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

Speaker 1 This episode is presented by Planned Parenthood Federation of America. This year, lawmakers have attacked our rights, stretched the truth, and taken away access to health care.

Speaker 1 Through it all, Planned Parenthood has been on the front lines, providing care, defending patients, fighting back.

Speaker 1 But the Trump administration and Congress passed a law to defund Planned Parenthood, putting care for 1.1 million patients at risk. Planned Parenthood isn't backing down.

Speaker 1 They're still here, protecting access to birth control, cancer screenings, abortion, and more. Visit plannedparenthood.org/slash defend and donate today.

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Speaker 10 Thanks, Du 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.

Speaker 10 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.

Speaker 10 It gets a lot of national attention, in particular for its sports teams. The most high-profile college sports are obviously football and basketball.

Speaker 10 Michigan State almost always has really great teams in both football and basketball. I've also got a pretty good hockey program.

Speaker 10 Because Michigan State is a Division I school and because they are very, very good at the sports that get on TV.

Speaker 10 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.

Speaker 10 Whether or not you've got any connection to Michigan, people all over this country know Michigan State and the Michigan State Spartans.

Speaker 10 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.

Speaker 10 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.

Speaker 10 And what that means is kind of what it says.

Speaker 10 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

Speaker 10 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.

Speaker 10 They would treat Trump attacking any any one of those schools as an attack on all of those schools. So

Speaker 10 no matter which one Trump picks first to go after,

Speaker 10 no school would have to fight alone.

Speaker 10 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.

Speaker 10 They join Rutgers in New Jersey and the University of Nebraska at Lincoln and Indiana University, Indiana University, excuse me, Indiana University at Bloomington.

Speaker 10 Also, outside the Big Ten, the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. All those schools have taken the same or similar steps thus far.

Speaker 10 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.

Speaker 10 We believe a vote like that is under discussion already at the University of Minnesota and at Penn State.

Speaker 10 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.

Speaker 10 But you know, a statement is just a statement. All that and a dollar will buy you a scratch ticket.
And frankly,

Speaker 10 time is short.

Speaker 10 But I'm telling you, this is a movement that is nevertheless picking up steam.

Speaker 10 Today we've got grad student unions at a whole bunch of universities asking for their schools schools to join in a mutual academic defense compact like this as well.

Speaker 10 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.

Speaker 10 University of Chicago, Northwestern, University of New Mexico, New Mexico State, North Carolina State, Johns Hopkins, MIT,

Speaker 10 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.

Speaker 10 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

Speaker 10 as well.

Speaker 10 So this is something that is really picking up steam, but it ought to.

Speaker 10 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.

Speaker 11 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.

Speaker 10 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.

Speaker 10 And he didn't mean it ironically. They're really not kidding about this stuff.

Speaker 10 Part of their mission is to use their power in the U.S. government to destroy American higher education, to destroy U.S.

Speaker 10 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.

Speaker 10 They have been saying this for years. Now it is clear we should believe them.

Speaker 10 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.

Speaker 10 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.

Speaker 10 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.

Speaker 10 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?

Speaker 10 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.

Speaker 10 And so yes, now we are seeing all kinds of colleges all all across the country move toward mutual defense pacts with other schools. Basically little NATO treaties for all the colleges.

Speaker 10 An attack on one is an attack on all.

Speaker 10 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.

Speaker 10 Once he's targeted you, it's too late to have a mutual defense treaty in position.

Speaker 10 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.

Speaker 10 So we're going to stay on this. We're going to keep you posted.

Speaker 10 While we are on this subject, though, may I also introduce you to the Federal Workers Legal Defense Network. This is brand new.

Speaker 10 More than 1,000 lawyers in 42 states have completed training now to to defend federal workers from all aspects of what Trump is doing to them in the federal government.

Speaker 10 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.

Speaker 10 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.

Speaker 10 This was convened by civil rights groups, including the Leadership Conference on Civil and and Human Rights, and advocacy groups like Democracy Forward.

Speaker 10 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.

Speaker 10 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.

Speaker 10 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

Speaker 10 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,

Speaker 10 speed matters.

Speaker 10 That said, even if it hasn't been done already, still do it, right?

Speaker 10 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.

Speaker 10 And so yes, as of today, we've got one. And that means that federal workers are better off today than they were before.

Speaker 10 In terms of the country standing up its defenses against the authoritarian takeover,

Speaker 10 The Washington Post tonight was first to report on Trump's plans for what he's going to do to healthcare.

Speaker 10 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.

Speaker 10 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.

Speaker 10 On top of those 10,000 people fired from HHS, Trump's new plan is reportedly to to cut another $40 billion from

Speaker 10 U.S. healthcare and health research.
That's fully a third of what the United States spends on healthcare and research. Trump wants to cut all of the CDC's work, for example, on heart disease

Speaker 10 and obesity and diabetes and smoking and HIV.

