans and people, as colleagues? I mean, what's this process been like for you?

[Paola Ramos]

I mean, I think you're right. Like we, I spent most of my childhood.

[Anna Navarro]

Your formative.

[Paola Ramos]

In Spain. Yeah, my formative years exactly. In Spain. And so I think we became so accustomed to take advantage of the time that we did have together. Right? So growing up, for me, like, some of my favorite memories were, I mean, I vividly remember, right? Like my dad picking me up from the Miami airport and spending summers with him or spring breaks with him, or Christmas. Right. And so I think we, for years, like those windows that we have, I mean, I, I can imagine being like 70 years old. Maybe my dad will still be alive. And it's like if we, like, if we have an opportunity to go on a vacation together, spend a weekend together, we will take it. Because I think our brains are so wired to, like, take advantage of the, of the small time that we have. And so now we literally are on the phone like, almost every single day, right? We, we get to do something that I think in a way is, is almost like we're kind of like taking back all the time that we lost or that we didn't have. And it's not necessarily that we're like, kind of getting to know each other because we are extremely close. Like, I, I mean, I, I, I could say that very generally, like, we, we're so close, right? Like, I tell my dad everything and, and we, we talk all the time. But it is, it really does feel like, like this, this new chapter where we, we get to, I don't know, just be not only like a father and daughter, but, but now as like, professionals. It's, it's been amazing. It really has. And. And. And since you asked him that question of. Of what. It's kind of like the difference for him of what it means to be an anchor and outgoing towards this side of the industry. Like, it's been incredible watching him, too, that, like, seeing you kind of in this new. Almost like. Kind of like this, like, breathing in a different way and kind of like a more vulnerable side to you, more personal side to you, which is at times hard for both of us to be like normal humans. It really has. It's been amazing.

[Jorge Ramos]

So let me get corny. Aki un poquito, because I'm going to say something that neither one of you want to say, but I'm going to say it. People have no idea, but Paola, when she came from Spain to Miami, we couldn't find a high school for her because it was in the middle of the year. It was incredibly difficult. And guess who was the only person who helped us get Paola into high school? Ana Navarro.

[Anna Navarro]

Okay, but hold on a minute. This wasn't any high school.

[Jorge Ramos]

No, no, no, no. That's the truth. And thanks to you, she got into an incredible high school. And then. I'm gonna get a little more corny here.

[Paola Ramos]

Oh, God.

[Jorge Ramos]

And then that little girl.

[Paola Ramos]

Oh, God.

[Jorge Ramos]

Then made it to Harvard.

[Anna Navarro]

I've always told her she needs to take care of me in her old age.

[Jorge Ramos]

Listen, thanks to you, Ana, we said gracias a thousand times, but I'm still. I wanted people to know that thanks to you, Paola had an option to become who she is.

[Anna Navarro]

Well, I don't know if I've told you this story, but it was. The school you're talking about was Carrollton School of the Sacred Heart. And it was incredibly. To get into. It's still even harder to get into now. And Paola had applied, and she got rejected. I don't know what they were thinking, but she did. And I. I had graduated from there, and I. I'm very close to the. The nuns. Don't ask me how, but I am. And I called up the headmistress, the head nun, Sister Cook, and I said, suzanne sick. If Dan Rather's daughter was applying, do you think you'd let her in? She said, yeah. I said, and Peter Jennings? Yeah. And Tom Broca? Yeah. And I said, well, this kid's father has more fucking viewers than all three of them combined, so please make room for her story.

[Jorge Ramos]

I didn't know that part of the story, and that's.

[Anna Navarro]

And she said, okay. And the next day Called you guys. But there's a story, Jorge, that you and I have never talked about in public. I don't even know that we've talked about it with each other after it happened that I want to revisit. So it was when you were supposed to interview Sarah Palin.

[Jorge Ramos]

Yeah.

[Anna Navarro]

You were supposed to get the first Spanish interview with Sarah Palin in 2008, when she had been named by McCain as his running mate. And you flew all the way to Milwaukee with your entire team. This was like you were going to be off the air for three whole days. As a result. I was the national Hispanic chair for John McCain's campaign. I was there. And you got there, and I had to break the news to you that Sarah Palin was not going to give you the interview.

[Jorge Ramos]

It was you.

