Greg Sargent Podcast - (archived: https://archive.ph/Gxsly ) Transcript: Trump Blurts Out Revealing Admission on Abrego Garcia Case

As Trump makes a surprise admission about the Kilmar Abrego Garcia saga, a lawyer for his family explains how Trump is trying to import authoritarianism into the U.S.—and why Trump will likely lose on this case.

The Daily Blast with Greg Sargent
April 28, 2025

Greg Sargent: President Donald Trump’s lawlessness is getting worse, but the public is now clearly rejecting it. Trump gave a new interview in which he made some striking admissions about the wrongfully deported Kilmar Abrego Garcia that only demonstrate how reprehensible his treatment of this whole saga has become. Meanwhile, new polling shows a large public backlash to Trump’s extra-legal tactics. We don’t think that Trump and Stephen Miller anticipated this public response. We think they thought they had successfully acclimated voters to their lawlessness. The opposite is happening. Yet all signs are that they’ll continue plunging us into this abyss. Today we’re talking about all of this with Chris Newman, who’s one of the lawyers for Abrego Garcia’s family and is general counsel for the National Day Laborer Organizing Network. Chris, good to have you on.

Newman: It’s my pleasure. Thank you.

Sargent: Let’s start with what Trump said in a new interview with Time magazine. To catch people up, Abrego Garcia was wrongfully deported to a prison in El Salvador and the Supreme Court has said this is illegal and that the administration must facilitate his return. Trump and his people keep saying that this is not their issue anymore, that they can’t make El Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele release him. So Time magazine asked Trump, Have you asked Bukele to return him? Trump admitted, I haven’t, and said his lawyers have not told him he has to. Chris, that’s an astounding admission. Your response?

Newman: Like everything, it’s difficult to interpret. On the one hand, it appears that Trump is softening and indeed backing away from the position of Stephen Miller, who appears to be higher on the organizational chart than his own vice president. On the other hand, it seems to be an admission as well that he’s violating the Supreme Court order because the order clearly said that he was supposed to facilitate the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia. And the fact that he hasn’t tried seems to be a dead to rights admission that he is not complying with the order. From a political lens, it appears to reflect what is actually happening, which is public opinion is turning against Trump on this issue, and on immigration broadly. But as a legal matter, again, we continue to inch closer and closer to the proverbial constitutional crisis that people have been afraid of and some would even say—potentially rightly—that we’re already there.

Sargent: Well, he is currently defying the Supreme Court, which has again ordered him to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s return and he’s not doing that. To your point, Chris, the Time magazine interviewers actually did press Donald Trump on the thing you raised. They said, Well, OK, if you haven’t asked Bukele to return him, then aren’t you violating the Supreme Court’s order to facilitate his return? Trump stammered and said something like, Well, the lawyers aren’t telling me I have to do that. They don’t really want to do that at this juncture. That strikes me as pretty damning. Trump is admitting it’s an option, but he’s not taking it.

/snip