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The David Pakman Show
4/17/25: ICE detains citizens while RFK nutty on autism
01:01:00
-- On the Show: -- Congressman Robert Garcia (D-CA) joins David to discuss the Trump administration's ignoring due process, the collapse of DOGE, and much more -- ICE starts to detain US citizens for hours when attempting to re-enter the United...
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- [00:00]
David Pakman
Foreign welcome, everybody. It seems every day the line is being pushed further and we now have reports of ICE detaining US citizens for hours as they attempt to reenter the United States. We were told it would just be the criminal illegals, that any US Citizen had nothing to worry about, that this was about safety and not about profiling. But this week a US citizen was detained by Customs and Border Protection after coming back from a weekend trip in Canada, a trip I've done many times as a naturalized American citizen. The individual to whom this happened is essentially no different than me. This is Bakira Tala, real estate attorney from New Hampshire, has lived in the United states for nearly four decades, has been a naturalized American citizen for over 10 years, and after crossing the Vermont border with his wife, maybe at the exact same crossing that I've done 30 or so times when coming back from Montreal, he was pulled aside by CBP agents, told to get out of the car, and when he hesitated for clarification, an agent reached for his gun. Atala complied, but was handcuffed, wrist twisted, dragged away. While his wife watched from the car. He asked, why am I being detained? The response is we don't know. It's. The government agents demanded access to his phone and to his email. He invoked attorney client privilege as a practicing lawyer. They pressured him into signing a statement allowing them to search through it. And anyway, under duress, he gave in. And five hours later he and his wife were released. No charges were filed, no explanation was given, just disbelief and the trauma of such an event. Now, this is not an isolated incident. Last month we learned about ICE detaining Gen Z Machado, another naturalized US citizen and by the way, one that actually supports, or it at least did support, Donald Trump. We learned of a student with a green card tackled in front of his pregnant wife and now a decade long citizen coming back from Canada detained and interrogated for hours. So we're in a new phase. The line keeps pushing forward. Only criminal illegals. Well, maybe it's anybody who's undocumented. Well, maybe it's people here with visas. Maybe it's permanent residence. Maybe it's a naturalized American citizen, just like me. So we're now in a phase where apparently not even citizenship protects you. First it was undocumented immigrants and green card holders and then now we are pushing the line further and further and of course everybody's insisting that all of this stuff is being done by the book. Now here is what Bichira Tala's sister, who's an immigration attorney said it is not about immigrants. It's coming to us Americans and it's going to go after all of us. This is what the Trump deportation machine looks like. Even if not everybody being encountered is even subject to deportation legally. When a citizen with a US Passport, no criminal record, legal credentials can be treated like this at the border, we are beyond the is this going too far Phase. It's happening right now. And so for everybody, you know, I was on with the Don with Don Lemon yesterday alongside Brian Tyler Cohen and Cenk Uygur, and our consensus was this has already gone far enough. Where now is the red alert? Now is the five alarm fire. Serious legal questions, of course, about what happened to attala. Customs and Border Protection, of course, documents does have broader authority at border crossings. That's what they do. It includes the ability to do a secondary screening. There are constitutional limits, especially when it comes to American citizens. You know, we sort of encountered this to a degree during the COVID era, because remember, in the COVID era, with all of the travel restrictions as applied to citizens coming back to the United States, at the end of the day, what was determined was that the United States cannot block a citizen from coming home. And so all of the testing guidelines and all of the different stuff that the right wingers were furious about, the right wingers ultimately came down on the side of, you really can't keep an American citizen out of the United States. You can't reject their reentry to the United States. If they show up and they haven't done the COVID test, you've got to let them back in. That's how it applied then. But now a different standard being applied. Well, I don't know. Maybe the five hours of questioning is okay. Maybe the allowing search of the phone under duress is ok. So this should be setting alarm bells off in every courtroom in the country. At minimum, we have a violation of attorney client confidentiality. At worse, you know, it's a case study in rights being trampled in real time. Now, later, CBP has really kind of focused in on this. Attala consented to the search of his phone. We've talked about this before. Consent given under duress after being handcuffed and threatened. I don't know that that's really consent in any meaningful legal sense. And courts have long recognized that these coercive environments can invalidate consent in exactly this sort of situation. But it keeps happening. Very little oversight, almost no consequences. Finally, we have to talk about the biggest chilling effect that can't be ignored. When the line moves to naturalized citizens searched, detained, humiliated, intimidated at the border, the