Congress

‘I love chess’: Trump allies, Democrats clash over Van Hollen’s El Salvador visit

Published

1 year ago

April 18, 2025

Democrats are celebrating Sen. Chris Van Hollen’s meeting with Kilmar Abrego Garcia as a victory in their fight to secure the wrongfully deported man’s release.

But President Donald Trump is claiming the meeting as a win, too.

The two parties are locked into warring narratives on Abrego Garcia’s case, which has taken center stage amid an escalating battle between Trump and the courts over the administration’s mass deportation policy.

Van Hollen on Thursday secured a face-to-face meeting with Abrego Garcia, who was illegally deported by the Trump administration to El Salvador and held in the country’s CECOT mega-prison for the past month. The Maryland senator has led the charge for Democrats pushing for accountability from the administration.

After the Salvadoran government initially blocked his attempt to visit the notorious prison, the senator succeeded in his mission to meet Abrego Garcia — a Salvadoran native who lived in Maryland until his deportation — on Thursday, writing in a post to X: “I said my main goal of this trip was to meet with Kilmar. Tonight I had that chance.”

Democrats immediately branded the meeting a success, lauding Van Hollen for his leadership and perseverance in pushing to see Abrego Garcia.

“This is what leadership looks like. I’m proud of my partner and our senior Senator,” Van Hollen’s fellow Maryland Sen. Angela Alsobrooks wrote on X. “We won’t stop until we bring Kilmar home.”

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) on Friday also thanked Van Hollen for his trip, writing on X: “Mr. Abrego Garcia was wrongfully imprisoned. As the Supreme Court indicated, there was no basis for his warrantless arrest. The Trump admin must obey the law. He must be returned home.”

But President Donald Trump and top administration officials say Van Hollen’s visit played right into their hands.

Trump bashed Van Hollen on Truth Social Friday morning, writing: “Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland looked like a fool yesterday standing in El Salvador begging for attention from the Fake News Media, or anyone. GRANDSTANDER!!!”

The official White House account on X posted side-by-side photographs of Van Hollen’s meeting with Abrego Garcia and Trump’s Oval Office conversation with the mother of Rachel Morin, a Maryland woman whose killer — who was convicted this week — was an undocumented immigrant, drawing a comparison between the two visits.

“We are not the same,” read the post, which is now pinned atop the White House’s profile.
White House deputy press secretary Kush Desai took aim at Van Hollen in a post Thursday night, emphasizing the administration’s line on the contrast between the two parties’ priorities, writing: “Chris Van Hollen has firmly established Democrats as the party whose top priority is the welfare of an illegal alien MS-13 terrorist. It is truly disgusting. President Trump will continue to stand on the side of law-abiding Americans.”

The White House has for days sought to frame Democrats’ advocacy for Abrego Garcia as the rival party working on behalf of someone who the administration has branded an MS-13 gang member and terrorist, even as a federal judge has said the evidence presented by the administration is weak.

By contrast, the administration has projected itself as a champion for justice for the Morin family as they reel from the loss of their daughter.

Trump has resisted efforts to bring back Abrego Garcia despite repeated orders from the courts to do so. U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis ordered the administration to “facilitate” his return to the States after government lawyers admitted Abrego Garcia’s deportation was an “administrative error,” and has previously cast the evidence of gang affiliation presented by the government — a tip from an informant and the fact he has worn Chicago Bulls attire — as very flimsy.

The Supreme Court subsequently upheld Xinis’ order to facilitate his return. A federal appellate court opinion — authored by one of the nation’s most prominent conservative appellate judges — issued hours before Van Hollen’s meeting with Abrego Garica was made public also excoriated the Trump administration’s handling of the case.

“The government is asserting a right to stash away residents of this country in foreign prisons without the semblance of due process that is the foundation of our constitutional order. Further, it claims in essence that because it has rid itself of custody that there is nothing that can be done,” 4th Circuit Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson, a Reagan appointee, wrote.

He continued: “This should be shocking not only to judges, but to the intuitive sense of liberty that Americans far removed from courthouses still hold dear.”

The unanimous three-judge panel refused to lift Xinis’ order calling for the U.S. to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s return.

The White House Friday posted an edited headline from The New York Times, calling Abrego Garcia an “MS-13 illegal alien” who is “never coming back.”

The administration has also found a willing partner in its intensifying messaging campaign on Abrego Garcia’s case: Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele.

Bukele has appeared to join forces with the Trump administration, claiming that his hands are tied, too. During a visit to the White House Monday, the Salvadoran president said he would not release Abrego Garcia — asking, “How can I return him to the United States? Am I going to smuggle him?” — granting Trump the leeway to claim that he was unable to “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s return.

Bukele also broke the news of Van Hollen’s meeting with Abrego Garcia Thursday night with a mocking tone.

“Kilmar Abrego Garcia, miraculously risen from the ‘death camps’ & ‘torture’, now sipping margaritas with Sen. Van Hollen in the tropical paradise of El Salvador!,” Bukele said, appearing to take a jab at Democrats who had warned of the severity of the conditions in CECOT.

The El Salvadoran president also indicated that the fight over Abrego Garcia is far from over, writing that the Maryland man “gets the honor of staying in El Salvador’s custody.”

“I love chess,” Bukele wrote in a separate post as reactions to Van Hollen’s visit poured in. The Trump War Room, an account run by the president’s political operation, reposted the message.

Congress

Senate’s summer pileup is threatening a quick recess escape

Published

5 hours ago

August 6, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Ideally, the Senate would be adjourning for a five-week break in less than 24 hours.

Instead, Republican senators are still navigating what Majority Leader John Thune described as a “train wreck” as they face a pileup of legislation, key nominations and public pressure from President Donald Trump and angry conservatives to show progress on a GOP election bill Trump views as his “No. 1 priority.”

They’re heading into Thursday — when the scent of jet fumes typically starts wafting through the halls of Congress — without a deal that would let them speed up votes on a government funding bill or long-stalled Russia sanctions bill.

Meanwhile, Todd Blanche’s attorney general nomination is still stuck in limbo after he came to the Capitol Wednesday for a roughly hourlong meeting with two key Republican holdouts.

That said, the general outlines of a deal that would allow senators to quickly get out of Washington and onto the campaign trail has started taking shape, even as senators and aides acknowledged they might have to stick around at least a little bit longer than they’d hoped.

“Don’t kill the vibe — it’s starting to pick up,” Thune said in an interview, while cautioning that “you’re not going to be smelling those [jet fumes] anytime real soon. … We’ve obviously got, like I said, a stack of stuff to do.”

One key issue Republicans haven’t yet settled is a new party-line spending bill that would pump billions of dollars into the Pentagon, to ailing farmers and into some elections-related spending that could take some of the Trump-fueled pressure off — even as several people with knowledge of the discussions said the votes aren’t there.

Thune hasn’t formally ruled out taking up a budget blueprint for the GOP bill, saying Wednesday it was “hard to say at this point” if he had the votes. But he indicated there was progress behind the scenes toward an exit strategy that would allow Republicans to start their recess with minimal internal friction.

“There’s not clarity, but it’s getting less cloudy if you put it that way,” Thune said.

Three people granted anonymity to discuss internal discussions said that endgame would not involve the time-consuming process of advancing a budget, but instead calling up a vote related to the SAVE America Act, the Trump-backed elections bill.

Republican leaders are hoping that holding a vote on the elections proposal, at the Senate’s usual 60-vote threshold for legislation, will let them hammer Democrats as the holdup while satisfying Republicans who have been frustrated over the lack of progress and have threatened to oppose leaving town.

“We’re looking at options there,” Thune said about possible SAVE America-related votes.

He added that it “remains to be seen” if that would be enough to placate Trump-allied rabble-rousers, “but we’ve had a number of conversations now about how we get the votes people feel are necessary.”

A key MAGA ally, Sen. Mike Lee of Utah, posted a social media video Wednesday thanking Thune, saying that the conversation has moved in a “favorable direction” and that Republicans were discussing “what procedural vehicle to use in order to get this thing done.”

Thune has several other obstacles to clear besides the SAVE America fight.

Senators want an agreement that would let them extend government funding into mid-December, pass a sanctions bill targeting Russia in honor of the late Sen. Lindsey Graham, confirm dozens of Trump nominees, including Blanche, and start work on a bipartisan college sports bill.

