'Criminal contempt' looms over Trump's showdown with courts over deportation fiat

Thanks to you at home for joining us this hour. Really happy to have you here.
So, Michigan State University is in beautiful East Lansing, Michigan. It's a really big school, more than 40,000 undergrads enrolled at any one time, another 7,000 or so people enrolled as graduate students.
And Michigan State is a really big name school. It gets a lot of national attention, in particular for its sports teams.
The most high profile college sports are obviously football and basketball. Michigan State almost always has really great teams in both football and basketball.
They've also got a pretty good hockey program. Because Michigan State is a Division I school and because they are very, very good at the sports that get on TV.

And most especially because they're part of the Big Ten, which is a big, highly televised, lots of attention athletic conference in this country. Whether or not you got any connection to Michigan, people all over this country know Michigan State and the Michigan State Spartans.
Well, last night, the faculty senate at Michigan State voted that their school should join the other schools in the Big Ten in a totally non-sports-related agreement. The faculty at Michigan State voted last night that their school should join with all the other schools in the Big Ten in what they're calling a mutual defense compact, a mutual academic defense compact.
And what that means is kind of what it says. When Trump inevitably comes after one of the schools in the Big Ten, be it Michigan State or Rutgers or Ohio State or UCLA or USC or University of Washington or any of the other schools in that conference.
The idea is that all the other schools would agree to help that school defend itself and fight back, which would mean lawyers, and experts, and advocacy, and lobbying, and public relations, they would all do it together. They would treat Trump attacking any one of those schools as an attack on all of those schools.
So no matter which one Trump picks first to go after, no school would have to fight alone. Michigan State's faculty voted last night for their school to join and help create such a compact.
And they are not the first, they are just the latest. They joined Rutgers in New Jersey and the University of Nebraska at Lincoln and Indiana University at Bloomington.
Also outside the Big Ten, the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. All those schools have taken the same or similar steps thus far.
According to the Chronicle of Higher Education and our own reporting, we are expecting votes along these lines soon at the Ohio State University and the University of Michigan and the University of Washington. We believe a vote like that is under discussion already at the University of Minnesota and at Penn State.
We've also had faculty at Northwestern and the University of Oregon already pass similar but sort of

more mild statements saying that they are generally in favor of this kind of idea.

But you know, a statement is just a statement. All that and a dollar will buy you a scratch ticket.

And frankly, time is short. But I'm telling you, this is a movement that is nevertheless picking up steam.
Today, we've got grad student unions at a whole bunch of universities asking for their schools to join in a mutual academic defense compact like this as well. Grad students at the University of Minnesota, which I just mentioned, again, may have a faculty vote on this matter soon.
Also, grad students at Cornell University and Stanford, University of Chicago, Northwestern, University of New Mexico, New Mexico State, North Carolina State, Johns Hopkins, MIT, Dartmouth, University of Iowa, grad students in all of those places speaking out, asking their universities to form a mutual defense compact with other schools.

Tomorrow, this is one to watch for in Wisconsin. In Madison, we're expecting a big rally at the University of Wisconsin at Madison to demand that that school join such a compact as well.
So this is something that is really picking up steam, but it ought to. So, Vice President J.D.
Vance gave a keynote speech to a national

conservatism conference a couple of years ago, and the title of his speech was literally,

The Universities Are the Enemy.

Ladies and gentlemen, the universities do not pursue knowledge and truth. They pursue

