A Republican House member squirmed as he was asked by a TV anchor Wednesday to defend Donald Trump’s plan to deport U.S. citizens to hellhole prisons in El Salvador—but robustly defended sending a Maryland dad there in error.
CNN anchor Pamela Brown pressed Georgia congressman Rich McCormick to say whether Trump’s defiance of a Supreme Court order to “facilitate” the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia was a bridge too far.
“When you hear the president and his top officials suggest that they could simply ignore the court orders here from this federal judge, do you think that is an example of the executive Branch overstepping its authority?” Brown asked.
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The Georgia Republican tried to claim the administration provided him “due process”—even though Abrego Garcia did not appear before a judge before he was flown to El Salvador last month.
Trump and Attorney General Pam Bondi have said they did not intend to have Abrego Garcia return to the country—despite a district judge’s order demanding daily updates on their efforts to bring him back—and El Salvador President Nayib Bukele claimed it was “preposterous” to suggest he could order Abrego Garcia’s return to the U.S.
“He was deported because he’s here illegally,” McCormick told Brown. “He said, I don’t want to be deported because I’m afraid of going back to my country of origin. He was given that due process.”
McCormick then tried to claim Brown and “the media” were trying to claim Abrego Garcia should not be deported because of “bad jails” in other countries, calling it a “false resonating message.”
Brown disputed that claim: “This isn’t a message. We’re just asking the important questions based on facts.”
The anchor continued to dig in after McCormick tried to claim that the Supreme Court did not order for the government to “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s return—despite its explicit order for it to do so. “I understand you’re trying to create a moment right now to try to get pick up, and that’s that’s self-serving,” she said. “That’s not serving our viewers.”
But when Brown asked McCormick what he thought about Trump’s suggestion that he could send “homegrown” U.S. citizens to that same mega-prison, which he publicly told Bukele he’d like to do, McCormick was suddenly ignorant.
“I didn’t hear what he said specifically,” McCormick said. “I’m not sure what the context is. So I’m not going to comment on what the context of that comment was, because I don’t think the president would be inferring that he’s going to break the constitutionality of due process for citizens of the United States. I think that’s absurd.”
