Bulwark Takes - Sen. Van Hollen Isn't Afraid To Fight Trump’s Shadow Gulags

Episode Date: April 30, 2025

Senator Chris Van Hollen blasts Trump’s first 100 days as a nonstop assault on the Constitution, citing due process violations, First Amendment crackdowns, illegal tariffs, and blatant lawbreaking.

Bettering your business takes working with the best. With the James Hardy Alliance, you gain access to leads, training, networking, and support from the number one brand of siding in North America. Achieve new levels of success by joining the James Hardy Alliance today. Hey everybody, it's Tim Miller from The Bulwark. I'm delighted to be here with Senator from Maryland, Chris Van Hollen, who is just off the floor giving a speech about the Trump administration's attacks on the rule of law. How are you doing, Senator? Well, Tim, I'm good, other than the fact that we're witnessing this serial lawbreaking in the first 100 days. Yeah. Talk to us about what you

laid out in the speech and what elements you think are the most alarming at this point. Sure. Look, I did a short inventory of the lawbreaking going on, starting with violations of constitutional due process rights. That's obviously the case in Mr. Obrego-Garcia's situation. But I pointed out that when Trump can tear up the Constitution and ignore court orders in this case, he threatens the rights of everybody who lives in America. I talked about the shredding of First Amendment rights, students on university and college campuses, and, you know, pointed out that the citizenship test for the United States actually has a question about the First Amendment. And clearly, the Trump folks need a big refresher course when it comes to the First Amendment, because while they lecture about the importance of freedom of speech around the

world, they're obviously taking it away from students here at home. They seem to think it's like optional or cherry pick. And then I also talked briefly about their violations of the Impoundment Control Act and Article 1, and then their abuse of emergency economic powers to put on these across-the-board tariffs that are hammering our economy. So it was just 100 days and a whole lot of lawbreaking going on. Yeah. While you mention the tariffs, and then we'll get to Rego Garcia, something I've just been really on a hot one over. Your colleagues in the Senate, I was asking Senator Booker about this last week. If you took a secret ballot vote,

you could have the 67 votes that would be needed to take the tariff power away from the president. And as you mentioned, it's already already he's gone beyond what his constitutional powers are on this. Have you had any conversations with any of them? Do you have any hope that there could be any pressuring of them to actually show some spine on this before, you know, he sends the country into a recession with this extrajudicial use of tariff power? So the short answer is I've had some conversations. It's pretty clear that while I would guess, based on those conversations, that a lot of Republican senators think it's terrible economic policy, as well as exceeding the president's authority, we've seen very little evidence to date of their willingness to step up and challenge this president on anything at all.

Their capacity to just be rubber stamps seems endless at this point. It will only reach a tipping point when they're more afraid of the sentiment of their constituents, small businesses, and others than they are about being on the wrong end of a tweet from Donald Trump or Elon Musk. That's going to be the tipping point, and we haven't reached it yet. We're going to be in a Great Depression before that happens, Senator, so I'm not too excited about that. Let's talk about Abrego Garcia. Did you have a chance to see the interview last night with Donald Trump and Terry Moran? I caught the video this morning, yes.

Yeah, you caught the video. seems to believe that what appears to me to be a photoshopped image of Kilmar Abrego Garcia with like the letters MS-13 and aerial font on his knuckles. The president seems to believe that is real. And you, I guess are the one person that we could ask having had a glass of water with him, whether or not he had MS-13 tattooed on his knuckles.

Well, I wasn't paying close attention to his hands. I was actually speaking to him. He hadn't spoken to anybody outside of prison. I think I would have jumped out, though, because aerial font, MS-13. Let's just be very clear about this, that that was photoshopped or otherwise put on by the Trump administration. And it's really, it's incredible that the president is so delusional about that. I don't know if like Steve Miller or somebody just handed him that photo and he's just putting it up there. But I've said repeatedly, Tim, that they need to put up or shut up in court. Right. I mean, whether it's that, has been very clear on this, and I can quote it by heart right now. She said the administration has produced no evidence linking Abrego Garcia

to MS-13 or any terrorist activity, unquote. And she goes on to expand about that. So my message to President Trump and all his cronies is put up or shut up in court. That is where we address these issues of fact, where people actually have to be put, you know, under oath. And let's remember that in court, when the Trump administration lawyer admitted that they wrongfully seized and deported Abrego Garcia. They didn't fix the problem. They fired the lawyer. Yeah. Astonishing. When you had a chance to talk to Kilmar, did you guys talk much about the conditions in Sukkot or just kind of what it was like in there? I guess he has been moved to a different location, but what could you tell us about what you heard about that? I can tell you that he said he was traumatized by the experience. He was obviously traumatized by

being illegally seized in the United States and, you know, put on a series of planes, not knowing where he was going and ending up in in Seacott, which is a notorious prison. It's for the worst of the worst it's for terrorists uh and he said he was traumatized by that he said he was not afraid for his life from the people who were in the cell with him i asked him that specifically he said he had about about 25 if i'm remembering correctly um other you know there were other prisoners in his cell he wasn't worried about them but he was fearful and traumatized. And, you know, he did tell me he'd been moved to this other facility that was somewhat better.

But I want to emphasize this new facility, he still is under a total communications blackout. I mean, no one can communicate with him, not his wife, not his mom, not his brother, which is a total violation of international law, especially to deny any access to his lawyers. But that's what's happening right now, even in this other place. And what about treatment by, you know, the El Salvador, what, RoboCops, whatever you want to call them, that we've seen the images of? Yeah, he didn't indicate that he'd been harmed. That was really one of the first questions I asked him. Again, he spoke about the trauma, but not that he'd been

harmed. And what about either in that conversation or others that you've had, because I'm sure you've been reached out to, there are a lot of other Venezuelans that have been sent there. I mean, the Albrego Garcia case has been the one that's gained the most attention. He's your constituent. So it made sense you were going there to talk about him. But it made, and it also has gained the most attention because it's the one case where the government admitted that they screwed up. But there sure seems to be a lot of evidence that they screwed up in some of these other cases, whether it be the makeup artist, the guy with the autism awareness tattoo, the person that came to the country legally through Columbia, and then into Florida and went to the third country, went through the process correctly, so it didn't, you know, did not come illegally. There are a couple in that situation. What about any of those folks? Have you heard any reports about any of them? Do you have any sense for what's happening

there? I have not had any sort of direct interaction with any of them, but your point is right on. Because in those cases also where the courts have found that these individuals' due process rights were violated, the Trump administration appears to be taking a no action there. So we really are in a constitutional crisis where the administration is just thumbing its nose at the Constitution and the courts. And again, as I've stressed from the beginning, this is the Braygo Garcia case is not just about one person. These other cases are not just about certain people. They're really about whether or not we're going to stand by

and let constitutional due process rights be violated. And that puts all of our rights in jeopardy. And I was very alarmed to see Secretary Rubio respond to a question today at a cabinet meeting, in this case, I believe, the Rego Garcia case, where he essentially said, you know, we're not going to let the courts tell us what to do. Well, the courts are there to help protect due process rights of people who live in this country. And here you have the secretary of state who's ignoring them. I mean, this is the secretary of state who is not actually conducting foreign policy.

He's become the student deporter in chief. of American foreign policy, you know, based on democracy and human rights and free speech when he was here in the United States Senate. He's now busy, you know, ripping up the Constitution, pretending that the First Amendment only protects speech that he and the Trump administration like and not other people's speech. Thank you for saying that. Abductor-in-chief, you could almost say. The Marco Rubio element of this is so alarming. At some level, he's the most culpable out of all these folks. I mean, at least in the case of the students on campus, it required the Secretary of State to take away their student visa and the State Department. Trump passed the ball to him as far as on the situation with El Salvador during one of his interviews recently. Absolutely outrageous.

You know, he's the guy who went and did this sort of contract deal with President Bukele. And when I met with the vice president of El Salvador, because when I visited, the president was not in country. It was very clear that the only reason El Salvador was holding Abrego Garcia was because we, the United States, were paying them to do it. It was like a contract. So the notion that the Trump administration cannot facilitate his return is obviously specious on its face. And I do want to say about the students that, you know, Rubio's dredged up this 1950s McCarthy-era law based on the McCarran-Walter Act, which was a law passed at the height of the McCarthy era. And he's actually claiming that these students who were protesting about the situation in Gaza or Palestinian rights were somehow threatening the foreign policy of the United States. Now, you can agree with the students or strongly disagree with the students on these issues. But what Rubio is doing is using this ruse of threatening foreign policy to shut down

speech and First Amendment rights. And I hope the courts will see right through it. Same. I mean, I disagree with the students on most things, but it's insane that we're sending them to a detention center here in Louisiana. Two more things, just really quick, before I lose you, just on what can be done here for the people that are still in Sakat. The fact that you acted and went there, a burglarcy is not free, so the objective hasn't been achieved here. He hasn't achieved his due process rights,

