Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA), Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) and Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) held a press briefing on Thursday on the Trump administration's compliance with court orders.
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00:00All right, Senator Van Hollen and I will get us started.
00:03Senator Schumer is on the way.
00:05I'm really happy to be joined with my friend and my colleague, Senator Van Hollen.
00:10We work on so much Virginia, Maryland stuff, but we're also both on the Foreign Relations Committee,
00:15and we try to work on global human rights issues, issues that we care about so deeply.
00:20Senator Van Hollen has an amazing track record and reputation as being a human rights champion,
00:26and most recently standing up for the rule of law in the United States in the case of his constituent,
00:32wrongfully deported via a Trump-era mistake to El Salvador with both the President of the United States
00:39and the President of El Salvador pretending that they don't have the power to return him.
00:44All of the colleagues are just really admiring of the work that Chris has done.
00:49But the answer is this is not something that the Article 1 branch can take lying down.
00:54When a President of the United States is flouting a 7-2 Supreme Court order
00:59and saying he doesn't have the power to retract a mistake that his administration admits he's made
01:04and thinks that's the end of the story, we're here to say that is not the end of the story.
01:08There is a privileged motion that any senator can file that Senator Van Hollen and I,
01:14together with Senator Schumer and Senator Padilla, are filing today
01:18to force the State Department, the Trump administration, to issue a human rights report about El Salvador.
01:25This is a little-used privileged motion, but it's designed like the other privileges are designed
01:31to enable the Article 1 branch to check executive overreach.
01:35In this case, President Trump has facilitated the deportation of American residents,
01:43many here completely lawfully, to El Salvador without due process.
01:48In some instances, people who are being deported by mistake, as the administration admits.
01:55And the President has even gone beyond this and said that he would like to cut a deal
02:00to send U.S. citizens to be imprisoned in El Salvador.
02:04So we are filing a resolution today under Section 502 B.C. of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961
02:11to require the State Department to issue a report on the situation about human rights in El Salvador,
02:18particularly the conditions in the prison where Americans are being held,
02:23whether El Salvador is taking steps together with the administration
02:27to facilitate compliance with the Supreme Court's ruling.
02:32Are they interested in following the rule of law or not?
02:35This is a procedure where, within 10 calendar days, this becomes a business of the Senate that we can take up.
02:41We are guaranteed a vote on it, and we will seek a vote on it at a time that our leader,
02:46Senator Schumer, will negotiate with Senator Thune.
02:50And I want to send a message not only to the administration.
02:53If you think you can take steps like this without Congress challenging your executive overreach, you're wrong.
03:00We're going to challenge your overreach at every instance when we can.
03:03And I also send a message to the governor of El Salvador.
03:06You might think it's cute right now to grab attention by a bromance with President Trump.
03:11He's going to be a president for poco más, tres años más.
03:14And if you think we'll forget you violating the human rights of American citizens, you're wrong.
03:24We will remember this forever, and there will be significant and challenging downstream consequences
03:30for any nation that violates the rights of Americans.
03:33The follow-up for this report can include a privileged vote to terminate all security assistance
03:39to the nation of El Salvador.
03:41Whether or not that's the will of the body, we'll see what the report has,
03:45but we're going to put all of our colleagues on the record.
03:48If Americans are being sent in violation of the rule of law to El Salvador,
03:52we should all want to get a human rights report to see whether this nation is following the rule of law or not.
03:57I'm very glad to be joined by Senator Van Hollen, our leader, Senator Schumer,
04:03and Senator Padilla, who is unable to join us today in the filing of this privileged resolution.
04:08With that, I introduce my colleague from Maryland, Senator Van Hollen.
04:10I'm sorry.
04:11I now introduce our leader who is moving between a million things, our friend, Senator Chuck Schumer.
04:17Yo agrio.
04:18Did I say it right?
04:19No.
04:19No.
04:20Okay.
04:21That's why I should stop.
04:23Anyway, I want to thank my great colleagues, Senator Kaine and Van Hollen,
04:26for their unwavering leadership on this and so many other issues.
04:30Now, we're here today because we know a threat to one is a threat to all.
04:36We're here today because we all know Donald Trump's fondness for autocrats.
04:40We all heard Donald Trump's when he said he'd like to be a dictator on day one.
04:46And we know he sees the rule of law as a nuisance.
04:52He considers the truth to be an inconvenience.
04:57Trump wields the government as a weapon against his enemies.
05:01And now he's taking a page out of the book of the dictators and autocrats he admires, like
05:08Bukele, and expelling American citizens with no due process.
05:13He recently deported, I think it's now four innocent U.S. children, citizens, and one had
05:19very serious cancer with no acceptable due process.
05:22And let me repeat, Donald Trump is deporting American citizens with no due process.
05:30A threat against one is a threat against all.