Speaker 10 You think that might galvanize people in this country?

Speaker 10 Trump is not saying he wants to trim these programs or make them more efficient.

Speaker 10 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.

Speaker 10 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?

Speaker 10 Have you ever even heard of that? Heart disease? Does that sound like a foreign concept?

Speaker 10 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?

Speaker 10 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?

Speaker 10 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

Speaker 10 of of the U.S. government working on those woke liberal problems

Speaker 10 like diabetes.

Speaker 10 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.

Speaker 10 Look at this. Look at that crowd.
Middle of the day on a Wednesday in Montana.

Speaker 10 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.

Speaker 10 This is not a liberal enclave in California. And they turned out 26,000 people in Folsom.

Speaker 10 You know, I heard that they were, that someone started

Speaker 14 flying a plane with a banner

Speaker 14 that said,

Speaker 14 this is Trump country.

Speaker 14 It sure don't look like it today.

Speaker 14 I don't think this is Trump country.

Speaker 12 I think this is our country.

Speaker 10 That was Folsom, California, in a Republican congressional district yesterday. This was the day before that,

Speaker 10 Monday, in Ruby Red, Idaho, a sold-out capacity crowd of 12,500 people. Look at this in Nampa, Idaho.

Speaker 10 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,

Speaker 10 his office saying that this crowd that turned out in Los Angeles. Drop the chiron there so people can see the crowd.
Thank you.

Speaker 10 Senator Bernie Sanders' office saying this crowd of 36,000 people that turned out to see him and AOC in Los Angeles on Saturday was the biggest crowd that Senator Bernie Sanders has ever spoken to anywhere.

Speaker 10 These are just massive, massive, massive events that the two of them have been holding in, yes, in California, but not in the, not necessarily in the

Speaker 10 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.

Speaker 10 electoral politics.

Speaker 10 The fight oligarchy tour.

Speaker 10 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.

Speaker 10 And 8%? I know, 8% sounds like single digits, but 8% when you're talking about like about like 200,000 people they've spoken to at these events thus far, that's saying something.

Speaker 10 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.

Speaker 10 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.

Speaker 10 And that, of course, is starting to rattle everyone in politics on all sides, which is always fun to see.

Speaker 10 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,

Speaker 10 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,

Speaker 10 thousands of protests, protests that are happening every day and in every state.

Speaker 10 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.

Speaker 10 And at the Social Security office in La Crosse, Wisconsin.

Speaker 10 And in East Vancouver, Washington, people, again, protesting to protect Social Security.

Speaker 10 In Baltimore, Maryland, people protesting against Trump letting his top campaign donor, Elon Musk, access everyone's personal data at the Social Security Administration.

Speaker 10 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.

Speaker 10 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.

Speaker 10 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.

Speaker 10 At Florida International University in Miami, protests against Trump's attacks on immigrants and on international students. No ice on campus.

Speaker 10 At the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee, a protest against students' visas being revoked.

Speaker 10 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 Oz Turk.

Speaker 10 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.

Speaker 10 Put her in an unmarked car.

Speaker 10 Yesterday, also in Louisiana, a protest outside that immigration prison, which is holding Ramesa Oz Turk, and also holding Mahmoud Khalil from Columbia University and frankly, thousands of other people whose names we do not know.

Speaker 10 People protested at the Tesla dealership in Chicago yesterday, including these kind of cute signs that are shaped like cyber trucks.

Speaker 10 I've never thought cyber trucks were cute, but the signs shaped like cyber trucks are cute.

Speaker 10 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.

Speaker 10 is doing to national health care for Trump. Oh boy.

Speaker 10 Indiana residents turned out at the state capitol to tell Governor Mike Braun

Speaker 10 what to do with that idea. Signs saying things like, Governor Braun, why ask a lawyer for medical advice and hands off our vaccines?

Speaker 10 And simply, clown show.

Speaker 10 The resounding no that you are hearing, or the resounding clown show raspberries, or the resounding ovation for the

Speaker 10 this doesn't look like Trump country, this looks like our country, comment from Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez. I mean,

Speaker 10 what I just showed you is just a snapshot of a day.

Speaker 10 But that kind of resistance, that kind of saying no, that kind of rejection of what Trump is doing and a willing to protest it and say no to it,

Speaker 10 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.

Speaker 10 The mutual academic defense agreements for colleges.

Speaker 10 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.

Speaker 10 We also saw it yesterday in something I've never really seen before, a very unusual show of support for judges and for the judiciary.

Speaker 10 A small group, including a sitting judge and a retired judge, and a number of legal academics, legal professionals,

Speaker 10 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.

Speaker 10 Among the judges who participated in this was Judge Astor Salas, whose husband was grievously wounded and whose son was murdered

Speaker 10 in New Jersey.

