Marco Rubio says El Salvador’s president agrees to house US criminals in his country’s jails
Mark Schiefelbein / POOL AP / AFP
(WASHINGTON) — United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio met with El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele and said the Central American nation has agreed to not only take in deported foreign nationals who committed crimes — but also jailed American citizens and permanent residents.
Rubio called the agreement “an act of extraordinary friendship,” on Monday.
“[Bukele] has agreed to accept for deportation any illegal alien in the United States who is a criminal, from any nationality — be they MS-13 or Tren de Araqua — and house them in his jails,” Rubio declared. “He has offered to house in his jails dangerous American criminals in custody in our country, including those of U.S. citizens and legal residents.”
Rubio called the deal the “most unprecedented and extraordinary migratory agreement anywhere in the world” and said, “no country has ever made an offer of friendship such as this.”
“We are profoundly grateful. I spoke to President Trump about this earlier today. And it’s just one more sign of what an incredible friend we have here in President Bukele and in the people of El Salvador,” Rubio said after they met for more than two-and-a-half hours.
“More details will be forthcoming” about the agreement struck between the United States and El Salvador, said Rubio, before taking an opportunity to praise Bukele’s leadership — describing his polarizing clampdown on El Salvador’s security as “difficult decisions” that had to be made.
President Trump has previously mused about sending repeated offenders abroad, even if they are lawfully in the United States. The president will now need to clear several legal hurdles, given that the Eighth Amendment prohibits “cruel and unusual punishments,” broadly considered to include exile.
(NEW YORK) — On the same day that former Rep. Matt Gaetz withdrew from consideration as President-elect Donald Trump’s attorney general, Trump announced that he will pick former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi to fill that role in his administration.
Bondi, 59, has remained in Trump’s inner circle for years and has continued to advise him on legal matters. She was one of the lawyers who defended Trump during his first Senate impeachment trial.
“I have known Pam for many years — She is smart and tough, and is an AMERICA FIRST Fighter, who will do a terrific job as Attorney General!” Trump said in a Truth Social post.
Bondi’s nomination must be confirmed by the Senate. She did not immediately comment about Trump’s announcement.
For more than a decade, Bondi has been a key Trump supporter and has been involved in some controversies, including the “big lie,” pushed by Trump in 2020.
In 2013, the Trump Foundation sent a $25,000 donation to Bondi’s fundraising committee for her attorney general reelection campaign. Around the same time, Bondi’s office had been considering reviewing a lawsuit filed by the New York attorney general’s office that probed Trump and Trump University, but it ultimately did not join the suit.
Bondi and Trump both denied allegations that the donation led to her decision to not join the lawsuit. She endorsed Trump for his presidential run and spoke at the 2016 Republican National Convention leading a “lock her up chant” against then-Secretary of State Hilary Clinton. She also served as a co-chair of Trump’s 2020 reelection bid.
Bondi left the Florida Attorney General’s office in 2019 and a year later was named part of Trump’s defense team for his first impeachment trial. He was acquitted in the Senate.
Bondi continued to be part of Trump’s legal team during the 2020 election and repeatedly made false claims about voter fraud when he lost to Joe Biden.
Recently, she has been a member of the conservative think tank America First Policy Institute where she serves as the chair for the Center for Litigation, and co-chair of the Center for Law and Justice, according to the think tank’s website.
(WASHINGTON) — House Speaker Mike Johnson said Tuesday that cuts to Social Security and Medicare won’t be part of the legislative package being worked out to fund President-elect Donald Trump’s agenda.
“No, the president has made clear that Social Security and Medicare have to be preserved,” Johnson replied when asked if he was open to cutting the programs as part of the spending plans being worked out between House and Senate Republican leaders. “We have to look at all spending while maintaining… The Republican Party will not cut benefits.”
Johnson said he was to meet with Senate Majority Leader John Thune on Tuesday to discuss ideas for a funding package that Republicans plan to pursue through “reconciliation” — a fast-track process limited to spending and revenue legislation that needs only a majority rather than the 60-vote threshold in the Senate needed to pass legislation. Republicans hold a narrow majority in the House and a 3-seat majority in the Senate.
Congressional Republicans have yet to decide on a reconciliation plan. Johnson is pushing Trump’s desire for “one big, beautiful bill” to fund his agenda but Senate leaders and some conservatives in the House prefer that it be divided into two pieces of legislation.