message is that your status doesn't protect you. I have the same status as Atala. And then, of course, the next phase is, damn. Maybe Trump is serious about sending American citizens, naturalized or natural born, to other countries. And the implications go well beyond immigration enforcement. This discourages legal residents and new citizens from exercising their rights. It sows fear. It tells people, don't ask questions, don't speak up, don't push back. So that is where we are now. American citizen detained for hours and humiliated. Let's next go to a case of mistaken identity. But does mistaken identity even matter? ICE just smashed the window of a car, dragged a man out, his wife screaming, his son watching, and they had the wrong guy. This happened in New Bedford, Massachusetts. Video, which we will look at, shows ICE agents surrounding a car, demanding the man inside get out. And when he doesn't, an agent grabs an ax, smashes the window, glass everywhere, panic. And by the way, they got the wrong guy. We'll talk about whether that is the key part of this. Take a look at this. The agent's saying, I only want to talk. And the, the individual is saying, only with my lawyer asking whether there's a warran. All right, so this is, this is the lead up that ultimately led to the smashing of the glass that we saw at the beginning of the video. So here's what's going on. The man is 29 year old asylum seeker Juan Francisco Mendez. He's from Guatemala, no criminal record. His wife and son are already protected under asylum. As a reminder, asylum is legal status. It is not permanent, but it is legal status. The individual was in the final steps of his asylum process and his lawyer says that ICE was actually looking for someone else entirely. A man named Antonio who lived in the same building. Wrong guy, different person, but they didn't care. Kwon explains he's not Antonio. He says he's waiting on his lawyer. ICE doesn't wait. They bring out the ax, smash the window and arrest him anyway. And now he is sitting in a detention center in Dover, New Hampshire. No charges, no explanation. And of course, his wife is asking, when is he coming home? His son is saying, when is he coming home? And the real kicker here is, even if it had been the right guy, would this have been ok? Would smashing a car window in front of a child and dragging someone out still be acceptable when they are invoking their right to counsel? This takes us a couple of steps back to something we've been talking about. Now for weeks. If an individual story is sympathetic or unsympathetic, does that change the legal requirement to provide due process? And we're going to deal with this later in the case of Abrego Garcia, where you've got Tom Homan and Pam Bondi and others saying even if he came back from El Salvador, he would immediately be deported again. And of course that's a lie. The truth is if he came back from El Salvador, he would be subject to deportation pending the results of a hearing. That's called due process. I'm the first to tell you, if he comes back and gets his hearing, gets his day in court, and it is then indicated that he should be deported, that is due process. We may like it or not, we may find his particular story sympathetic or not, but it's due process. And the problem here is that due process is being ignored. I've caught myself many times on the show over the last week or so saying the law guarantees, the constitution guarantees. What does it mean to guarantee something if there is no means of enforcement, no, no means of ensuring that someone is actually provided what they are entitled to? And that's where we find ourselves at this point in time. Now after the break, we are going to talk about a judge that is at least trying to do what he can to ensure that due process is provided to people. We are going to hear and see from an Attorney General, Pam Bondi, and from a White House press secretary, Caroline Levitt, who cannot or will not stop lying about every aspect of what's going on while claiming to be the most moral and the most law abiding. And then we are also going to see in the midst of this, the economic chaos that is increasingly impossible to support. I will remind you, I would love it for you to get on my newsletter if the clampdown happens. The only platform on which we own our data and we own our list is our newsletter. It'll be how you can get a hold of me and I can get a hold of you no matter what happens on all the algorithmically based platforms. So you can go to david pakman.substack.com or you can simply email info@david pakman.com and say, David, please, I'm asking you, I'm begging you, put me on that newsletter. The only thing better than incredible tasting fresh seafood is knowing it was caught responsibly. I love our partnership with Wild Alaskan Company. They do sustainable seafood memberships and bring high quality wild caught Alaskan seafood right to your door. Every filet you get is 100% wild, never farmed, sourced from well managed fisheries in Alaska. You get better flavor and texture, but you're also helping to preserve these ecosystems. They freeze everything at the peak of freshness. It gets to you vacuum sealed to all 50 states. I got a combo box that had everything from crab fish fillets, scallops, salmon burgers which were absolutely delicious. So elevate your meals, support sustainable fishing and enjoy seafood the way it should be. Go to wildalaskin.com/pacman use code PACMAN for $35 off your first box. That's wild alaskan.com/pacman use code PAKMAN for $35 off the link is in the podcast Notes the David Pakman show continues to be primarily funded by our audience. I invite you to get the full David Pakman show experience every day. That means the show commercial, free access to the bonus show.
- [13:31]
Cenk Uygur
The bonus show where you want to make money. Everybody else that makes money to fund themselves is bad.
- [13:36]
David Pakman
Yeah, access to the members only soundboard. And of course you get the show every day, hours before we release it public publicly. All of it available for less than one of those lattes@join pacman.com Donald Trump just got a brutal criminal warning from a judge. If anyone else defied a federal judge's direct order, they'd be in handcuffs. When Donald Trump's people do it, they get a letter and maybe a press release. Chief U.S. district Judge James Boasberg is sick of Trump, and understandably so. And after the Trump administration illegally deported over 130 Venezuelan migrants after being told not to do it, it Boseberg said, We now have probable cause to bring criminal contempt charges against Trump officials. Criminal, not civil. And if the Justice Department won't prosecute, Judge Boasberg is saying that he will appoint someone who will. This is not a civil dispute. This is defying a federal court order on purpose and throwing human beings onto deportation flights bound for a notorious Salvadorian prison. That certainly seems to qualify as cruel and unusual punishment, a prison that human rights groups have repeatedly condemned. Boasberg said that letting political leaders openly ignore court rulings makes a, quote, solemn mockery of the Constitution itself. And the judge is right. And the thing here is that we have to be honest with ourselves. Trump's orbit has learned that breaking the law only matters if someone enforces the consequences. It's sort of like if you're training a dog, beautiful dog, and the dog learns that it can take bagels off of the counter every day and nothing happens. Of course they're going to keep taking the bagels off of the counter. My dad's dog has done it. It's an ugly situation and so far there have been no consequences. So of course they're going to keep doing it. Trump's people argued that the judge's order doesn't count because it was verbal. Then they claimed it didn't matter anyway because the planes were in the air and they can't be turned around. This is the level of contempt that they're operating with. Literal contempt, contempt of court and figurative contempt. Now, the dhs, his response to all of this is to say the judge is lawless. That is projection on a level we haven't seen since Trump accused Biden of stealing the election while trying to overturn the last word. One, remember that any judicial order you don't like is unlawful in Trump world. So we now have a judge saying there's probable cause, a Department of justice that may or may not act, and an administration that has made very clear that it doesn't care what the courts say. If it slows down their agenda, if it's inconvenient, if they don't like it, they ignore it. This is a very familiar situation at this point. It's the Trump playbook. You break the law, you delay the consequences, you dismiss the courts, and you accuse everybody else of doing what you are actually doing. This is why we say that the United States is sliding towards authoritarianism. It's not because Trump puts out disgusting messages on truth, social, truth central, Right? It's not because he says things that we don't like. It's because he learns every single day that the system won't stop him. And the system hasn't stopped him. Judge Boasberg is trying to change that. Unless and until someone is held accountable, it is yet another criminal warning that Trump will ignore, just like all of the others. And the latest target of his ire is the Fed chairman who just won't do what Trump wants. Let's talk about that. Jay Powell, the Federal Reserve chairman, just told Trump without saying his name, you've got to back the F off. And the message really couldn't be clearer. There was an event at the Economic Club of Chicago yesterday. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell did what very few public officials have had the testicular or ovarian fortitude to do lately. He stood up to Trump and he said, I don't care what Trump wants me to do with the federal funds interest rate to juice the stock market. We are independent. We will not consider politics. Trump saw this and he lost his mind. Let's first hear what the Fed Chairman.