[Anna Navarro]

It was a mess. She was. She was. She was in the hotel in tears, crying, having a meltdown, and she told John McCain, I can't do this. Remember, she had gone through the interview where she couldn't remember what newspapers she'd read. She. And she was. She was. Her confidence was shaken, and she was. She was a nervous wreck, and she refused to do it. And John McCain said, don't to her. Don't worry, I will do it. So they. I don't. I don't. I hope you remember this. They had an event together.

[Jorge Ramos]

I remember not getting the interview. Interview you. But I didn't know it was your fault.

[Anna Navarro]

But then. So then John McCain. You interviewed John McCain, and he said to you, I promise you, my friend, you will get the first Spanish interview with her. And I went and I traveled with her for two weeks trying to get her prepared for that. And you came and you did that interview in Colorado Springs.

[Jorge Ramos]

Yes.

[Anna Navarro]

And, you know, I thought you were incredibly gracious to her because you could have done a gotcha interview. You could have made her look stupid. She didn't know that much about Latino issues. She didn't know that much about immigrants. She didn't know that much about the Western Hemisphere. She was a governor from Alaska.

[Jorge Ramos]

It went well. I think that interview went well.

[Anna Navarro]

Yeah. But a few years later, after Trump threw you out of the press conference, what was that? 2015. 2016.

[Jorge Ramos]

2015. It was 2015 in Dubuque, Iowa. Yeah. He ejected me from a press conference for questions he didn't like.

[Anna Navarro]

They've thrown you out of better places. But Palin was interviewing Trump in 2015 for OAN 1American News, and she commended Trump, congratulated Trump for throwing you out of that press conference.

[Jorge Ramos]

I Didn't know that.

[Anna Navarro]

And she asked him how he deals with gotcha journalism like that. And called you a radical activist.

[Paola Ramos]

Wow.

[Jorge Ramos]

Wow. Well, I, I didn't know that part of the story. I should have been tougher with her than the first time. No.

[Anna Navarro]

How often has that happened to you? That you show up somewhere and you don't get the interview?

[Jorge Ramos]

Well, not many times, but it happens. But the worst is when they stand up and go, like it happened with Maduro or with Donald Trump, who he just didn't. You know, that 2015 incident that has been reported a lot. What we said after that confrontation with Trump said, hey, this guy is dangerous to democracy. This guy doesn't believe in freedom of the press. And then nobody paid attention. They would say, no, Jorge, you have no idea. You don't understand American politics. That's not true. And look, 11 years later, look where we are. And then, maybe this is not the right moment, Anna, but you have to tell us about your transformation because of Trump. You changed incredibly.

[Anna Navarro]

I'll come on your podcast and I'll tell you.

[Jorge Ramos]

Yeah, yeah, we'll do that later.

[Anna Navarro]

But I want to end with something, Paola, because you mentioned your grandfather, Carlo Alberto Montaner, who was one of the great authors and thinkers and Latin American intellectuals. His weekly column was published in over 200 newspapers around the world. Somebody that I loved and admired and was my friend and such a huge influence on you, Paola, and he adored you. But Carlo Alberto died by assisted suicide in Spain, what, two years ago now?

[Paola Ramos]

Yeah, exactly, yeah, two years ago.

[Anna Navarro]

And he was one of the first to do it when the Spanish law allowed that, when there was a law passed. And part of what he had to do was bring you all along as a family. He had, he had a weird form of, he had a very aggressive form of, of something related to Parkinson's of a neurological disease. And he didn't want to live being a burden or not being able to, to be self sufficient. He didn't want to. He wanted to die in his own terms and with dignity. But how, how was that?

