Donald Trump "had no choice" but to eject Univision anchor Jorge Ramos from a news conference in Iowa on Tuesday, former George W. Bush administration spokesman Ari Fleischer tells
Newsmax TV.
"He was out of line in what he did to Trump, and I'm not Trump fan," Fleischer told "The Steve Malzberg Show." He's now is the president of his own sports-communications firm.
"The job of reporters is not to turn themselves into newsmakers so they can give their point of view.
"That is not the job of a reporter."
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However, "Trump handled it just fine," Fleischer added. "I wouldn't have removed him unless it was absolutely unavoidable.
"What you try to do in a situation like that is marginalize him, but the other reporters weren't going to go along with that. They were going to defend Ramos, and so Trump in essence had no choice — and then he did the smart thing in letting him back in.
"He read the room right," he said. "But still, it's inappropriate, it's wrong behavior by reporters. The press really came down as if this is a problem for Trump, but if the shoe was on the other foot, they would say it was inappropriate for a conservative reporter to do that to the president or Hillary [Clinton] or anybody else."
Trump's poll numbers continue to surge, leading Fleischer to describe this phenomenon to Malzberg as "the protest-signal phase of the Republican primary."
"People know that they're not voting yet, but they're sending a real message that they really do want fundamental change, they want people to take on their problems," he explained. "They don't want people to speak straight — and that's what you're picking up here above and beyond the historical anti-establishment vote that's always been a part of a Republican primary."
Vice President Joe Biden shouldn't jump in the Democratic primary race just yet, Fleischer said.
"He's got to let some of these polls really sink in over a period of months — and that's going to create pressure, because it's going to make it very late for him to get in," he told Malzberg. "But the Democrats aren't going to ditch Hillary over just a few polls showing that she's in trouble and maybe she can't win.
"But if there's months of polls, then the Democrats are going to start to say we cannot put all our eggs in the Hillary basket."
There's "the other kicker," Fleischer cautioned: "If you're Hillary, you might actually want Biden in, because the more candidates against you, the more they divide the anti-Hillary vote and she can win with the plurality."