deceit and lies, and it's time to be honest about that fact. The title of the speech was literally, The Universities Are the Enemy.
He ended the speech with a quote from Richard Nixon, Professors are the enemy. And he didn't mean it ironically.
They're really not kidding about this stuff. Part of their mission is to use their power in the U.S.
government to destroy American higher education, to destroy U.S. colleges and universities, not because of any particular thing that colleges and universities are doing, but just because they think they're bad and they shouldn't exist and they are going to try to destroy them.
They have been saying this for years. Now it is clear we should believe them.
Tonight, CNN and The Washington Post are reporting that President Trump has directed the IRS to strip tax-exempt status from Harvard University after Harvard said this week that it would not accede to Trump's threats. It would not enter into some kind of receivership where Donald Trump gets to dictate the school's internal policies and academic decisions.
Now, there are, of course, laws about tax-exempt status. The IRS can't legally take it away from a university or from any entity just because Trump pounds his chest and says so.
So we'll be talking about that more on tonight's show. But the fact that Trump is trying it tells you, I mean, tells anybody paying attention that, yeah, now's the time.
Move fast, right? Any school that wants to survive what Trump and Vance are doing here, what their agenda is here for American universities and colleges, any school that wants to survive what's coming their way better find a way to not have to fight alone. And so, yes, now we are seeing all kinds of colleges all across the country move toward mutual defense pacts with other schools.
Basically, little NATO treaties for all the colleges. An attack on one is an attack on all.
I will tell you, I have no connection to any of these efforts, but I would just say as an observer, just speaking strategically, my only note on this might be, go faster. Once he's targeted you, it's too late to have a mutual defense treaty in position.
You have to have these things in place ahead of time before he signs that executive order or yanks your funding or does whatever he's going to do to you. Time is short.
River rises. So we're going to stay on this.
We're going to keep you posted. While we are on this subject, though, may I also introduce you to the Federal Workers Legal Defense Network.
This is brand new. More than a thousand lawyers in 42 states have completed training now to defend federal workers from all aspects of what Trump is doing to them in the federal government, not just in lawsuits to challenge Trump's mass indiscriminate and, in some cases, illegal firings of huge swaths of people who work for the U.S.
government, but also training on how to provide individual guidance and legal support to individual federal workers who have been fired or otherwise mistreated by the Trump administration. This was convened by civil rights groups, including the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, and advocacy groups like Democracy Forward.
You keep hearing their name in the news because they've been suing the bejesus out of Trump in this second term. It was also pulled together by unions, including especially the AFL-CIO.
They have all now come together to put together this very large thousand-plus lawyer effort in 42 states, this Federal Workers Legal Defense Network. And they say their lawyers are trained, and it is now up and running.
And again, I would just say, speed matters. In an attempted authoritarian takeover that is trying to go as far as it can, as fast as it can, before the country can properly organize its defenses, speed matters.
That said, even if it hasn't been done already, still do it, right? Even if the best time to have done something like this federal workers legal defense network was probably yesterday or a month ago, the second best time to do it is right now. And so yes, as of today, we've got one.
And that means that federal workers are better off today than they were before. In terms of the country standing up its defenses against the authoritarian takeover, the Washington Post tonight was first to report on Trump's plans for what he's going to do to health care.
And these plans are draconian enough that I can't help but think that they may have an impact on how many Americans think they've got some skin in the game in terms of whether or not they want to participate in a protest or otherwise take part in some sort of civic activity to say no, to show their dissent, to register their disapproval of what Trump is doing. Because what the Washington Post is reporting on Trump's plans for health care, this is Trump's plans for health care after the 10,000 people that he just fired from HHS.
On top of those 10,000 people fired from HHS, Trump's new plan is reportedly to cut another $40 billion from U.S. health care and health research.
That's fully a third of what the United States spends on health care and research. Trump wants to cut all of the CDC's work, for example, on heart disease and obesity and diabetes and smoking and HIV.
You think that might galvanize people in this country? He's not. He's not saying, Trump is not saying he wants to trim these programs or make them more efficient.
The plan, according to this document published by the Washington Post, the plan is to eliminate the CDC's work on heart disease, obesity, diabetes, smoking, HIV. Yeah, because it's not like any of us know anybody who has any one of those issues, right? No one within the sound of my voice right now has any connection to anyone with heart disease, right? Have you ever even heard of that? Heart disease? Does that sound like a foreign concept? I mean, Americans will sure be glad that Donald Trump forced the United States of America to stop working on heart disease altogether because, yeah, none of us have ever heard of anybody having a heart attack, right? None of us have anybody in our families or anybody we're connected to who's got problems with cholesterol or high blood pressure, right? That's really exotic stuff, right? Yeah, obesity.
Americans have no idea what that is. We've got no personal connection to that.
Thank God Donald Trump is going to save us from the waste of the U.S. government working on those woke liberal problems like diabetes.
This was Missoula, Montana today. In deep red state Montana, Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders turning out more than 9,000 people today.
Look at this. Look at that crowd.
Middle of the day on a Wednesday in Montana. Yesterday in California, AOC and Bernie turned out over 10,000 people in Bakersfield, California,

