‘Homegrowns are next’: Trump doubles down on sending American ‘criminals’ to foreign prisons
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(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump on Monday doubled down on his idea of sending U.S. citizens to foreign prisons, telling El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele he wanted to send “homegrown criminals” to his country next, according to a video posted by Bukele’s office on X.
The comments came as Trump welcomed Bukele, a key partner in his migrant deportations, to the White House amid controversy over the Supreme Court saying the administration should “facilitate” the return of a migrant from Maryland wrongfully sent to a notorious Salvadoran mega-prison.
As the two men entered the Oval Office, before reporters were allowed in the room, Trump discussed his proposal to send what he called American “criminals” accused of violent crimes to El Salvador and told Bukele he needed to build more prisons to house them.
“Homegrown criminals next,” Trump said, according to a livestream posted by Bukele’s office. “I said homegrowns are next, the homegrowns. You gotta build about five more places.”
Bukele was heard responding “alright” and others in the room laughed.
“It’s not big enough,” Trump added.
Trump and various White House officials have repeatedly floated the idea of sending U.S. citizens to El Salvador and other places — something legal experts have said would be flatly unconstitutional.
On Monday, during a spray with reporters, Trump said his team was “studying” the issue.
“If it’s a homegrown criminal, I have no problem,” Trump said. “Now we’re studying the laws right now, Pam [Bondi] is studying. If we can do that, that’s good.”
“And I’m talking about violent people. I’m talking about really bad people. Really bad people. Every bit as bad as the ones coming in,” he continued.
Bukele first offered to house violent U.S. criminals shortly after Trump was inaugurated.
When Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced the proposal from Bukele back in early February, he called the it “an act of extraordinary friendship.” Though at the time, Rubio also noted there would be constitutional questions about such a move, saying there are “obviously legalities involved.”
Bukele on Monday said he was “very eager to help” the Trump administration.
“In fact, Mr. President, you have 350 million people to liberate. You know, but to liberate 350 million people, you have to imprison some,” Bukele said.
ABC News’ Alexandra Hutzler contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump’s meeting with advisers in the Situation Room was underway on Tuesday afternoon, a White House official confirmed, as Israel and Iran continue to trade strikes.
The meeting came hours after Trump arrived back in Washington after leaving the G7 summit in Canada early, citing tensions in the Middle East and instructing his national security team on Monday night to be ready in the Situation Room upon his arrival.
Trump early on Tuesday denied having had contact with leaders in Iran, saying he hadn’t reached out about a potential ceasefire and that he was “not too much in the mood” to negotiate with Iran.
“I’ve been negotiating. I told them to do the deal,” Trump said. “They should have done the deal. The cities have been blown to pieces, lost a lot of people. They should have done the deal. I told them do the deal, so I don’t know. I’m not too much in the mood to negotiate.”
He also seemed to dismiss a recent assessment from Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, who had said Iran wasn’t working on a nuclear weapon. Trump said on Tuesday he thought Iran was “very close” to having such a weapon.
Trump in a post on his Truth Social network also said that he hadn’t reached out to Iran “in any way, shape or form,” calling reports that he had done so “fabricated.”
“If they want to talk, they know how to reach me,” Trump said in a post early on Tuesday. “They should have taken the deal that was on the table — Would have save a lot of lives!!!”
Israel on Friday began an attack on Iran, launching a series of aerial strikes that Israeli officials described as a preemptive strike. Israeli leaders and Trump have separately called for Tehran to put an end to efforts to create nuclear weapons.
Diplomats from the United States and Iran held a series of talks in Muscat, Oman, beginning in April, with the sixth round due to begin last Sunday. Those talks were cancelled as the conflict between Israel and Iran began.
Trump was asked on Tuesday about Gabbard’s testimony in March in front of the Senate Intelligence Committee, where she said Iran was not building a nuclear weapon.
When pressed about Gabbard’s comments, Trump dismissed them.
“I don’t care what she said, I think they were very close to having one,” Trump said.
Trump has not ruled out American participation in the conflict, although the U.S. has remained on the sidelines so far. Trump has issued, however, a stern warning to Iran on Tuesday over U.S. troops and assets in the region, instructing Tehran “not to touch our troops.”
“We’ll come down so hard if they do anything to our people,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
Former President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden will appear on ABC’s “The View” on Thursday for their first joint interview since leaving the White House.
The pair will join the co-hosts live in-studio to discuss life post-presidency, the Democratic Party’s losses in 2024, and the current political landscape as President Donald Trump passes the 100-day mark of his second term.
The Bidens have kept a relatively low profile since leaving Washington in January, though the former president is beginning to ratchet up his public appearances.
Joe Biden’s first major speech since departing the White House came last month in Chicago, when he rebuked the Trump administration’s approach to Social Security, accusing officials of “taking a hatchet” to the agency and more broadly causing “so much damage” to the federal government. Biden has appeared occasionally since.
In his first post-presidency interview, broadcast on the BBC on Wednesday, Biden sharply critiqued the current administration on a host of issues: He likened Trump’s push for a peace deal that would have Ukraine cede territory to Russia to “modern-day appeasement,” and blasted Trump’s threats to acquire Canada, Greenland and the Panama Canal.
“What president ever talks like that?” Biden said. “That’s not who we are. We’re about freedom, democracy, opportunity — not about confiscation.”