Speaker 10 I first heard about this. I thought,

Speaker 10 one, this is a very unusual thing. You You don't hear about the judiciary asking people to stand up for them very often.
And two,

Speaker 10 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.

Speaker 10 I bet they're going to get, you know, like 200 or 300 people

Speaker 10 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.

Speaker 10 They got more than 7,000 people joining that event in the middle of the day on a Tuesday.

Speaker 10 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,

Speaker 10 put it in blunt terms,

Speaker 10 they are innumerable. and unpredictable.
And they surprise me every day that we cover this stuff.

Speaker 10 But today we saw something from a U.S. senator that we never thought any U.S.
senator would ever have to do.

Speaker 10 And so add this to the pantheon of things that people are doing to stand up to this administration and to try to stop some of the worst of worst that they are trying to do.

Speaker 10 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.

Speaker 10 Today, a U.S.

Speaker 10 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.

Speaker 10 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,

Speaker 10 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.

Speaker 10 Senator Van Holland 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.

Speaker 10 Well, today, the senator went to El Salvador himself to try to get

Speaker 10 And Senator Chris Van Holland joins us live from El Salvador. Next.

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Speaker 10 The prison in El Salvador, well, where Kilmar Abrego Garcia was sent, the Trump administration says by mistake,

Speaker 10 is one of the largest maximum security prisons in Latin America.

Speaker 10 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.

Speaker 10 Homeland Security Secretary Christy Noam toured the prison in March, posting an Abu Ghraib-style video and photos of herself in front of a crowded cell.

Speaker 10 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.

Speaker 10 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.

Speaker 10 He is the senior senator from the state where Kilmar Obrego-Garcia lived with his family until the Trump administration had him arrested and took him to this foreign prison in a move the administration, again, admitted was what they called an administrative error.

Speaker 10 Democratic Senator Chris Van Holland of Maryland landed in El Salvador today with the hope that he might see Mr. Obrego Garcia or be able to talk to him.

Speaker 12 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.

Speaker 12 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.

Speaker 12 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.

Speaker 10 Senator Van Holland landing in El Salvador today, hoping for a chance to meet with Kilmar Obrego-Garcia in that prison.

Speaker 10 Senator Van Holland says the vice president of El Salvador told him he would not be able to do that when he met with him today.

Speaker 10 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.

Speaker 10 I know it's been a very long day.

Speaker 12 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, 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.

Speaker 12 So that's why I raised these issues directly with the Vice President of El Salvador.

Speaker 12 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.

Speaker 7 What are,

Speaker 10 What's sort of the range of potential outcomes here that you think are possible? What are you hoping to accomplish on this trip?

Speaker 10 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?

Speaker 12 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.

Speaker 12 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.

Speaker 12 And I said to the vice president of El Salvador, look, you've got somebody in your worst prison, the prison for terrorists, who the United States court has said has committed no crime.

Speaker 12 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.

Speaker 12 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.

Speaker 12 here despite the court orders.

Speaker 12 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 commit 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

Speaker 10 I just want to underscore what you just said there, that you were told by the U.S.

Speaker 10 Embassy in El Salvador 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.

Speaker 10 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.

Speaker 10 government, trying to attain that outcome, correct?

Speaker 12 Well, that's exactly right.

Speaker 12 And it is pretty clear that the Trump administration has not not lifted a finger to implement that court order. And so I think it's important that the courts know that and they will know that.

Speaker 12 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.

Speaker 12 And, you know, I asked the vice president if I came back next week whether or not I could go visit Kilmar.

Speaker 12 And the answer was, no, he 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

Speaker 12 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.

Speaker 12 I 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 Pamboni said the United States would send a plane down here.

Speaker 12 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.

Speaker 10 Again, you mentioned that other.

Speaker 10 Sorry, go ahead. Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt.

Speaker 12 No, I think you, I mean, this is, of course, about

Speaker 12 the family and making sure the family gets justice.

Speaker 12 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, right? This is like taking away people's freedom.

Speaker 12 That does not sound like a conservative idea to me.

Speaker 12 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.

Speaker 10 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.

Speaker 10 Senator Corey Booker of New Jersey has expressed interest in going.

Speaker 10 Congressman Maxwell Frost, the young congressman from Florida, has has formally requested a congressional delegation, a codel, to El Salvador.

Speaker 10 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, Christy Noam, was able to get in and do a photo op there.

Speaker 10 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 in there to do, to make essentially social media content while still denying you the opportunity to get inside.

Speaker 12 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.

Speaker 12 I think it's $15 million that the Trump administration is going to be paying El Salvador to essentially take these

Speaker 12 folks from the United States who have been denied due process in the case of Kilmar.

Speaker 12 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.