and 26,000 people in Folsom, California. This is not like San Francisco or Oakland or Berkeley.

This is not a liberal enclave in California. And they turned out 26,000 people in Folsom.

You know, I heard that they were, that someone started flying a plane with a banner that said, this is Trump country. It sure don't look like it today.
I don't think this is Trump country. I think this is our country.
That was Folsom, California, in a Republican congressional district yesterday. This was the day before that, Monday, in ruby red Idaho, a sold-out capacity crowd of 12,500 people.
Look at this, in Nampa, Idaho. This was the day before that in Ruby Red, Utah, 20,000 people turning out to see Bernie and AOC in Salt Lake City.
This was the day before that in Los Angeles, Senator Bernie Sanders, his office saying that this crowd that turned out in drop the chiron there so people can see the crowd. Thank you.
Senator Bernie Sanders's office saying this crowd of 36,000 people that turned out to see him in AOC in Los Angeles on Saturday was the biggest crowd that Senator Bernie Sanders has ever spoken to anywhere. These are just massive, massive, massive events that the two of them have been holding.
Yes, in California, but not necessarily in the blue state caricature parts of California. And also in Utah and Idaho and Montana.
And these crowds are out there for two of the most dynamic and most unapologetic fighting progressives in all of U.S. electoral politics.
The fight oligarchy tour. Senator Sanders' office says of the people who've been RSVPing for these events,

yes, most of them are Democrats,

but they say 21% of people turning out for these events are independents,

and they say 8% of people turning out for these rallies are Republicans.

And 8%, I know, 8% sounds like single digits,

but 8% when you're talking about like 200,000 people

they've spoken to at these events thus far, that's saying something. And huge events like these that are being done by Senator Sanders and Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, huge events like these are definitely saying something about how the country feels about this political moment and about Donald Trump.
And I will say, just in terms of the media, the sheer size of these events and the fact that most of them are in red states means that they're starting to get a ton of press and a ton of attention from the mainstream media. And that, of course, is starting to rattle everyone in politics on all sides, which is always fun to see.
But I'll tell you, you know, seeing those big events and seeing all the press they're now

getting is fantastic to watch. But look around.
Because when it's not an event with thousands of

people, which obviously is going to get a lot of attention, what we're still seeing is thousands

of events, thousands of protests, protests that are happening every day and in every state.

I mean, here's just a snapshot. Yesterday, protests to save Social Security from what Trump is doing to it at the Social Security field office here in Peekskill, New York.
And at the Social Security office in La Crosse, Wisconsin. And in East Vancouver, Washington, people, again, protesting to protect Social Security.
In Baltimore, Maryland, people protesting against Trump, letting his top campaign donor, Elon Musk, access everyone's personal data at the Social Security Administration. This was outside the Social Security headquarters in Washington, D.C.
yesterday. You see the sign there.
Elon has your SSN. Elon has your Social Security number.
Protests in Atlanta against Trump's mass firings at the CDC. These protesters in Atlanta joined by Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock and Democratic Congressman Hank Johnson.
In Kansas City, Missouri, people turning out protesting against Trump's mass firings at the IRS. In San Francisco,

protests against Trump turning the IRS into a weapon to be used against immigrants. At Florida International University in Miami, protests against Trump's attacks on immigrants and on international students.
No ice on campus. At the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee, A protest against students' visas being revoked.

