No Return –Just in time for baseball season, it was reminiscent of the century-old “Who’s On First?” routine. Think Abbot & Costello & Orbán. First, the Supreme Court had ruled that the Trump administration must “facilitate” return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia from El Salvador’s CECOT prison for terrorists, as the White House admits he was transferred there by mistake.
President Trump, seen above meeting in the Oval Office Monday with El Salvador’s “self-styled world’s coolest dictator” Nayib Bukele – a description that so far Trump’s people have not challenged – told reporters that El Salvador first has to release Garcia. Trump passed the issue on to US Attorney General Pam Bondi.
“That’s up to El Salvador if they want to return him,” Bondi said. “That’s not up to us. That’s not up to us. If they want to return him, we would facilitate it, meaning provide a plane.”
To which Bukele replied (this exchange per The Atlantic); “I hope you’re not suggesting that I smuggle a terrorist into the United States. That is preposterous.”
It should be noted that by admitting Garcia, who has lived in Maryland since 2011, was transferred to CECOT by mistake, there is no evidence he is a terrorist or a gang member, though the White House now seems to want us to believe he is, by repeating with no proof that he is a gang member. It also should be noted that the US is paying El Salvador to imprison 261 alleged gangsters, most from Venezuela, there.
Who’s next? … Trump suggested to Bukele that “home-growns are next,” though he subsequently clarified that to mean US citizens guilty of the most violent crimes, like pushing commuters in front of approaching New York subway trains.
Who’s guilty? … It must be noted that Trump has had a tenuous grip of the concept of due process going back at least to 1989, when he called for the death penalty for the Central Park Five before they went to trial (they were exonerated in 2002) in full-page ads placed in The New York Times, New York Daily News, New York Post and Newsday.
Constitutional crisis … Trump may not be the “world’s coolest dictator,” but he is ignoring due process while interpreting – pardon the use of this term – liberally SCOTUS’ ruling on Garcia’s return.
Satirist’s take … “I did not think he would get this authoritarian this fast,” host Jon Stewart said of Trump on Comedy Central’s The Daily Show Monday night.
Crisis? … Agree? Disagree? that the Trump White House has gone full-authoritarian and that we are in a constitutional crisis? Email your thoughts to editors@thehustings.news.
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Fed Cuts Off Harvard – The Trump administration Monday night froze more than $2.2 billion in federal funds to Harvard University, NPR’s Morning Edition reports, for refusing to eliminate DEI, failing to give merit-based admissions priority over race-based considerations and for being “supportive of terrorism or anti-Semitism.”
Read contributing pundit Jerry Lanson’s commentary, “Harvard Takes a Stand” in the left column.
--TL
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MONDAY 4/14/25
'World's Coolest Dictator' Visits Trump White House
The ‘self-styled world’s coolest dictator,’ El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, Monday becomes the first Latin American leader to visit President Trump at the White House, NPR’s Morning Edition reports. This photo is from a slick video Bukele’s administration posted on Elon Musk’s X-Twitter of the Trump administration’s deportation and imprisonment of hundreds of alleged Venezuelan and Salvadoran ‘gang members’ to El Salvador’s high-tech CECOT gulag, a ‘terrorism detention center.’
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Trade War Escalates – China has suspended export – to anywhere globally -- of a “wide range” of critical minerals and magnets, The New York Times reports, threatening to choke off supplies necessary for the automotive, aerospace, semiconductor and military contractor industries. Beijing is drafting a new regulatory system as part of its official retaliation for President Trump’s April 2 tariffs.
This comes after Trump pulled back on 145% tariffs on Chinese goods for smartphones, computers, semiconductors and other electronics in a rule issued late last Friday.
For now … The White House’s delay Friday is, indeed, only a delay, Commerce Sec. Howard Lutnick told ABC News’ This WeekSunday; New, special semiconductor tariffs will come in “a month or two.” [READ: Pundit-at-Large Stephen Macaulay’s take, “This is Strategy?” in the right column.]
“All those products are going to come under semiconductors, and they’re going to have a special focus type of tariff to make sure that those products get reshored,” Lutnick told ABC News’ Jonathan Karl. “We need to have semiconductors, we need to have chips, and we need to have flat panels – we need to have these things made in America.”
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Russia Escalates War on Ukraine – Russia is “mocking” the 30-day ceasefire negotiated between the Trump administration and Ukraine -- but not Russia – Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski told Polish radio Monday according to The Kyiv Independent. Sikorski condemned Russia’s recent deadly attacks on Ukraine, including missiles on the city of Sumy that killed at least 34 and injured 119, and an April 4 attack on Kryvyi Rih that killed 20, including nine children, and injured more than 70.
In an interview broadcast Sunday on CBS News’ 60 Minutes, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy urged President Trump to visit his country and talk to its citizens and soldiers.
“You think you understand” Russia’s war against Ukraine (which Trump promised to end on his first day in office), Zelenskyy told Scott Pelley. “Look, and then let’s move with a plan to end the war.”
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Arson on Penn Governor’s Mansion – Gov. Josh Shapiro and his family were evacuated from the Pennsylvania governor’s mansion early Sunday morning after a man scaled the property’s fence and ignited fires in the piano room and kitchen, LNP/Lancaster Online reports. State police have charged Cody A. Balmer, 38, with criminal homicide, aggravated arson, burglary and five related offenses after he allegedly started the fires with two beer bottle Molotov cocktails. Balmer told police he attempted the fires out of hatred for the Democratic governor and said he had planned to attack Shapiro with a sledgehammer.
--Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa