Up First from NPR - Administration Risks Being In Contempt, Homegrowns Are Next, Tariffs And Spending

Episode Date: April 17, 2025

A judge found probable cause to find the government in criminal contempt, ruling that the Trump administration willfully disregarded an order to turn back airplanes carrying deported migrants to El Salvador. President Trump says he is looking into whether the US can detain citizens who commit crimes in overseas prisons, and experts say tariffs will soon affect consumer spending. Want more comprehensive analysis of the most important news of the day, plus a little fun? Subscribe to the Up First newsletter.Today's episode of Up First was edited by Gerry Holmes, Eric Westervelt, Rafael Nam, Janaya Williams and Mohamad ElBardicy. It was produced by Ziad Buchh, Nia Dumas and Christopher Thomas. We get engineering support from Neisha Heinis. And our technical director is David Greenburg.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Good morning, A. Hello. How are you? Okie dokie. I'm ready whenever you are. Actually, I lied. Okay, I just need to get that one right. Okay, now I'm ready. I haven't loaded yet. Here I am. Okay. A judge says the Trump administration ignored his orders to turn around two planes carrying alleged gang members to detention centers in El Salvador. Treating court orders as if they are optional. Will there be any consequences? I'm Michelle Martin, that's a Martinez, and this is Up First from NPR News.

President Trump says he would like to find a legal way to lock up Americans abroad. That's the real fear that we have now is that he is going to try to evade judicial review of deportations of U.S. citizens. Can the U.S. government actually do that? And forecasters say consumers may soon start to feel the effects of new tariffs. Prices for us will go up markedly. Buckle up. This is gonna get really bumpy for us. And stay with us. We'll give you all the news you need to start your day.

The Trump administration demonstrated quote willful disregard for a court's order and is likely in criminal contempt. That's what US.S. District Judge James Boasberg ruled yesterday. He said the government ignored his order last month to turn back two planes carrying Venezuelan migrants to a prison in El Salvador. It's just one of the high-profile cases in which federal judges are trying to hold the Trump administration accountable for flouting judicial orders. NPR's Adrian Florido joins us now. So tell us what the judge said in this ruling. Well, Judge Boasberg said that government officials could have obeyed his order to turn

those planes around but chose not to. A little context day, on March 15th, President Trump said he'd invoked the wartime Alien Enemies Act of 1798 so he could quickly deport members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Agua, without hearings. That same day, officials in Texas loaded dozens of men onto two airplanes. The ACLU though, found out what was happening and sued because it said these men needed to be allowed to challenge their deportations.

During an emergency hearing in DC that evening, Judge Boesberg told the government lawyers that if those planes had already left, they needed to turn them around. That didn't happen though. The planes landed in El Salvador and the country's president locked the men up. Boesberg in his ruling yesterday said the government could have returned the planes because they took off during his hearing and he wrote that quote, the constitution does not tolerate willful disobedience of judicial orders.

Okay, so then what does the ruling mean now for the Trump administration? Well, Boesberg gave the government till next week to do one of two things. He said it could, in his words, reassert custody of the men it deported so they can challenge their deportations in federal courts. They are still in that Salvadoran prison

and many of their families have denied that they are gang members. If the government chooses not to do that though, Boesberg said, then he wants the names of the specific government officials who ignored his order. He said he will force them to testify and if necessary, he will appoint a lawyer to criminally prosecute them for contempt and they could face fines or prison. Okay. So how is the White House responding? Well, the Justice Department called the ruling a judicial power grab and has appealed.

A White House spokesman said the president is committed to ensuring that quote, criminal illegal migrants are no longer a threat to Americans. On the other side of this case, the ACLU and Democracy Forward, the two groups who brought it, are celebrating the ruling. This is Sky Perryman of Democracy Forward. This ruling, it's clear that we've seen the government has acted in blatant disregard

for the judiciary. Treating court orders as if they are optional. That's not how our systems of checks and balances works. She said her team will continue moving the case forward in courts to ensure that everyone in the US, including immigrants immigrants gets due process. Yeah and this is not the only case where judges are trying to force the Trump administration to obey court orders. Judge in Maryland also demanded an explanation for why it's ignoring her order to help bring back a man mistakenly sent to El Salvador despite

having legal status. So what's the big picture here, Adrian? Well, members of the Trump administration have said that they are not going to let courts get in their way of carrying out the president's priorities. Yesterday's ruling by Judge Boasberg, though, is the first time a judge has clearly said that government officials will be punished for not obeying the courts. If they still refuse, that is where legal experts say that we will have a full-blown constitutional crisis. That's NPR's Adrian Florido. Thanks a lot.

Thank you, A. President Trump says his administration is exploring how to use prisons in El Salvador to detain U.S. citizens who commit crimes. Some legal experts told NPR they fear the White House is preparing to move ahead with that plan, even though they say jailing Americans overseas is unconstitutional.

NPR's Brian Mann is following this, Brian. I've seen the video and you're about to play it. I mean, it sounds like the president is serious about locking up American citizens abroad. Yeah, the White House says this is something President Trump keeps bringing up in public and in private meetings. As far back as February, Trump said he would do it in a heartbeat. That's a quote, if a legal way can be found. And then appearing on Monday with El Salvador's leader, the president could be heard on tape predicting this will happen.

Home groans are next. The home groans. You got to build about five more places. Yeah, that's fair. All right. Home groans are next. Trump says they're referring to U.S. citizens. He then suggests El Salvador needs to build more prisons to house Americans.