so the objective hasn't been achieved, but he got out of the prison to meet you, right? And so that was something. There was a tangible result from your action. What else do you think could be done to continue to pressure these guys? Because they are responsive to that, it seems to me. Yeah. So there I went with two purposes. One, as you say, was to, you know, seek his release because he'd been unconstitutionally snatched from the United States, but also to just set eyes on him because his family didn't know if

he was dead or alive. I mean, nobody had heard from him until I met with him, and no one's heard from him since. And so you're right. Ultimately, the government of El Salvador relented because I asked and they said no. I tried to go see him. The soldiers stopped me, but they did relent. So in addition to keeping pressure here on the administration, Trump administration at home. Yes, I think we should definitely put pressure on the government of El Salvador. And I have said that, you know, American tourists can vote with their feet. There are lots of nice places in Central America, right? There's Costa Rica, there's Guatemala.

People should say they're not going to go to visit a country, you know, as tourists that's essentially got this prison that's being filled with people like Abrego Garcia, whose constitutional rights have been violated. I've also called upon states to divest their pension funds from any businesses that have holdings in El Salvador. And I was pleased to see Governor Pritzker from Illinois, you know, a number of days back become the first. So these are the things we can do. El Salvador is a destination point for one of the big surfing competitions. So I will tell you, Tim, the main thing in front of mind for the president of El Salvador is right now the economy. And, you know, they want to become one of the tech,

you know, capitals of the region. I told them I don't think it's very good branding to become the place, the gulag, where, you know, people who are unconstitutionally snatched from the United States are deposited. So all of us, actually, everyone listening here can sort of take personal action and say, you know, we're not going to go as tourists to El Salvador. We're not going to, you know, engage with the country of El Salvador until they stop, you know, colluding with the Trump administration to violate the constitutional rights of people who live here. It's an opportunity for Gavin Newsom, maybe too, governor of a state with a big tech hub. All right, last things. Speaker, today there's, I guess, a little bit of a back and

forth. We had a report in the Bulwark that some members of the House and some of their staff had said that the Speaker was discouraging people from going to El Salvador. Since then, Speaker Jeffries put out a statement, or his staff put out a statement that basically said, you know, they want us, Obrega Garcia, free. You know, they want people to act on this. They're not discouraging people to act. But they didn't really walk back, you know, the suggestion that they don't think it's that valuable for people to go. What do you make of that? What do you think Democrats should be doing? Is there value in people following your footsteps? Is there other strategic considerations? So I never think it's wrong

to stand up to protect the Constitution and due process rights. And if you look at the most recent surveys, it's clear that a majority of Americans agree with that, right? I mean, the surveys are very clear that, you know, Americans don't want the Constitution trampled over. And that's true of conservatives and liberals and everybody in between. Now, of course, Donald Trump is trying to change the subject every day. He wants to make it about something else. But I think if we stick to that principle, that we're on strong ground. And so I've not really seen those reports. But as I say, it's never wrong to defend the Constitution. We should also focus and we can, you know,

walk and shoot gum at the same time on the economic disaster that Trump is visiting on the United States, which also is a byproduct, as we talked about, of exceeding his legal authorities. So this is why I think all of this is part and parcel of the lawbreaking that we're seeing going on in the first 100 days and the disastrous impact on the country. So there is value, though, you feel like, in going down there, potentially? Look, if it can advance the ball in terms of his release or being able to better get a sense of his condition, as you said, I have two purposes, but one of them was to see him. advance the cause of making sure we secure his due process rights, then the answer is yes. But there are also these other things we can do to put pressure on the government of El Salvador.

Yeah. I mean, I would sure like to see Andrei, the makeup artist, and some of the other folks. I mean, Tim, the notion that we can only focus on one thing. I just find it to be a false choice because these are all tied up again in many ways. And Americans across the board don't want to see their rights compromised. And when you, again, threaten them for one person who lives here, you threaten them for all. Same is true of the First Amendment. Same is true of the Impoundment Control Act. And, you know, right now the Trump administration's illegally withholding $430 billion of appropriated funds for important purposes. We had a hearing today in the Senate

Appropriations Committee regarding the withholding and cutting of funds in clinical trials at NIH. You know, we had a mom who has a daughter who had childhood cancer whose cancer has gone away or is remissioned because of research that's been done, and she wanted to make sure other families have that. So whether it's the illegal withholding of funds, whether it's violating the First Amendment, due process, or what they're doing on tariffs, you know, all of this, in my view, is connected, and the American people know it, and they're obviously, you know, rising up across the country. I mean, the first hundred days, you know, the verdict's in for the American people. A big fat F. Chris Van Hollen, appreciate your advocacy on all of this and let's stay in touch.

Absolutely.