Trump, for his part, routinely criticizes Biden as “the worst president in American history” and blames him for various difficulties in his own administration, including recent stock market turmoil and a decline in U.S. gross domestic product.
Biden’s presidency marked the culmination of a career in public service that spanned more than five decades, including 36 years as a senator and eight years as vice president. He leaves behind a complex legacy, punctuated by Trump’s historic victory in November.
Biden and his team were criticized for his decision to seek reelection and later withdraw after a poor debate performance against Trump that moved some Democrats to publicly question his ability as he approached the age of 82 to campaign for and serve another term.
Even still, Biden and his allies have maintained a belief that he could have beaten Trump had he stayed in the race. He’s said he decided to drop out and endorse then-Vice President Kamala Harris to help unify the party.
Asked by the BBC if he should have dropped out earlier, Biden said it wouldn’t have had an impact on the outcome.
“I don’t, I don’t think it would have mattered. We left at a time when we had a good candidate, she’s fully funded,” Biden said.
“I meant what I said when I started, that I think I’m prepared to hand this to the next generation, a transition government,” Biden added. “But things moved so quickly that it made it difficult to walk away from the ticket and it was a hard decision. But regret that? No, I think it was the right decision. I think that, well, it was just a difficult decision.”
Jill Biden, 73, who has also begun stepping up public appearances, has also emphasized she believes her husband would have been able to serve four more years.
“Sure,” she told the Washington Post in an interview before the Bidens left the White House in January. “I mean, today, I think he has a full schedule. He started early with interviews and briefings, and it just keeps going.”
More broadly, the Bidens’ appearance on “The View” comes as Democrats are in the midst of rebuilding their coalition and retooling some parts of their message; and grappling with what role — if any — the former president should play in the future of the party.
Two key electoral races this year will stress test those changes: gubernatorial races in Virginia and New Jersey. It’s unclear if Joe Biden will be involved in campaigning.
Both Joe Biden and Harris have signed with the CAA talent agency.
Meanwhile, Jill Biden, who retired from her longtime teaching career in December, was recently named as chair of the recently launched Milken Institute’s Women’s Health Network, which will promote research and investments for women’s health.
Speaking about the initiative in Los Angeles on Monday, Jill Biden said that she does not think the federal government will be as involved with women’s health investments and research as it used to be.
“I think this is really an opportunity for business, for private equity to, you know, it doesn’t seem like the federal government is really going to be as involved as they were … I think we all have a part to play in every aspect of this,” Biden said when discussing what excited her about the initiative.
She was seemingly referencing federal government cuts, which have heavily hit health research initiatives as well, although she did not call out the White House or any figures explicitly.
-ABC News’ Michelle Stoddart contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump’s administration is launching an investigation into Harvard University’s law journal over alleged discriminatory practices, expanding its weeks-long battle over federal funding with the elite institution.
The civil rights offices of the Education and Health and Human Services departments announced Monday they are investigating the Harvard Law Review, an independent, student-run organization that promotes legal scholarship.
The offices are investigating allegations that the journal discriminates based on race “in lieu of merit-based” standards, in violation of the Title VI anti-discrimination law, according to a release by the two agencies.
“Harvard Law Review’s article selection process appears to pick winners and losers on the basis of race, employing a spoils system in which the race of the legal scholar is as, if not more, important than the merit of the submission,” Craig Trainor, acting assistant secretary within the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights, said in a statement on Monday.
The agencies said the Harvard Law Review risks losing federal funding if found to have broken Title VI law.
The Harvard Law Review has been published and edited by students for over 135 years. It aims to be an effective research tool for practicing lawyers and students, according to its website.
“Harvard Law School is committed to ensuring that the programs and activities it oversees are in compliance with all applicable laws and to investigating any credibly alleged violations,” a spokesperson for the university said in a statement to ABC News, noting that the journal “is a student-run organization that is legally independent from the law school.”
The latest investigation comes after the Trump administration froze over $2.2 billion in federal funding to Harvard after the university refused to comply with a series of demands following an antisemitism task force review earlier this month.
Harvard University President Alan Garber said in a letter at the time that “no government — regardless of which party is in power — should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue.”
The university has filed a lawsuit over the Trump administration’s threats to withhold funding, asking a judge to block the funding freeze from going into effect, arguing the move is “unlawful and beyond the government’s authority.”
During a short conference on Monday, U.S. District Court Judge Allison Burroughs scheduled oral arguments in the lawsuit challenging the funding freeze on July 21. In the meantime, the funding freeze will remain in effect.
The Internal Revenue Service is also considering revoking Harvard’s tax-exempt status, sources told ABC News earlier this month.
In other developments, the Department of Education said Monday its civil rights office found that the University of Pennsylvania violated Title IX by allowing transgender athletes to compete on its women’s sports teams.
The department is demanding the university issue a statement to its community that it will comply with the law, apologize to athletes whose athletic participation was “marred by sex discrimination,” and restore all athletics records or accolades “misappropriated by male athletes.” The school has 10 days to resolve the violation or risk a referral to the Department of Justice.
Earlier this year, the Trump administration said it suspended $175 million in federal contracts awarded to Penn, citing the participation of a transgender athlete on a women’s swimming team.
A Penn spokesperson said at the time that the university has “always followed” NCAA and Ivy League policies regarding student participation on athletic teams.
ABC News’ Peter Charalambous contributed to this report.