More protests against Trump's... At the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee, a protest against students' visas being revoked.

More protests against Trump's attacks on immigrants and international students at Emory University in Georgia. In Burlington, Vermont, a protest outside the detention hearing for Ramesa Ozturk.
She's the Tufts University doctoral student, the Fulbright scholar, who was snatched off the street and taken to a prison in Louisiana by masked Trump agents who didn't show their names and didn't show their faces. Put her in an unmarked car.
Yesterday, also in Louisiana, a protest outside that immigration prison, which is holding Ramesa Oztark, and also holding Mahmoud Khalil from Columbia University,

and frankly, thousands of other people whose names we do not know.

People protested at the Tesla dealership in Chicago yesterday,

including these kind of cute signs that are shaped like Cybertrucks.

I've never thought Cybertrucks were cute, but the signs shaped like Cybertrucks are cute.

People protested at an announcement by the Indiana governor, Mike Braun,

What are you doing? I've never thought cyber trucks were cute, but the signs shaped like cyber trucks are cute. People protested at an announcement by the Indiana governor, Mike Braun, when he announced yesterday that he's going to try to do to health care in Indiana what Robert F.
Kennedy Jr. is doing to national health care for Trump.
Oh boy. Indiana residents turned out at the state capitol to tell Governor Mike Braun what to do with that idea.
Signs saying things like, Governor Braun, why ask a lawyer for medical advice and hands off our vaccines and simply clown show. The resounding no that you are hearing or the resounding clown show raspberries or theounding ovation for the, this doesn't look like Trump country, this looks like our country, comment from Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez.
I mean, what I just showed you is just a snapshot of a day. But that kind of resistance, that kind of saying no, that kind of rejection of what Trump is doing and are willing to protest it and say no to it, it's taking every different form, right? I mean, the pro bono legal defense network for federal workers, more than a thousand lawyers joining that to work pro bono for federal workers.
The mutual academic defense agreements for colleges. The big rallies, the small handful of brave protesters making sure dissent is visible at local congressmen's offices, local social security offices, local IRS offices.
We also saw yesterday in something I've never really seen before, a very unusual show of support for judges and for the judiciary. A small group, including a sitting judge and a retired judge, and a number of legal academics, legal professionals, asked people to convene online yesterday to show support for judges and their families and stand up in a nonpartisan way against threats to judges and their families.
Among the judges who participated in this was Judge Astor Salas, whose husband was grievously wounded and whose son was murdered in New Jersey. I first heard about this, I thought, one, this is a very unusual thing.
You don't hear about the judiciary asking people to stand up for them very often. And two, because the threats that judges and their families have received right now are so terrible, I thought, you know, even though this is a very unusual thing that they're asking people to do, I thought, you know what, I bet they are going to get a pretty good response to this.
I bet they're going to get, you know, like two or three hundred people to show up online in this speak up for justice event. I thought they'd get you know I thought they'd get a couple hundred people I thought they might get like 500 people.
They got more than 7,000 people joining that event in the middle of the day on a Tuesday. So the ways people are standing up and saying no and standing up and saying they reject this and standing up and giving the administration the one-finger salute, put it in blunt terms, they are innumerable and unpredictable.
And they surprise me every day that we cover this stuff. But today we saw something from a U.S.
senator that we never thought any U.S. senator would ever have to do.
And so add this to the pantheon of things that people are doing to stand up to this administration to try to stop some of the worst that they are trying to do. As one federal judge started contempt proceedings against the Trump administration, and a second judge threatened them over the Trump administration refusing to comply with court orders, insisting that there's no law that can constrain Donald Trump from sending people from this country to a foreign prison indefinitely with no legal process at all.
Today, a U.S. senator, Senator Chris Van Hollen, Democratic senator from Maryland, he himself flew alone to El Salvador to try to get back one of his constituents, to try to get back a Maryland resident who Donald Trump sent to that foreign prison in El Salvador, even when the Trump administration admitted that trying to deport him in the way they did had been an administrative error.
Residents of Maryland have been protesting every day at the courthouse as a federal judge in Maryland has been ordering the Trump administration that they really do need to go get him and return him. Senator Van Hollen says he promised Kilmar Abrego Garcia's wife and his mother that he would do everything in his power as a senator to get Mr.
Abrego Garcia back. Well, today, the senator went to El Salvador himself to try to get him.
And Senator Chris Van Hollen joins us live from El Salvador next. MSNBC presents Main Justice.
Each week on their podcast, veteran lawyers Andrew Weissman and Mary McCord break down the latest developments inside the Trump administration's Department of Justice. The administration doesn't necessarily want to be questioned on any of its policy.
I think what we are seeing is Project 2025 in action. This is it coming to fruition.
