Ask More: The Power of Questions to Open Doors, Uncover Solutions, and Spark Change pdfdrive com

part,” she had said.
Q FROM AUDIENCE: Mr. Chairman, could you comment on the Queen
of Sweden’s public condemnation of the use of children by the
Palestinian leadership in fighting against Israel?
ARAFAT: Use of children?
Q: I said the Queen of Sweden’s public condemnation of the use by the
Palestinian leadership of children in the fight against Israel.
ARAFAT: Use of the children? I cannot accept this statement. I’m not
using our children. We are working very hard for the future … Are you
against this? (Pauses for a moment.) You know, someone from AIPAC
should have apologized for killing all the Palestinian children. This
would have been the high road.
Arafat had no intention of addressing the question directly, whether it came
from me or anybody else. But the encounter served an important purpose: it put
him on the spot—and on the record—for the entire world to see. His supporters
would see his anger as defiance; his antagonists would see petulance. I still
believe it was an important exchange. It illustrated that confrontational questions
set an agenda and create a historical record.
The exchange also showed that no matter how much you plan or how
compelling the “impeccable third party” may be, you can run into a defensive
and angry buzz-saw response when you accuse or confront. People will bluster,
bloviate, or evade. You need a strategy to assert control that goes beyond
crossing your legs and hoping the person doesn’t storm out of the room.
Sometimes you can’t worry about being polite.
Demanding Answers
When you adopt a true adversarial approach, you raise the stakes. Asking with
righteous indignation can quickly create enemies. Jorge Ramos has no problem
with that. He’s not trying to make friends.
One of the most famous Latinos in the United States, Ramos is a powerful
and principled anchorman for the Spanish-language network Univision. He has

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been called the Hispanic Walter Cronkite—except Ramos has more than a
million Twitter followers and goes toe to toe with world leaders in ways
Cronkite would have found unthinkable. Ramos has gotten roughed up, shut
down, and thrown out because he relishes confrontation in the service of
accountability. He sees it as the foundation of democracy, transparency, and
legitimacy.
“I feel a mission,” he told me. “The most social responsibility we have is to
confront those who are in power. That creates a balance of power in our country
and our world.”
Ramos is well aware that his confrontational style may infuriate and alienate
the person he’s interviewing, especially if it’s someone in power. “I always
assume I will never talk to that person again,” Ramos says.
But even Ramos was surprised when he got thrown out of a roomful of
reporters as he tried to question the most unlikely of presidential candidates,
billionaire businessman Donald Trump. Having concluded that Trump’s position
on immigration was bigoted, ill-informed, and indefensible, Ramos showed up
ready to hurl barbed questions and take on the man who was leading in the polls
and would become the Republican nominee.
Trump made headlines when he declared that Mexicans were “bringing
drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good
people.” He called for a wall along the Mexican border. He promised that if
elected, he’d deport 11 million undocumented immigrants. He said children born
in the United States to undocumented immigrants shouldn’t be U.S. citizens,
though the Constitution grants anyone born in the United States full and instant
citizenship. For Jorge Ramos, a Mexican American who immigrated to the
United States as a young man, these were insulting positions he wanted to
challenge directly.
At a crowded news conference in Dubuque, Iowa, Ramos stood.
“I have a question about immigration …” That was about all he got a chance
to say.
“You weren’t called. Sit down,” Trump barked.
Ramos wouldn’t budge.
Trump turned to call on someone else, but Ramos persisted.
“I’m a reporter, an immigrant, and a citizen,” Ramos said, “I have the right
to ask a question.”
Trump signaled a burly security guard to usher Ramos out of the room.
Ramos protested loudly. “Don’t touch me, sir. You cannot touch me. I have

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the right to ask a question.”
In all his years confronting Latin American dictators and strongmen, he had
never been ejected from a news conference.
After several minutes and some prodding from other reporters, Trump
changed his mind and allowed Ramos back in.
“Good to have you back,” Trump said with a straight face.
“Here’s the problem with your immigration plan,” Ramos stated. “It’s full of
empty promises. You cannot deport 11 million undocumented immigrants. You
cannot deny citizenship to the children of these immigrants …”
Trump jumped in.
“That’s not right,” he asserted, saying that an “act of Congress” could change
the status of the “anchor babies” born in the United States to undocumented
migrant parents.
Ramos tried another tactic, asking, “How are you going to build a 1,900-mile
wall?”
“Very easy. I’m a builder,” Trump said dismissively.
And on it went for nearly five minutes. Ramos asserting, arguing, asking,
Trump dodging.
Looking back on it, Ramos said he probably got thrown out because Trump
was unnerved by the basic premise of his question—that Trump’s policy was
built on “empty promises”—and aggravated by Ramos’s decision to stand. But
theatrics are often part of confrontation.
“We knew we had to do two things as journalists,” Ramos explained to me.
“First, to stand up. If you ask a question sitting down, it would be a completely
different balance of power. And second, we knew that I was only going to have a
few seconds to ask the question. I purposely made the decision that I was going
to continue asking the question regardless of what he was going to be doing.”
Ramos concluded that the spectacle was worth it. He made his point and put
the issues on the record for all to see.
“I did my job as a journalist and the audience—especially Latinos—know
exactly what kind of candidate Trump is. The big lesson is, never stop asking
questions. I would have failed if I had sat down at that press conference in
Dubuque, Iowa,” he said. “I did not sit down. I didn’t go. I did not shut up.”
Confronting Power
Ramos’s confrontational style is deeply rooted in his experience and youth. His

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autocratic father left little room for discussion or dissent and had rigid ideas
about what his boy would become—an engineer, an architect, a doctor, or a
lawyer. But young Jorge had no interest in those fields. Making matters worse,
he regarded his Catholic school as a straitjacket. Home was often a battlefield.
“Growing up, I learned to confront the most powerful man in my world, my
father,” he said.
At school, he challenged another father, the priest to whom the students had
to confess their sins. This priest was also in charge of discipline—often harsh,
physical discipline. Ramos saw this as an incredible abuse of power.