The negotiated package is expected to include several of Trump’s top priorities, which include extending the tax cuts passed during his first term and addressing his immigration reforms, including more funding for Border Patrol and ICE. Trump has also pushed Congress to increase or eliminate the debt limit, though details of any plan remain unclear.
Trump reiterated his preference for one bill when he spoke to reporters on Tuesday, but said he could live with two.
“Well, I like one big, beautiful bill, and I always have, I always will, he said. But if two is more certain, it does go a little bit quicker because you can do the immigration stuff early.”
Before Trump spoke, Johnson said he remains convinced that the one-bill strategy is the “best way to go.”
“I’m meeting today with Leader Thune about the two ideas,” Johnson told reporters outside a closed GOP conference meeting Tuesday morning. “We still remain convinced over here that the one-bill strategy is the best way to go, but there’s some senators who have different ideas.”
“They’re all dear friends and colleagues, and we’re going to work on this together. We will get the two chambers united on the same strategy. And I think the president still prefers ‘one big, beautiful bill,’ as he likes to say, and there’s a lot of merit to that — we could talk about the ins and outs of that maybe at our leadership press conference here.”
Senate Republican Whip John Barrasso said one of the key objectives in the meeting with Trump will be attempting to forge a clearer path on reconciliation.
“He’s going to be with Senate leadership as well as the entire Senate conference to talk about that exact thing tomorrow and how we get on the same page with the House,” Barrasso said.
Barrasso said a two-part plan that would deliver wins for Trump early in his presidency and allow for more time to address tax policy that doesn’t expire until the end of the year, but the “goal is the same.”
“It was a suggestion by John Thune — this was before Christmas — he said ‘Let’s get an early win on the border.’ It was an issue in the election and it is a big issue for the American people and it is a big issue for national security, and we just thought we could get that done in a quicker fashion with a focus on that, on taking the handcuffs off of American energy as well as military strength, and then have the longer time to work on the financial component of this,” Barrasso said. “This issues and the urgency of the tax issue doesn’t really come into play until l the end of the year to the level that these other issues have the higher urgency right now.”
Johnson also said he intends to handle the debt limit — another Trump priority — in the reconciliation process, which Republicans could try pass in both chambers without Democratic support.
“That way, as the Republican Party, the party in charge of both chambers, we again get to determine the details of that. If it runs through the regular order, regular process… then you have to have both parties negotiating. And we feel like we are in better stead to do it ourselves,” he said.
Johnson said members will have “lengthy” sessions to go over the plan for reconciliation since there are “broad opinions” on how to handle it.
“Republicans in this majority in the House and Senate – our intention, our mission is to reduce spending in a meaningful way so we can get, restore fiscal sanity… so raising the debt limit is a necessary step so we don’t give the appearance that we’re going to default in some way on the nation’s debt,” he added.
Johnson said this does not mean Republicans will “tolerate” spending more to the new debt limit because the “commitment” is to reduce spending, but the final formula has not been determined.
The speaker also told reporters that he’ll likely speak with Trump on Tuesday, ahead of the president-elect’s visit to Capitol Hill on Wednesday.
“I’m sure I’ll speak with him today, probably this afternoon, and when he’s in town, I’m sure we’ll get together,” Johnson said. “He and I both have a very busy schedule. He’s trying to jam a lot into that visit on the Hill, so we’re sympathetic to that.” Johnson said.
Johnson said there will be more discussions on Trump’s agenda when he meets with House Republicans at Mar-a-Lago this weekend.
“He’s bringing in big groups of House Republicans to Mar-a-Lago over the weekend three days in a row to meet with and talk with all of our team members about what’s ahead of us and the challenges and how we can accomplish all this together. So we’re very excited about that. The president-elect is excited about it, and we all are as well,” Johnson said.
Senate Republicans are preparing to meet with President-Elect Trump in the Capitol tomorrow, and one of their key objectives will be attempting to forge a clearer path about how to proceed with advancing Trump’s agenda through a fast-track budget tool called reconciliation, Republican Whip John Barrasso, R-Wyo. said.
“He’s going to be with Senate leadership as well as the entire Senate conference to talk about that exact thing tomorrow and how we get on the same page with the House,” Barrasso said.
Barrasso said today that the “goal is the same” regardless of whether Congress ultimately proceeds with a one-part bill, as Speaker Johnson and Trump have suggested, or with a two-part strategy championed by Majority Leader Thune.
But he made the case for a two-part plan that would deliver wins for Trump early in his presidency and allow for more time to address tax policy that doesn’t expire until the end of the year.