Maine Justice. New episodes drop every Tuesday.
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The prison in El Salvador, where Kilmar Abrego Garcia was sent, the Trump administration says by mistake, is one of the largest maximum security prisons in Latin America. In recent weeks, that prison has become a kind of photo op for members of the Trump administration and his Republican supporters in the U.S.
Congress. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem toured the prison in March, posting an Abu Ghraib-style video and photos of herself in front of a crowded cell.
This week, Republican Congressman Jason Smith of Missouri posted his own photo from inside the prison in El Salvador. So did Republican Congressman Riley Moore of West Virginia, who shared this photo.
Double thumbs up in front of the cells of the prison. Today, another lawmaker arrived in El Salvador, this time a Democrat, and he's there for a very different reason.
He is the senior senator from the state where Kilmar Abrego Garcia lived with his family until the Trump administration had him arrested and took him to this foreign prison. And a move the administration, again, admitted was what they called an administrative error.
Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland landed in El Salvador today with the hope that he might see Mr. Abrego Garcia or be able to talk to him.
I hope to meet with some high-level government officials from El Salvador. As I've said before, the goal of my visit is to talk to people here about the release of Kilmar Abrego Garcia.
I told his wife and his family I would do everything possible to bring him home, and we're going to keep working at this until we're successful. I also hope to have the chance to meet with him, but we'll have a better idea if that works out a little later on.
Senator Van Hollen landing in El Salvador today, hoping for a chance to meet with Kilmar Obrego Garcia in that prison. Senator Van Hollen says the vice president of El Salvador told him he would not be able to do that when he met with him today.
Joining us now for the interview is Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, who joins us from El Salvador. Senator, thank you so much for what you're doing and for being here with us tonight.
I know it's been a very long day. It has, Rachel.
But as you said in the intro, I promised Kilmar's family that I would do everything I could to bring him home, because as you said, a court in the United States has determined that he was illegally abducted from the United States and landed in the most notorious prison in El Salvador. So that's why I raised these issues directly with the vice president of El Salvador.
The president is not in the country now. So I met with the vice president to talk about these issues and ask for the opportunity to go visit Kilmar.
What are what's sort of the range of potential outcomes here that you think are possible? What are you hoping to accomplish on this trip? And how did those expectations match up with the experience that you had today meeting with the country's vice president and hearing what you did from him? Well, my goal is to keep a spotlight on this issue until justice is done, until the nine to nothing opinion by the Supreme Court is implemented by the Trump administration, which is ignoring entirely that order that they need to facilitate his return. I asked the folks at the embassy whether they'd been ordered by the administration to do anything to facilitate his return.
The answer was no. So they're clearly not in compliance.
And I said to the vice president of El Salvador, look, you've got somebody in your worst prison, a prison for terrorists, who the United States court has said has committed no crime. And so I asked him if he had any evidence that Kilmar was a member of MS-13 or had committed any crimes.
And he said, no. So I asked him why he was keeping Kilmar in prison here.
And his answer was that essentially the Trump administration is paying the government of El Salvador taxpayer money to keep this person here despite the court orders. So my goal, Rachel, is to make sure that we keep the spotlight on this issue because I think it's unsustainable.
It's unsustainable to continue to keep a person who has not been convicted of a crime in the worst prison in El Salvador when the Trump administration admitted itself to a judge that this was a mistake. But instead of fixing the mistake, they fired the Justice Department lawyer who admitted it was a mistake.
I just want to underscore what you just said there, that you were told by the U.S. Embassy in El Salvador that they have received no request from the White House or from the Justice Department, from any other entity in Washington, asking them to take any steps to obtain the release of Mr.
Abrego Garcia. Presumably it's the local U.S.
officials at the embassy there who would be the relevant point of contact, first point of contact for the U.S. government trying to attain that outcome, correct? Well, that's exactly right.
And it is pretty clear that the Trump administration has not lifted a finger to implement that court order. And so, I think it's important that the the courts know that and they will know that.
And again, denying his family an opportunity to even have a phone call with Kilmar is just a gross violation of basic human rights and human decency. And, you know, I asked the vice president if I came back next week whether or not I could go visit Gilmore.
And the answer was no, I couldn't guarantee that. I said, look, I may be the first member of Congress here, the first senator, but I can assure you more will be coming.
And you cannot continue to keep this man locked up in this worst prison in El Salvador and one of the worst in the hemisphere when he hasn't committed a crime. And so we're going to keep at this.
And I asked the vice president just to let him out the gate, because you may remember at the White House, the president of El Salvador said, well, you know, we can't smuggle Kilmar back into the United

