On Friday, the “Big Three” of ABC, CBS, and NBC had full segments on their flagship morning news shows heralding Maryland Democrat Senator Chris Van Hollen for flying down to El Salvador and meeting with alleged MS-13 gang member and former illegal immigrant Kilmar Abrego Garcia, whom the liberal media are acting as though he’s an early frontrunner for the 2025 Time Person of the Year.
ABC’s Good Morning America had an interview later in the show with Garcia’s wife (which was weird), so they made sure to set the table. Co-host and former Clinton official George Stephanopoulos began: “We’re going to get the latest now on the showdown over the Maryland man who was wrongfully deported to El Salvador. Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen traveled to El Salvador to meet with Kilmar Abrego Garcia as he presses for the prisoner’s release and an appeals court weighs in.”
“Maryland man”? Check. “Wrongfully deported”? Check.
Like she did day after day with the Biden regime, chief White House correspondent Mary Bruce gushed it was “remarkable” to see “Kilmar Abrego Garcia seated across from Maryland Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen, the first images of the wrongfully deported Maryland man since we last saw him, head shaved and shackled, held in that notorious prison in El Salvador.”
“Van Hollen traveling to El Salvador demanding to meet with Abrego Garcia as the Trump administration argues they have no intention of bringing him home,” she added.
Once she ran through tweets from Van Hollen and El Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, she touted the federal courts siding with Garcia, thus framing his well-being as though our country’s rule of law will rise or fall based on what happens (click “expand”):
BRUCE: The White House insists that Abrego Garcia, who has no criminal convictions, is a violent gang member, deporting him to El Salvador despite a 2019 court order that he not be sent back to his native country because he might face danger there, a mistake the administration previously acknowledged. A federal appeals panel yesterday ripping into the administration, writing: “The government is asserting a right to stash away resents of this country in foreign prisons without the semblance of due process that is the foundation of our constitutional order.” In a unanimous ruling, the Supreme Court ordered the administration to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s release, but the President, who is paying El Salvador $6 million to keep him and others, says it’s up to that country to send him back. Pressed on whether he’ll take action to force Abrego Garcia’s return, the President punting.
TRUMP: I’m gonna respond to that by saying you’ll have to speak to the lawyers, the DOJ. I’ve heard many things about him. And we’ll have to find out what the truth is.
BRUCE: The judges saying that whether or not Abrego Garcia is a gang member is not the issue at hand. “The government asserts he is a terrorist and member of MS-13,” they write. “Perhaps, but perhaps not. Regardless, he is still entitled to due process.” And while the senator did pass along a message to Abrego Garcia’s wife Jennifer, she still has not spoken with him directly. In a statement to ABC News she says, we still have many question, hopes and fears, adding the family will continue fighting for his safe return.
Shifting to NBC’s Today, co-host Savannah Guthrie said Van Hollen was “meeting in El Salvador with Maryland man whose mistaken deportation has taken center stage in that battle.”
Senior White House correspondent Garrett Haake gushed that “Garcia’s wife said overnight that her prayers have been answered now that she knows her husband is still alive, but he’s also still not coming back to Maryland.”
Acknowledging “the White House is embracing the political contrast created by this visit and those photos,” Haake called Van Hollen’s visit “proof of life” for Garcia
“El Salvador’s president mocking the meeting with his own post, writing sarcastically that Garcia has, ‘miraculously risen from ‘death camps’ & ‘torture,’ now sipping margaritas’ with the Democratic lawmaker...The White House, citing local Maryland police reports, claims Abrego Garcia was a member of the violent MS-13 gang, which his family denies. He has no criminal convictions in either country,” he added.
A few minutes after Haake said the White House wasn’t backing down, Meet the Press moderator Kristen Welker provided some analysis and curiously brought up Governor Gavin Newsom’s (D-CA) insistence the party focus more on the economy instead of this (click “expand”):
GUTHRIE: Let’s talk about immigration. I mean, there is obviously back and forth over this particular man in Maryland, and the white house has come out strong trying to say, you know, this is somebody who doesn’t belong in this country for whatever reason. There is a larger issue. It’s a constitutional issue. It’s this showdown between the federal courts and between the White House. And — and where do we see that ending if the Justice Department — or if — if the white House is not going to listen to court orders?
WELKER: Well, Savannah, that’s the big question. Will the White House listen to court orders? If not, will this go all the way to the Supreme Court? And what then if the White House doesn’t comply with the Supreme Court? I interviewed Chuck Schumer a couple weeks ago who said that you would start to see people rise up and protest. We will have to see how it unravels. But, look, in conversations with administration officials, they see Abrego Garcia’s case as a politically potent one for them. President Trump has consistently gotten high marks for his handling on the border, on immigration. And this incident really allows his administration to take attention from what they don’t want to be talking about right now, tariffs, the economy with a lot of uncertainty about what will happen next in the President’s trade war. What’s also notable is that we’ve seen Democrats really divided, Savannah, in terms of how they responded to this moment. While you have some Democrats like Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen leaning heavily into this case, others like California Governor Gavin Newsome are calling this matter the “distraction of the day.” They [sic] think the party should be more focused on the economy, which as you know, which as we always discuss, is the top issue for voters.
CBS Mornings spent the least amount of time on Abrego Garcia at 91 seconds, but it still made sure to commiserate over him.
Co-host Tony Dokoupil tossed to CBS’s one-time January 6 correspondent Scott MacFarlane:
We’re going to turn now to the deportation case of the man mistakenly sent to an El Salvador prison. Last night, Maryland Senator Chris van Hollen was able to meet with that man, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who’s been there in El Salvador for about four weeks now. The U.S. Supreme Court, meanwhile, has ordered the Trump administration to take steps to bring Abrego Garcia back to America, but the White House says it’s out of their hands.
MacFarlane boasted “Van Hollen flew to El Salvador early Wednesday with the main goal of seeing Abrego Garcia in person” and “had been denied on multiple attempts” before finally being granted a sit-down featuring “Abrego Garcia in street clothes and a Kansas City Chiefs hat, not prison clothes.”
After quoting from a statement with his wife’s name on it, reaction from Bukele, and the White House blasting Van Hollen and Democrats as the party of illegal immigrants, he ended by insisting “Abrego Garcia’s legal team strongly denies any ties to MS-13” (despite the facts put out by the White House).
To see the relevant transcripts from April 18, click here (for ABC), here (for CBS), and here (for NBC).