The highest drama surrounds Blanche, who met Wednesday with GOP Sens. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska. Neither said afterward how they would vote on his nomination. With Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and every Democrat expected to oppose Blanche, and Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) out for health reasons, he will need to win support from at least one of the two.

The legislative targets have issues, too: Republicans are grappling with intraparty wrangling over hemp language included in the stopgap bill, and Democrats are working through concerns in their ranks about the sanctions bill.

They also want to know if Republicans are going to force them to take a vote on cryptocurrency legislation that many Democrats currently oppose. They are eager to avoid taking that vote ahead of the recess as bipartisan talks happen behind the scenes — especially because a failed vote could potentially fuel tens of millions of dollars of campaign spending against Democratic opponents by industry allies.

Democrats are also looking for signals from Republicans about whether they will move forward with the party-line budget plan. But it was clear by Wednesday afternoon that major obstacles remained.

One GOP senator said Wednesday evening that “there won’t be the votes to do reconciliation and that will simplify things” for the rest of the schedule.

At a Senate GOP lunch meeting, Budget Chair Ron Johnson of Wisconsin presented his ideas for the budget blueprint. It would closely mirror a version that the House advanced last month, but it would also instruct a host of new committees to help draft the bill — expanding the range of issues Democrats could force vulnerable GOP incumbents to take tough votes on just months before the midterms.

Besides ongoing intra-GOP disputes about the amount of Pentagon funding to include and whether to offset the spending with cuts elsewhere, Thune is dealing with senators who aren’t convinced that they should force the issue just months before voters cast ballots.

Retiring Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), who described himself as a “lean no” on the budget, said his views were being influenced by wanting to protect vulnerable colleagues.

“There’s only like five members of my conference that I care about. and they’re the ones who are running in at-risk states,” he said.

Asked if he would vote “no” to protect them, Tillis added, “I’m going to support my members who are up for election. They’re the most important priority right now.”

Congress

Trump urges GOP senators to back off hemp ban

Published

7 hours ago

August 5, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

President Donald Trump and top White House officials are privately lobbying Republican senators to delay a ban on intoxicating hemp that’s set to kick in this fall.

At the Trump administration’s urging, the government funding patch the Senate is working to pass this week would push off the forthcoming ban of some cannabis products derived from hemp. But several Republican senators are demanding a vote to strip the delay out and let that prohibition kick in come November.

They’re hearing from the White House about it.

Trump called Sen. Ted Budd on Tuesday night, after the North Carolina Republican filed an amendment to ensure the ban kicks in as mandated on Nov. 12, according to a Senate aide granted anonymity to describe the private discussion. On the call, the president discussed creating a federal regulatory framework for hemp but did not ask Budd to withdraw his amendment, the individual added.

“I’ve been asked by lots of people to stand down on this amendment,” Budd told reporters Wednesday.

Budd noted that the Trump administration has had almost nine months to come up with a plan for implementing the ban.

“So why all of a sudden pop up for some seemingly innocent delay?” he asked, accusing the White House of instead preparing to “jam this on some must-pass” funding package at year’s end to further delay the prohibition.

A White House official granted anonymity to discuss the private debate said the Trump administration is seeking “a modest four-week delay” through the Dec. 11 expiration of the funding patch “to allow for productive conversations to continue.” Some synthetic cannabis products would be permanently banned in the meantime, the official added.

The administration lobbying has successfully swayed some Senate Republicans, such as Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), who said in an interview that “the White House has committed to me that they’re committed to regulate the industry.”

Republican Sen. Rand Paul of hemp-rich Kentucky said the issue came up “in a big way” during Senate Republicans’ private lunch meeting Wednesday. Paul said he spoke in support of delaying the ban and said those arguing for a delay “aren’t very rational.”

“They’re wanting to hold up the funding for the government over one month,” he said. “It’s kind of insane.”

Grace Yarrow contributed to this report.

Congress

Holdouts meet with Blanche

Published

9 hours ago

August 5, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche is in the Capitol meeting with holdout GOP Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Bill Cassidy of Louisiania as he tries to lock down their support for his confirmation as permanent leader of the Justice Department.