[Paola Ramos]

I mean, it was both, I think, one of the, the hardest things we've done as a family and also one of the most, like, inspiring things in the sense that, you know, my, my grandfather truly, truly, truly believed in, like, people's individual liberties. Right. I mean, you know, this, like, he was, he was someone that believed that in order for, like, societies to truly function and democracies to truly function is like, people are entitled to their own individual choice. And for him, that Even translated to people's ability to. To die with dignity when. When you are confronted with degenerative diseases like he is, or with terminal illnesses like he. He really, really did not want to be trapped in his own body. And the United States didn't offer, and does not offer sort of a legal avenue to do that unless you're terminally ill, like, in this country, you have to be facing a terminal cancer that gives you no more than six months of life. And so that meant that he had to, you know, uproot his life and move to Spain where it is legal. And I'll just tell you, like, until the very end of his life, when he already knew that his case was approved, when he knew exactly the date and the time of when the doctors would come, you know, to his apartment in Madrid and administer. He never cried once. He was so courageous. And I just remember, like, spending all those hours just looking at him and being in awe. In awe of this person that just knew so well what he wanted and how he wanted. And all that it meant is that he wanted to die with grace because he couldn't do what he loved most, which was to be with his family, to write, to think, to speak freely. And. And it was, again, I think those moments make you live very intensely. No. And I have some of the. The best I guess I can say, right, like, I had the best goodbye of my life. Not to be able to. To say goodbye is now that I know what that looks like is a privilege, as hard as it was.

[Jorge Ramos]

His last words, Paula, remind us what he said at the end.

[Paola Ramos]

His last words right before he. He died were the same when Bias wish me a good journey. And that's literally how he signed off from life.

[Anna Navarro]

You know, you have such an incredible heritage. Half Mexican, half Cuban, 100% American. But I think, Carlo Alberto, your grandfather would be as proud of you as I know your father is. And you just, you know, everything you get from both sides, you embody and represent and carry on so well. And I. When I learned that your grandfather had died and the way he died, it was the most. It was the. So many people say. We all say to each other, if I ever get this, like, if I ever get like that, if I'm not able to take care of myself, I don't want to die. Make sure I don't continue. But. But I think some of us don't mean it. And when we get faced with the actual choice, maybe don't have the means or the courage to really follow through, he's one of the bravest men I knew.

[Paola Ramos]

And.

[Jorge Ramos]

Yeah.

[Anna Navarro]

And I think it was the least surprising thing to know that he had done what he'd actually said he wanted to do, not live without dignity. Bueno.

[Planned Parenthood Spokesperson]

That's right.

[Anna Navarro]

I love you both. I thank you for having spent this time with me. Next time, we'll do it on your podcast and with margaritas, please.

[Jorge Ramos]

We'll do that. And welcome to the podcast world and to ihop.

[Paola Ramos]

Yes.

[Jorge Ramos]

This is just fantastic. It's. You're gonna see, we're gonna see the new Anna.

[Anna Navarro]

You've seen a lot of me already, Jorge. I haven't been quite as reserved as you have. I love you. Mucha Gracia.

[Jorge Ramos]

Thank you so much. Bye.

[Paola Ramos]

Thank you,

[Anna Navarro]

Gracia. Jorge Paola. Jorge, I've always, always thought you were El Mas Chingung. We're going to continue to keep a close eye on the region, especially now that Kristi Noem is leading the Shield of Americas. God help us all. I also want to talk about the heroes of the week, and this is important. It is sobering. It is the reality of war. So so far as we tape this, there's been six U.S. casualties, service member casualties that we need to talk about. And shamefully, earlier this week, Trump said, it's just the way it is in war. Hegseth said, ah, tragic things happen. And said the fact that we want to talk about these heroes, we want to say their names and talk about their stories, that we do that just to make Donald Trump look bad? No, we do it because war has human cost. And these people have real names and faces and families who love them and are going to miss them for the rest of their lives. The heroes of the week are. Captain Cody Cork, he was 35. Sergeant First Class Noah Teigens, he was 42. Sergeant First Class Nicole Amor, she was 39. Sergeant Declan Cody, he was only 20. Major Jeffrey O', Brien, he was 45. Chief Warrant Officer Robert Marsan, he was 54. These were heroes. They signed up to serve our country. Whether they agree or disagree with the actions and decisions taken by the Commander in chief, they are there to serve and they lost their lives in the line of service. Thank you to them for their service. That's it for today's show. Thank you, Jorge and Paola, and thank you all for listening. You guys don't know what it means to me to read your comments, the opinions you're leaving me, the feedback, the suggestions. I'm reading them all. I really appreciate you taking the time to listen and be part of this this journey in BLEEP with Anna Navarro. See you next week. Bleep with Anna Navarro is a Hyphenate Media Group production in partnership with iHeart's My Cultura podcast Network. For more of your favorite shows, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.