Later in that press conference, the president said he had ordered Attorney General Pam Bondi to search for legal pathway to deport Americans in this fashion. And also he suggested he's negotiating with other countries, which he didn't name, that might also be willing to imprison Americans overseas. And you've been speaking with legal and constitutional experts. I mean, do they think this is something the U S government can actually do? You know, the Trump administration keeps pushing boundaries. El Salvador is already holding hundreds of people in a maximum security prison. As we've been hearing, they were detained in the U S for allegedly lacking legal status or having gang affiliations, but there are big legal questions about that, including yesterday's contempt finding.

All the experts I spoke to say taking this next step, deporting American citizens would cross another line. Lauren Brooke Eisen is with the Brennan Center's justice program. That's a progressive think tank at New York University. She said this policy would be illegal and morally wrong. There are profound ethical questions that this would signal about how we treat human beings who are U.S. citizens. Now, a NPR reached out to three prominent conservative legal scholars and also contacted three leading conservative legal think tanks. all declined to comment

on this policy idea or they didn't respond. And we could also find no instances of GOP leaders in the House or Senate commenting publicly on this proposal to deport Americans. We reached out to them for comment and got no response. Okay. So Brian, if the Trump administration moves forward with this idea, I mean, do we know what the deportation of American citizens would look like? We don't. President Trump and Attorney General Bondi have said this would only include violent criminals, but we don't have details.

One concern raised by David Beer, he's at the Libertarian Cato Institute, is that Trump could move forward with this without offering a lot of clarity, even if courts and judges object. offering a lot of clarity, even if courts and judges object. That's the real fear that we have now is that he is going to try to evade judicial review of deportations of U.S. citizens. One more thing. A Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor published an opinion last week saying recent legal arguments made by the Trump administration suggests the federal government already believes it can, and I'm quoting the justice here,

deport and incarcerate any person, including U.S. citizens. So we'll be watching this to see where it goes. All right, that's NPR's Brian Mann. Brian, thanks. Thank you, A. Americans are feeling gloomier about the economy and that's reflected in the stock market. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell nearly 700 points yesterday or 1 and 3 quarters percent. So far though, a sour mood has not stopped people from spending money. Retail sales jumped sharply last month as people raced to buy stuff before steep new tariffs kicked in. MPR Scott Horsley joins us now. Scott, I'm looking at a pair of sneakers that I'm also looking to buy as soon as

possible before they cost more than I can afford. So Scott, I mean public opinion surveys have been pretty bleak on this. What's behind that? Yeah, a lot of it does seem to be the trade war. The University of Michigan's consumer sentiment index, for example, fell for the fourth month in a row this month. It's now tumbled more than 30% since the end of last year. Republicans, Democrats, and independents are all feeling less bullish about their personal finances, about the business environment, about inflation. And even though unemployment is still really low, people are also worried about the job market, more worried than at any time since 2009, back when we were shedding hundreds of thousands of jobs every month.

Now, the Sentiment Survey was conducted right around the time that President Trump was announcing those big new import taxes on goods from around the world. And even though some of those tariffs have since been rolled back, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell says the remaining import taxes are still the highest we've seen since the Great Depression. The Smoot-Hawley tariffs were actually not this large and they were 95 years ago, so there isn't a modern experience of how to think about this. And businesses and households are saying in surveys that they are experiencing incredibly

high uncertainty. Powell told the Economic Club of Chicago this week, when businesses feel uncertain about what's ahead, they tend to pull back on investment. When families are uncertain, they dial back on spending. In both cases, it usually leads to slower economic growth. And yet, spending was up last month, so what's that about? Yeah, a lot of the extra spending last month

was at car dealers. Auto sales jumped almost 6% in March, and a lot of the extra spending last month was at car dealers. Auto sales jumped almost 6% in March and a lot of that does seem to have been driven by people trying to get ahead of the tariffs. And for good reason. The Center for Automotive Research says these new import taxes, which took effect early this month, will add between $4,000 and $9,000 to the price of an average new car. Even domestic cars typically contain a lot of imported parts, so they're going to get more expensive as well, just like those

sneakers you want. You know, car dealers are not the only places that shoppers were opening their wallets last month. We also saw increased spending at home and garden stores as the weather got warmer and people spent more on restaurant meals, which are not typically affected by tariffs. Eating out is the kind of discretionary spending that we usually associate with people feeling good about the economy, but right now the surveys are telling a very different story. Yeah, so what else should we look for to see the effects of these tariffs? Well, if people splurged in March to get ahead of the tariffs, we're going to likely see a payback with reduced spending in the months to come. Gene Soroka, who heads the port of Los Angeles, is projecting at least a 10% drop in incoming

cargo in the second half of this year. Global trade will slow, which will hit the economy worldwide because of these policies. And of course, prices for us will go up markedly. Buckle up. This is going to get really bumpy for us. Before these tariffs took effect, we were starting to see some progress on prices. Core inflation last month was actually the lowest it's been in four years, but I'm afraid hopes for a soft landing have really been battered by the president's trade war and forecasters are now projecting a possible double whammy of both higher prices and slower growth. I always buckle up before I talk to Scott Horsley about the economy.

That's NPR's Scott Horsley, Scott, thanks. You're welcome. And that's up first for Thursday, April 17th, I'm Amartinez. And I'm Michelle Martin. The NPR app lets you keep public radio in your pocket. You'll find a mix of local, national, and international news, plus the best podcasts from the NPR network. Download the NPR app in your app store. Today's episode of Up First was edited by Jerry Holmes, Eric Westervelt, Rafael Nam,

Mohammed El-Bardisi, and Janaya Williams. It was produced by Zia Butch, Nia Dumas, and Christopher Thomas. We get engineering support from Nisha Hines, and our technical director is David Greenberg. Join us again tomorrow.