Risto Mejide defended PP deputy Ana Vázquez after she displayed pepper spray in Congress. The same programme is praised for protecting its own contributors, while La revuelta earns a rare cultural endorsement.
On September 23, 2026, PP deputy Ana Vázquez displayed a pepper spray canister during a session in Spain's Congress. Congress President Francina Armengol ordered her out of the chamber. She cited Article 101 of the chamber's rules and the ban on weapons inside the building.
Vázquez said women in Ceuta carry pepper spray for protection when they leave home. The argument came amid renewed tension over security in Ceuta and migration after a large influx of migrants in late July. That was her political context.
Rules still applied.
After the incident, police cordoned off several toilets and other rooms in Congress, while 12 people experienced the effects of the irritant gas or were examined by medical staff.
On Todo es mentira on Cuatro, Risto Mejide defended Vázquez. His position was simple: concern about women's safety should come first. One contributor on the programme reminded him that a valid cause does not cancel the rules of Congress.
El Español and Mediaset documented Mejide's support for Vázquez on the programme. He even suggested that he would applaud her if the gesture had been intended to protect people. The defence put the show in a difficult position.
RTVE also reported that a PP employee admitted pressing the canister two or three times in a toilet after Vázquez told him to do so. Vázquez had said the canister was empty. That created a separate factual dispute.
The political argument grew sharper.
RTVE reported that a PP employee acknowledged pressing the can two or three times in a toilet after Vázquez instructed him to do so. This detail appeared alongside Vázquez’s claim that the canister had been empty, adding a separate factual dispute to the political argument over its presence in Congress.
Mejide's response exposed an awkward contradiction. Todo es mentira defended a safety concern while treating parliamentary rules as secondary because the gesture seemed sympathetic.
Vázquez is both a PP deputy and a contributor to the programme. Mejide therefore looked like a protective employer. He stood by a member of his team even when that defence left the programme open to criticism over a possible mistake and the involvement of another person in covering it up.
Using Ceuta as a universal excuse creates another problem. The source text pushes that logic to an absurd point by imagining