States. He said, you don't have to smuggle him back to the United States.
We know you can't do

that. Just open the prison door.
And Attorney General Pam Bondi said the United States would

send a plane down here. And if she doesn't, at least he would be free for now in El Salvador

as we work to find a way to get him back into the court system and due process in the United States. Again, you mentioned that other.
So you. Sorry, go ahead.
Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt. No, I think you mean, this is, of course, about about the family and making sure the family gets justice.
But it's also, as you say, about the Trump administration trying to deprive individuals in the United States of their liberty without any due process. This is like taking away people's freedom.
That does not sound like a conservative idea to me. That is something that, of course, authoritarian governments engage in.
And it's a very fast road to tyranny if we don't all stand up against it. You mentioned the possibility and now it seems like the likelihood that other members of Congress are going to make their way to El Salvador.
Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey has expressed interest in going. Congressman Maxwell Frost, the young congressman from Florida, has formally requested a congressional delegation, a CODEL, to El Salvador.
Given that a couple of Republican members of Congress, who are supporters of what Trump has done using this prison, have somehow gotten into the prison and been able to take photo ops there, given that the Homeland Security Secretary, Kristi Noem, was able to get in and do a photo op there. I wonder what you make of the El Salvadoran government sort of opening the door to allow Trump administration officials and Republican supporters of President Trump in there to do—to make, essentially, social media content while still denying you the opportunity to get inside.
Well, you're right. That's clearly what's happening.
I mean, you have the government of El Salvador, the president of El Salvador, make this deal with the Trump administration. I think it's $15 million that the Trump administration is going to be paying El Salvador to essentially take these folks from the United States who have been denied due process in the case of Kilmar.
And again, Republicans seem to be happy to take photo ops at this site and celebrate the fact that the president of the United States is ignoring court orders and that the government of El Salvador is keeping this guy locked up who's committed