“It was a suggestion by John Thune — this was before Christmas — he said ‘Let’s get an early win on the border.’ It was an issue in the election and it is a big issue for the American people and it is a big issue for national security, and we just thought we could get that done in a quicker fashion with a focus on that, on taking the handcuffs off of American energy as well as military strength, and then have the longer time to work on the financial component of this,” Barrasso said. “This issues and the urgency of the tax issue doesn’t really come into play until l the end of the year to the level that these other issues have the higher urgency right now.”
Senate Republicans have slightly more breathing room on these measures than their House colleagues as they have a 3-seat GOP majority. In the House, Johnson might only be able to afford to lose a single Republican, so his preference for one large bill appears to be focused on getting his members together.
“If you put a number of high priority issues together, then people are more apt to vote for the larger package, because even though there may be something in it that doesn’t meet their preference, they’re not going to be willing to vote against the larger measures that are such, such high priority for the American people and for President Trump,” Johnson told Newsmax on Monday.
(WASHINGTON) — President-elect Donald Trump has shown no qualms about making or sticking by picks for his Cabinet no matter the baggage they carry — even some accused of sexual assault.
It’s a far cry from the days when much smaller-scale scandals, such as marijuana use or hiring an undocumented worker as a nanny, sunk candidates put forward by Presidents Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton, experts said.
“We’re in untested waters,” Jonathan Hanson, a political scientist and lecturer in statistics at the University of Michigan’s Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, told ABC News.
Hanson and other experts said the public has become less concerned about some indiscretions, such as minor and one-time drug and alcohol arrests. Ronald Reagan’s Supreme Court nominee Judge Douglas Ginsburg admitting to smoking pot when he was younger would never have gotten much negative blowback today, Hanson said.
Two of Bill Clinton’s picks for attorney general — Zoe Baird and Kimba Wood — both withdrew amid questions over their hiring immigrants in the country illegally as babysitters. Former Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle — Clinton’s choice for health and human services secretary — had to bow out after it was revealed he didn’t pay taxes for the use of a car and driver.
“It’s true that people’s standards have shifted, but the question is, when does it really cross a line?” Hanson said.
Trump’s picks bring the debate to a new level, he argued.
Trump himself campaigned in the shadow of his hush money felony criminal conviction and after a Manhattan civil jury found him liable for sexually abusing E. Jean Carroll. Trump has repeatedly denied the allegations in both cases.
Matt Gaetz was already a controversial figure before his nomination while under a House Ethics Committee investigation for alleged sexual abuse and illicit drug use.
The former Florida congressman has denied all the allegations and the investigations by the Justice Department ended with no charges being brought and the House Ethics Committee ended when Gaetz resigned from his seat.
Trump’s pick to head the Pentagon, Pete Hegseth, paid a woman who alleged he had sexually assaulted her in 2017, an accusation he denied and for which he was not charged.
The New York Times published an email Friday that Hegseth’s mother, Penelope Hegseth, sent him in 2018 in the context of his divorce from his second wife, saying he had routinely mistreated women for years.
“I have no respect for any man that belittles, lies, cheats, sleeps around and uses women for his own power and ego,” she wrote in the message, according to the Times.
She said she later apologized and told the paper that she sent the e-mail in anger, adding “I know my son. He is a good father, husband.”
The New Yorker reported Hegseth was allegedly forced to step down from two non-profits veterans’ groups that he ran due to “serious allegations of financial mismanagement, sexual impropriety, and personal misconduct.” The magazine cited “a trail of documents, corroborated by the accounts of former colleagues.”
ABC News has not independently confirmed The New Yorker or The New York Times reporting.
Tim Parlatore, a lawyer for Hegseth, called the New Yorker piece, “outlandish claims laundered …by a petty and jealous disgruntled former associate,” in a response to the magazine.
Jason Miller, a senior Trump adviser, told CNN on Tuesday that the allegations in The New Yorker about Hegseth are “innuendo and gossip,” and said the Trump transition has no concerns about his pick to lead the Department of Defense.
Hegseth has said the sex assault allegation from 2017 was “fully investigated” and that he was “completely cleared” although a police report did not say that. He has avoided talking about the allegations while he met with Republican lawmakers over the last couple of weeks to garner support.
Hanson notes Trump named Gaetz and Hegseth after a majority of voters sent him back to the White House despite his own criminal indictments, including attempting to overturn the 2020 election. The sentencing for Trump’s New York conviction has been postponed indefinitely while the federal cases have been dismissed.