Speaker 12 So

Speaker 12 I do think, though, as we continue to put the spotlight on this injustice, that they ultimately will have to let him go.

Speaker 12 I just, I believe that will be the case because I believe people will keep pressing for justice.

Speaker 10 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.

Speaker 10 Please keep us apprised.

Speaker 10 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.

Speaker 10 So please be safe, keep us apprised, and we'll look forward to having you back on soon.

Speaker 12 Will do. Thank you, Rachel.

Speaker 10 All right. More news ahead here tonight.
Stay with us.

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Speaker 10 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.

Speaker 10 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.

Speaker 10 Defendants provide no convincing reason to avoid the conclusion that appears obvious. They deliberately flouted this court's order.

Speaker 10 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.

Speaker 10 None of their positions withstand scrutiny. Defendants' conduct, moreover, manifests a willful disregard of the court's legally binding prescriptions.

Speaker 10 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.

Speaker 10 When the judge says acted contemptuously, he means in a legal sense, as in the defendants acted in contempt of court.

Speaker 10 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.

Speaker 10 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 the contempt of court.

Speaker 10 It's right there.

Speaker 10 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.

Speaker 10 The administration did not do that. Instead, they sent those people to that prison in El Salvador anyway.

Speaker 10 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 how and who else is implicated in this mess.

Speaker 10 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.

Speaker 10 He gave the Trump administration until Wednesday, next week, one week, to either fix this mess by having the U.S.

Speaker 10 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.

Speaker 10 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.

Speaker 10 Last month, the Trump administration appeared to 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.

Speaker 10 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.

Speaker 10 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.

Speaker 10 He cited that instance specifically, quote, boasts by defendants intimated that they had defied the court's order deliberately and gleefully.

Speaker 10 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.

Speaker 10 Life comes at you fast, Marco Rubio. Joining us now is Lee Gallernt, Deputy Director of the ACLU's Immigrants' Rights Project and the lead attorney in this case against the administration, Mr.

Speaker 10 Gallernt. Thank you very much for being with us tonight.
I appreciate it.

Speaker 18 Thanks, Rachel.

Speaker 10 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.

Speaker 10 What's your reaction to this ruling and what do you think it will mean for this case?

Speaker 18 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.

Speaker 18 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.

Speaker 18 He's trying to talk to the American public about what it would mean if court orders are violated.

Speaker 18 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.

Speaker 18 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.

Speaker 18 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.

Speaker 18 And obviously, everyone's focused on Kilmer right now, and that's critically important that he be brought back.

Speaker 18 But in our case, there were hundreds of Venezuelan men who were wrongfully sent to this prison and are there now.

Speaker 18 And I think Judge Boesberg'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.

Speaker 18 Unfortunately, the government has already appealed his order. His order came out this afternoon.

Speaker 18 They've already appealed it rather than saying, okay, we'll do the right thing and bring these men back.

Speaker 10 And to be clearly, what the judge is signaling here is that the Trump administration does not need to

Speaker 10 set all of these people free or

Speaker 10 release them or do any other specific thing.

Speaker 10 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 one, any number of their cases can proceed along the lines that are afforded under the Constitution, right?

Speaker 10 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.

Speaker 18 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.

Speaker 18 If they've committed crimes, they could be prosecuted.

Speaker 18 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.

Speaker 18 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.

Speaker 18 But he is not by any means saying they should be free to be out of detention until they've had due process and can prove that they're not gang members. But that's exactly right.

Speaker 18 I mean, there's a false choice going on here where it's 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.

Speaker 18 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.

Speaker 18 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.

Speaker 18 He's, I think, really upset that people are mischaracterizing what he's doing.

Speaker 10 Do you expect,

Speaker 10 I guess the way to ask this is, do you expect a predictable outcome

Speaker 10 if this case does

Speaker 10 result in

Speaker 10 Trump administration officials being held in contempt?

Speaker 10 I feel like that is something that is very rare in U.S. history.

Speaker 10 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.

Speaker 10 Is there anything that we should sort of be preparing ourselves for if contempt proceedings do proceed here?

Speaker 18 You know, if the government is going to put people on the stand, it will be surprising to me at least.

Speaker 18 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.

Speaker 18 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.

Speaker 18 But right now, based on what I've seen the last few months, I don't see the Trump administration doing it.

Speaker 18 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.

Speaker 18 And that's unfortunate.

Speaker 18 Yeah.

Speaker 10 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.

Speaker 10 They are, because they have to, because there's no other choice.

Speaker 10 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 ham and haw, but it's just not going to happen.

Speaker 10 We're not going to be there.

Speaker 10 Lee Blarn, Deputy Director for the ACLU's

Speaker 10 Immigrants' Rights Project, excuse me, 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.

Speaker 18 Thanks, Rachel.

Speaker 10 We'll be right back.

Speaker 10 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.

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