no crime at all. So I do think, though, as we continue to put the spotlight on this injustice, that they ultimately will have to let him go.
I just I believe that will be the case because I believe people will keep pressing for justice. Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen joining us live tonight from El Salvador.
Sir, thank you again for making time to be here and helping us understand this and explain it to our audience. Please keep us surprised.
I know a lot of people are worried about you being there, given what's going on between our government and the government of El Salvador and the kind of language used by their president in talking about this standoff. So please be safe, keep us surprised, and we'll look forward to having you back on soon.
Will do. Thank you, Rachel.
All right. More news ahead here tonight.
Stay with us. MSNBC presents Maine Justice.
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Listen now. Stay up to date on the biggest issues of the day with the MSNBC Daily Newsletter.
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Sign up for MSNBC Daily at msnbc.com. The Constitution does not tolerate willful disobedience of judicial orders, especially by officials of a coordinate branch who have sworn an oath to uphold it.
To permit such officials to freely annul the judgments of the courts of the United States would not just destroy the rights acquired under those judgments, it would make a solemn mockery of the Constitution itself. Defendants provide no convincing reason to avoid the conclusion that appears obvious.
They deliberately flouted this court's order. Rather than offer a mea culpa and attempt to explain this grave error and detail plans to rectify it, defendants offer various imaginative arguments for why they nevertheless technically complied with the order.
None of their positions withstand scrutiny. Defendants' conduct, moreover, manifests a willful disregard of the court's legally binding prescriptions.
Given the evidence at this early stage in the inquiry and offered no persuasive reason to conclude otherwise, the court finds that there is probable cause that defendants acted contemptuously. When the judge says acted contemptuously, he means in a legal sense, as in the defendants acted in contempt of court.
If you want to know where contempt of court is on the map of the death of the Republic, it's that thing right on the edge of the abyss. You get up to the—you're approaching the cliff, there's the signs telling you you're getting close to the edge, and then you go past the signs and then you get right up to the edge.
It's contempt of court. It's right there.
When the Trump administration started shipping people off to a foreign prison in El Salvador, A judge in Washington ordered them to turn around the planes that were in the air at that moment flying to that prison. The administration did not do that.
Instead, they sent those people to that prison in El Salvador anyway. Ever since, that same federal judge in Washington has been demanding answers about who exactly made the decision to defy his legally binding order and when and, and how, and who else is implicated in this mess.
Today, in this ruling, that Washington judge made clear that he is done playing games. They are on the edge of contempt, which is on the edge of the end.
He gave the Trump administration until Wednesday, next week, one week, to either fix this mess by having

the U.S. government retake custody of all those people it shipped to El Salvador, or start handing over the names of Trump officials for the judge to hold in criminal contempt.
We are getting to it here. We're going to talk to the lead attorney who is suing the government in this case next.
Stay with us. Last month, the Trump administration appeared to defy a court order when a judge ordered them to turn around planes that were taking people from the United States to a prison in El Salvador.
After the planes didn't turn around and landed in El Salvador, the president of that country mocked the judge's order by tweeting, quote, oopsie, too late. He literally used the word oopsie.
That was then reposted by America's secretary of state, Marco Rubio. Well, today, the judge in that case wrote that there is probable cause for contempt charges against Trump administration officials.
He cited that instance specifically, quote, boasts by defendants intimated that they had defied the court's order deliberately and gleefully. The secretary of state, for instance, retweeted a post in which above a news headline noting this court's order to return the flights to the U.S., the president of El Salvador wrote, oopsie, too late.
Life comes at you fast, Marco Rubio. Joining us now is Lee Geller, deputy director of the ACLU's Immigrants Rights Project and the lead attorney in this case against the administration, Mr.
Glernt. Thank you very much for being with us tonight.
I appreciate it.

Thanks, Rachel.

This is one of those rulings from a federal judge that gets read on nightly news shows because it is narrative and it is written in a way that is designed to make clear to

all people, not just lawyers, how serious the stakes are here and how badly in this