That, along with the Republicans taking control of Congress, Hanson said, might have motivated Trump to push forward with his controversial picks.
“It does raise the question if we are holding people to different standards than we used to,” he said. “There has been this notion to shrug it all off, thinking, ‘Everyone is corrupt. At least he’s open about it.'”
Edward Queen, a faculty member at Emory University Center for Ethics, said this thinking has been linked to what he said is growing distrust in the American political system.
“One of the consequences of the decline of trust is that everyone has done ‘it’ therefore ‘it’ doesn’t matter. And that’s disturbing,” he told ABC News.
At the same time, Hanson said, history shows the public traditionally has been against corruption, cronyism and other questionable behavior by public officials.
“There are voters in the middle who voted for Trump that would be unhappy for a vote for these troubling nominees,” Hanson said. “That will come back to hurt Republicans who may have ridden on his momentum.”
Jeff Spinner-Halev, the Kenan Eminent Professor of Political Ethics at the University of North Carolina, however, told ABC News that the general public has not kept up with the ins and outs of the confirmation process on Capitol Hill, and the outcry may not be that loud.
“It will have limited influence,” he said of the public reaction. “What will matter if a few senators are concerned about the controversies or competency of the candidate verses how much they care about the wrath of President Trump.”
The Senate must confirm each Cabinet choice, and while the GOP will have the majority, some Senate Republicans who back Trump also question whether his picks’ ethical issues make them impossible to approve, according to Hanson.
“Putting my shoes in a senator’s for a moment, they don’t want to walk the plank for a vote,” Hanson added. “If they feel that a nominee is too unpopular, they don’t want to stick their hand in the air and say ‘yes’ — but if they do, he said, they would need to weigh the consequences of looking the other way.”
He sees the fact that some GOP senators signaled Gaetz wasn’t acceptable as proof some standards still exist. For example, Gaetz withdrew his name from the nomination eight days after Trump announced it due to the increased scrutiny and more details about his scandals came to light.
Gaetz said in a social media post that his nomination process would have been “a distraction.”
“No one was really looking to defend this guy, and the message got sent to the president-elect’s team that this isn’t going to work,” Hanson said.
“I do think it is a positive sign because, at some point, lines were crossed. Some candidates are just a bridge too far, and it may be the case with some of the other appointees,” he added.
Steven Cheung, Trump’s choice for White House communications director and campaign spokesman, reiterated his claim that “voters gave President Trump a mandate to choose Cabinet nominees that reflect the will of the American people and he will continue to do so.”
“President Trump appreciates the advice and consent of Senators on Capitol Hill, but ultimately this is his administration,” he said in a statement after Gaetz withdrew.
Hanson predicted there will continue to be increased scrutiny of Trump’s Cabinet picks as Senate confirmation hearings get closer, but he warned that the opposition might have limits.
“It depends on how much fight will come from Democrats and interest groups that engage with politics. It will be interesting to see what happens because there is plenty of opportunity here for Democrats in the Senate to make a lot of noise,” he said.
“We will also be in a situation where there may be only enough clout and power to fight only the most controversial of nominees and let others pass,” he said.
Spinner-Halev said that Republican senators, in particular, may not want to cross Trump too many times and may just limit their opposition to his picks with the most baggage.
“One of the worries the Republicans will have is if a person [who is nominated] is incompetent,” he said. “The danger for the Trump administration and Republicans general is if these people are incompetent and mess up and then the public notices. This is what happened with George W. Bush and [Hurricane] Katrina where he said [FEMA Director Michael Brown] was doing a ‘heck of a job.’ That hurt him badly.”
Queen said there is a possibility that some Republican senators may put ethics before partisanship when all is said and done.
“It’s not unreasonable to assume that there are a number of senators who realize there will be consequences of their choices and their decisions that it will be bad for the country as a whole,” he said.
In the long term, Hanson said it is unclear if Trump’s selections will usher in a new norm of presidential picks who buck ethics and experience standards.
He noted that American history has shown several cycles of reform brought on by demand of a public frustrated with dysfunction and improper behavior, such as in the aftermath of the Nixon administration in the 1970s.
“Now that they see what is happening, they may be reminded what the Trump presidency was like the first time around,” he said of Americans who supported him. “There may be a bunch of people who say this is not what I voted for, and that could affect things tremendously.”
Spinner-Halev said the future will depend on how informed the public is over the next four years.
“There is a lot that happens in Washington that’s not in the public eye, and I think it’s important that the public keeps an eye on the bureaucratic ongoings,” he said.