05:34Without a shadow of a doubt, he's violating the founding principles of this country,
05:39and we're not going to let him get away with it.
05:41And here's the amazing thing.
05:43When you look at the polling data, Americans care deeply about this issue.
05:49I always knew they cared deeply about the economic issues we're going after them on,
05:54like tariffs, like tax cuts for billionaires, cutting Medicaid and Social Security.
05:59But the polling data shows this is very deep as well.
06:02Americans' foundation and love of democracy is deep, and they understand that Trump is
06:10violating that due process.
06:12When you take people without any due process, without any acknowledgement and publication
06:20of what they did wrong and refuse to allow it to go to a court with an impartial judge
06:26and let the public hear it, you are trampling on what America's all about.
06:31And the American people realize it.
06:34Donald Trump may not, but the American people do.
06:36So we're going to force a vote on legislation to require this lawless administration to explain
06:42its actions to the American public.
06:45Donald Trump himself has raised the illegal, insane notion of sending American citizens
06:50to foreign prisons, like the awful prison in El Salvador.
06:54And if he gets away with it in one case, he can get away with it in many, many more.
06:58So no one should rest easy.
07:00Trust me, the American people have a lot of concerns.
07:03They have a lot of grave concerns because the rule of law is clear, and it's deep in the
07:09American bosom, deep in the American bosom.
07:12So this is a threat to everybody.
07:16We're going to do it.
07:16Donald Trump doesn't believe in checks and balances.
07:19We do.
07:20The American people do.
07:21We're going to fight this all the way.
07:24Sorry, I have to go.
07:26Right.
07:27Thank you, Chuck.
07:28And I want to start by thanking my good friend, partner across the Potomac, Tim Kaine.
07:38As he said, we work on lots of issues together for this region, for our states, but we also
07:44work very closely on foreign policy issues.
07:47And there's nobody who knows the Western Hemisphere and Latin America better than Senator Tim Kaine.
07:56He, as you know, chaired and now is the ranking member of the subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere.
08:02And that jurisdiction also includes human rights and democracy.
08:06So thank you for your passion for universal human rights in our hemisphere and around the world.
08:15And that's what this is all about, because the right to do process is a bedrock American principle.
08:24And in his first 100 days, Donald Trump is shredding the Constitution of the United States.
08:31He's violated these rights in many instances, including the illegal abduction and deportation
08:38of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was snatched off the streets of Maryland while driving with
08:45his five-year-old son, who has autism.
08:49And he was shipped to Baltimore, then Texas, and then shackled and handcuffed, put in a plane
08:57not knowing where he's going, and ended up in the notorious prison of Seacott, one of the
09:03real gulags of Latin America.
09:06The Trump administration admitted in court, admitted in court that Abrego Garcia had been
09:12wrongfully shipped to El Salvador, and the Supreme Court, by a nine-to-nothing vote, ordered
09:20the Trump administration to facilitate his return.
09:23You don't see nine-to-nothing rulings out of the court very often.
09:28And of course, Donald Trump could easily bring him back by simply picking up the phone on
09:35the resolute desk.
09:37How do we know that?
09:39Because President Trump said so himself within the last 48 hours.
09:44So we also know that the government of El Salvador is prepared to release him if they can hear
09:56from the President of the United States and they facilitate his return.
10:00How do we know that?
10:00Because when I spoke to the Vice President of El Salvador, he was very clear.
10:06He said the ball is not in El Salvador's court.
10:10The ball is in the Trump administration's court.
10:13And he said that the only reason the government of El Salvador is holding him is because the
10:18Trump administration is paying him to do so.
10:22So Donald Trump should stop trampling on constitutional rights of people who reside in America.
10:30And the government of El Salvador should stop conspiring with the Trump administration
10:35to violate the constitutional rights of those who reside in America, including Abrego Garcia
10:44and others.
10:46President Bukele and El Salvador are complicit in this illegal scheme.
10:51This is a cash for collusion deal.
10:57Not surprisingly, Donald Trump chose President Bukele as his co-conspirator in this effort.
11:06President Bukele has referred to himself as the world's, quote, coolest dictator.
11:13When I traveled recently to El Salvador, I met with many Salvadorian human rights groups
11:19who described the gross violations of human rights and due process in El Salvador by President
11:27Bukele and his government.
11:29And the 2023 State Department human rights report found that in Bukele's prisons, there
11:38were credible reports of, and I'm quoting, torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment.
11:45They went on to say in that report that that degrading inhuman punishment includes beatings with batons,
11:55electric shocks on wet floors to shock an entire cell, overcrowding, underfeeding, and life-threatening medical neglect.
12:04That was the 2023 State Department human rights report.
12:08No one can communicate with Ebrego Garcia or others in those prisons of El Salvador either.
12:16Not his wife, not his mother, not his lawyer.
12:19That is a violation of international law.
12:22And yet, that is where the Trump administration dispatched this person because of an administrative error.
12:30And now we've learned that the Trump administration wants to excise those provisions from the human rights report
12:38regarding prison conditions and actually give El Salvador preferential treatment.
12:44So that's why we're introducing this resolution today.
12:49And again, I want to thank my friend and colleague, Senator Kaine.
12:52I want to thank Senator Schumer, Senator Padilla, and our House colleagues.
12:56We're doing this both to require the Trump administration to answer for its unconstitutional violations of due process
13:02and send a message to President Bukele that no, it is not cool to collude with Trump
13:10to deprive people living in America the right to due process.
13:16Donald Trump, he may want to adopt El Salvador's approach to violating human rights, but we don't.
13:23We will not model our judicial system on El Salvador's kangaroo courts.
13:31In addition to this resolution, I've called upon all Americans who care about their due process rights
13:37to vote with their feet.
13:40Don't go to El Salvador as tourists, so long as the government of El Salvador
13:45is violating the constitutional rights of people who reside in America.
13:50There are lots of other nice countries in the region, like Costa Rica or Guatemala or others.
13:56I've also called upon states to divest pension fund holdings from companies that do business in El Salvador,
14:04and I was pleased to see Governor Pritzker of Illinois announce he planned to do that.
14:08And finally, stay tuned because Senator Cain and I, along with Senator Schumer and others,
14:17are planning to also introduce sanctions legislation targeting President Bukele and all those who are part of his government
14:28conspiring with Donald Trump to deprive residents of the United States of their constitutional rights.
14:34And thank all of you for being here, and again, thanks to my friend Tim Kaine for all his leadership on this and so many issues.
14:43We're now opening up for questions.
14:44Again, just to remind that Senator Padilla is also a co-sponsor of the resolution we're introducing today.
14:50Couldn't be with us.
14:51A companion bill is being introduced on the House side by Representative Castro, but we're glad to open it up.
14:56Please.
14:58Actually, right here and then right here.
15:00Please.
15:05I have not, and that's because nobody is able to communicate with Abrego Garcia from the outside world.
15:14Not before my visit and not since my visit.
15:18Again, not his wife, not his mom, not his lawyers, which is a violation of international law.
15:25But to my knowledge, I'm the only person from the outside world that he's met with today.
15:31A Trump-acquainted federal judge in Texas just ruled that the administration's use of the Alien Enemies Act forced with deportation is illegal,
15:40saying that it's only close to you when we're under an actual armed attack.
15:45Your thoughts?
15:45Well, I'm not surprised at that ruling.
15:49The Alien Enemies Act was designed for a very particular purpose.
15:52And like so many laws, like the IEPA law, you know, we had a vote on tariffs last night.
15:58That law allows a president to declare a state of emergency, but nothing in the law allows the imposition of tariffs,
16:04essentially attacks at the say-so of one person.
16:07So President Trump doesn't really care about the law, but I'm glad that judges, even those appointed by President Trump,
16:12are standing up against him.
16:14We need courts, Congress, states, activism, and elections to work together to check the tendencies toward tyranny in this presidency.
16:23Senator, after the report, what happened?
16:25And what happened if the administration refuses to produce it?
16:28Are they just seeing play out with an illegal...
16:30It's an unusual procedure, so let me walk through it.
16:34Within 10 days of the filing of the resolution, this may be called up on the Senate floor.
16:39The first vote would be a vote to discharge the resolution from committee.
16:44And we...
16:45And, you know, our pitch to our colleagues would be, why wouldn't you want a human rights report?
16:49If Americans are being sent there, you would want a human rights report about the conditions.
16:55So we have high hopes that we'll be able to get it passed.
16:58This is a resolution that doesn't need to go to the House.
17:01If it passes in the Senate, there is a requirement for the State Department to produce the human rights report.
17:06The text of the bill poses a number of questions that the report must answer.
17:11If no report is produced within 30 days, the law specifies that all security assistance to El Salvador will be cut off.
17:17If the report is produced, whether it's good, bad, a whitewash, insufficient, you know, a two-pager,
17:25we then have a privileged motion that we can bring up to terminate security assistance to El Salvador.
17:31That privileged motion would need to be acted on by both houses and survive a presidential veto.
17:36But this is the start of a two-step process.
17:39Get the report, decide whether it's legit or not,
17:42and then put on, you know, put pressure on and potentially move to the termination of security assistance to the nation.
17:49Have any Republicans submitted to El Salvador?
17:51No.
17:52We do believe that the case on this is fairly straightforward.
17:56Why wouldn't you want a human rights report from the Trump administration
18:00when American citizens are being sent there?
18:02And I'll tell you, the president is talking to other nations about sending U.S. citizens to Rwanda and other places.