judge's estimation, the administration has messed up on something very serious. What's your reaction to this ruling and what do you think it will mean for this case? Yeah, a few things.
I mean, so first of all, your introduction, I think, hit it right. This is serious business and we're in a very serious place.
And I think you're right about the way the judge wrote it. I think he's writing for more than just the lawyers, more than just law professors.
He's trying to talk to the American public about what it would mean if court orders are violated. And I think the other thing he said, which is really important, is because I've been sitting there in court, obviously, for all these hearings is he has given the government time and time again, the opportunity to explain themselves.
And they've simply refused. The most important thing from our standpoint is I'm going to let other people get into whether we're at a constitutional crisis now or approaching it and what it means for the rule of law in a larger sense.
The most important thing for me today was that the court said, look, they can still get out from under this if they do the right thing and bring these men back. And obviously, everyone's focused on Kilmer right now, and that's critically important that he be brought back.
But in our case, there were hundreds of Venezuelan men who were wrongfully sent to this prison and are there now. And I think Judge Bozberg's saying, look, as bad as this was, I don't need to go through with all this.
If you just do the right thing and bring these men back, unfortunately, the government has already appealed his order. His order came out this afternoon.
They've already appealed it rather than saying, OK, we'll do the right thing and bring these men back. And to be clearly, what the judge is signaling here is that the Trump administration does not need to set all of these people free or release them or do any other specific thing.
The judge is simply saying that these men must be brought back into the custody of the United States, that they must be under the control and custody of the United States so that the proceedings on any number of their cases can proceed along the lines that are afforded under the Constitution. He's not telling the administration that they need to do any one thing with any of these men other than put them back under U.S.
control. Yeah, I'm glad you said that, Rachel.
That's absolutely right. The judge has gone out of his way to make clear that he is not ordering these men to be released on U.S.
streets. If they've committed crimes, they could be prosecuted.
They can be detained under our immigration laws, and they can be removed under our immigration laws. But they can't be sent to a foreign prison, potentially for the rest of their lives, without due process.
What he is saying is bring them back to the U.S., give them due process. And if ultimately they're deported under the immigration laws, then they're deported under the immigration laws.
But he is not by any means saying they should be free to be out of detention until they have due process that can prove that they're not gang members. But that's exactly right.
I mean, there's a false choice going on here where we either send them to this brutal Salvadoran prison for the rest of their lives, or we let them out on U.S. streets.

That's not what's going on.

He's simply saying you cannot use a wartime authority without any due process.

And he's been 100% clear about it.

The government knows that.

And what he has said to the government point blank in court is,

look, if anybody in the administration is going out there saying,

I'm letting these people out on the street, they need to stop doing it. He's, I think, really upset that people are mischaracterizing what he's

doing. Do you expect, I guess the way to ask this is, do you expect a predictable outcome

if this case does result in Trump administration officials being held in contempt. I feel like that is something that is very rare in U.S.
history. It's certainly very rare on a matter like this, where the government has been given lots and lots and lots of opportunity to remedy its compliance with the court's orders.
Is there anything that we should sort of be preparing ourselves for if contempt proceedings do proceed here? You know, if the government is going to put people on the stand, it will be surprising to me, at least. I think the only thing that's predictable now about the Trump administration is they're going to take this all the way to the U.S.
Supreme Court again. And how the court rules, I don't know.
But I don't see the government saying, sure, we'll bring the people back. We'll do the right thing.
Or sure, we'll take the stand and tell you the truth. I wish one of those two things would happen.
But right now, based on what I've seen the last few months, I don't see the Trump administration doing it. So I would say in answer to your question, the only thing that's predictable is they will keep fighting.
They've already appealed to the circuit, and I suspect they'll go to the Supreme Court. That's unfortunate.
Yeah. I mean, even if they do go to the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court tells them to bring these guys back, they're going to bring these guys back.
They are, because they have to, because there's no other choice. There's no choose-your-own-adventure in our country where

an order like that from the Supreme Court is defied. It just doesn't.
They may hem and haw,

but it's just not going to happen. We're not going to be there.
Lee DeLarne, Deputy Director

for the ACLU's Immigrants' Rights Project, the lead lawyer in this case against the Trump

administration. Lee, I know it's been a long and very intense day.
Thanks for your help tonight. Thanks, Rachel.
We'll be right back.

All right, that's going to do it for me tonight. I will see you again tomorrow and every night this

week at 9 p.m. Eastern.