18:08If he starts doing that, we're going to have, we're going to be filing the same bill to get human rights reports about those nations, too,
18:14with the potential for cutting off security assistance.
18:17Yes.
18:17Have you had any conversations with any Republicans about this at all?
18:21This is a brand new one today.
18:22So once it's out, and obviously we have this 10-day period while it's pending before it becomes active,
18:28I know Senator Van Hollen and I will be talking to a lot of our colleagues,
18:31both on the Foreign Relations Committee and others.
18:34I mean, I can say that apart from this resolution, I've had colleagues with Republican senators
18:39who have definitely expressed real misgivings with Donald Trump's violation of constitutional due process rights.
18:48I mean, I have heard that from a number of Republican senators.
18:54This will be their opportunity to actually vote on that.
18:57And as you know from public surveys, I mean, the public overwhelmingly supports making sure we protect due process rights
19:07for people who reside in America.
19:09That is very clear from the response that we're seeing in these public surveys.
19:15Please, right here.
19:16The case that we're making is based upon a Supreme Court decision ordering President Trump
19:32to return a wrongfully deported person to the United States.
19:35And the president thus far is flouting a Supreme Court order, which verges on a constitutional crisis.
19:41The district court is now grappling with, is the administration following the order of the Supreme Court
19:48to facilitate return or not.
19:50We are fighting to end lawlessness.
19:51And the lawlessness of this administration in this case is to ignore a final ruling of the Supreme Court.
19:58If a president can ignore a ruling of the Supreme Court without consequence,
20:02we are on a slide toward tyranny, and Chris and I are very dedicated to stopping that slide.
20:07Yeah, if I could just put an exclamation point after what Senator Cain said,
20:12I have repeatedly said that we're not vouching for Gilmar Abrego Garcia.
20:19We are vouching for his constitutional rights, because if you trample over his constitutional rights,
20:27you threaten them for every American and everybody who resides in America.
20:31Can you review what you know about what the U.S. and the Trump administration is paying El Salvador
20:37to actually house prisoners at C-Con?
20:41I think Chris knows a little more about this than I do,
20:44but what we know and what we can say might be slightly different.
20:48But do you want to?
20:48Yeah, look, my understanding is the Trump administration is planning to pay El Salvador
20:55about $15 million to, again, house these individuals who were illegally snatched from the United States
21:05in violation of their due process.
21:06My understanding also is that to date they've paid them about $4 million of that.
21:12We'll go here and then see if there's any over on this side, please.
21:20Not surprised, but in the words of the late, great John McCain, there's more shoes to fall off this centipede.
21:27Anyone over on this side?
21:30Okay, yeah, please.
21:31Can you mention the IEPA vote last night?
21:34What comes next about the Trump administration or the recent tariff?
21:37There's a couple of things.
21:39So anything done under IEPA is subject to challenge and will be challenged,
21:43including the president imposed this global tariff regime under a single emergency order,
21:50but now is apparently cutting deals with individual nations.
21:53that I'm not sure the president can do that without that being a new order that would be subject to congressional challenge.
22:02Congress has the trade power under Article I, and so if the president is cutting deals,
22:06we're going to try to haul the deals into Congress for close review and approval
22:11because we want to make sure that the deals aren't corrupt,
22:14that some nation didn't cut a deal after being forced to buy Starlink system or something like that.
22:19So we want to put these deals under the microscope,
22:22but basically if you look at what motions are privileged in the Senate,
22:26either by statute or by Senate rules,
22:27almost all privileged motions to stop a war initiated by an executive,
22:32to challenge an arms transfer, to challenge the use of emergency power,
22:35to force a human rights report, to challenge an executive regulation,
22:40all of the privileged motions are in the same kind of zip code,
22:45which is letting the Article I branch be a check against the executive.
22:50And senators of both parties should take that Article I responsibility very seriously.
22:55Question, Carolina from Calabundo.
22:58If you're able to explain in Spanish, please,
23:00specifically the importance of this motion right now
23:02and the likelihood of this human rights report actually becoming a reality.
23:06Tenemos un propuesto de ley para tener un reporte sobre derechos humanos en El Salvador.
23:14Es un tiempo, es un proceso de privilege,
23:21entonces tenemos una garantÃa de un voto después de 10 dÃas sobre El Salvador.
23:28Y estamos mandando un mensaje al presidente Trump que él necesita seguir la ley.
23:39Y también estamos mandando un mensaje al presidente Bukele que no vamos a olvidar
23:44si el gobierno de El Salvador está rompiendo los derechos humanos de los americanos.
23:51Vamos a tener un voto en 10 dÃas y después de este voto es posible que vamos a cortar
23:56todos los recursos para seguridad para El Salvador si ellos nos siguen la ley americana.
24:03All right, thanks so much.
24:06Okay, good work.
24:07Yeah.