- [18:09]
Jerome Powell
Had to say that we're monitoring carefully. Generally speaking, Fed independence is very widely understood and support supported in Washington, in Congress, where it really matters. And, you know, the point is we can make our decisions and we will only make our decisions based on our best thinking best, based on our best analysis of the data about what, what is the way to serve our, to achieve our dual mandate goals as we can to best serve the American people. That's the only thing we're ever going to do. We're never going to be influenced by any political pressure. People can say whatever they want, want, that's fine, that's not a problem. But we will do what we do strictly without consideration of political or any other extraneous factors.
- [18:51]
David Pakman
This is not subtle. He is looking directly at Donald Trump's economic sabotage plan and he's saying, as disastrous as what you're doing may be, and he gets to that, we're not in this with you and we're not bailing you out just because you, you're telling us to. Jay Powell has also been very clear that the independence of the Fed and his ability to stay in his role for the full term, no matter whether Trump wants him out, and Trump does want him out, and we will get to that. He says that it is a matter of law, period, full stop, end of story.
- [19:27]
Robert Garcia
He told us about speaking with business people last night and getting a sense of what was going on in the Midwest. Let me turn to Fed independence. You've reiterated that you intend to stay in office until the end of your term, and that certainly reassured many in financial markets. What are the levers the government or the legislature have to pressure the Fed? And should one worry about threats to the Fed's independence once you're gone?
- [19:55]
Jerome Powell
So our independence is a matter of law. Congress has, in our statute, we're not removable except for cause. We serve very long terms, seemingly endless terms. So it's, we're protect, protected in the law. So, you know, Congress could change that law, but there's, I don't think there's any danger of that. Fed independence has pretty broad support across both political parties and in, in both sides of the Hill.
- [20:25]
David Pakman
So now the explanation that you can only be fired for cause, that that's the only exemption or exception to the Fed's independence. Of course, if you went to Trump, Trump would go, I do want to fire him for cause. He's not doing what I want him to do with interest rates to make my economy look better than it actually is. Now, the translation here from, from Powell is, hey, Donny boy, you can't fire me now. It is what a functioning democracy looks like. Institutions telling power hungry lunatics that they don't get to rig the economy because it's politically convenient. The Fed will maintain its independence. Powell also, during his prepared remarks, sent a direct shot across the bow at the Mango menace, saying that these tariffs are a bomb that's about to go off. It's not going to be good.
- [21:14]
Jerome Powell
The level of tariff increases announced so far is significantly larger than anticipated and the same is likely to be true of the economic effects, which will include higher inflation and slower growth.
- [21:26]
David Pakman
And Powell also delved further into this by saying inflation will go up and these could be persistent inflationary effects.
- [21:37]
Jerome Powell
Tariffs are highly likely to generate at least a temporary rise in inflation. The inflationary effects could also be more persistent. Avoiding that outcome will depend on the size of the effects, on how long it takes for them to pass through fully to prices, and ultimately on keeping longer term inflation expectations well anchored.
- [21:58]
David Pakman
This is very, very much crystal clear. He's going to do what he believes makes sense. He's going to serve out his full term. He's not going to jeopardize or compromise on the Fed's independence no matter what Trump wants, says or does. Donald Trump reacting to this exactly as you would expect. Trump is losing it over the one man in Washington he's unable to control, and that is Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell. Trump reacted to Jerome Powell saying, we will be independent, we will serve out our terms and we won't be bullied by Trump. Trump responded to it with a furious Truth social post. Truth Central, yeah, demanding Powell be fired, saying he's too late and wrong and accuses him of being a mess. What a tantrum unleashed because Powell said we don't change interest rates based on Trump say so. And Donald Trump saying the following. The ECB is expected to cut interest rates for the seventh time and yet too late. Jerome Powell of the Fed, who is always too late and wrong, yesterday issued a report which was another and typical complete mess. Oil prices are down, groceries, even eggs are down and the USA is getting rich on tariffs. Too late should have lowered interest rates like the ECB long ago, but he should certainly lower them now. Powell's termination cannot come fast enough. Trump is triggered because Trump wants to control everything and everybody all the time. Trump is demanding lower interest rates right now, not because inflation is under control, not because it makes economic sense, but because he wants to juice the economy heading into November. And Jerome Powell said he's not going to play along. That's what this is really about. Powell's not too late. He's just not letting Trump dictate Fed policy. He's not allowing Trump to turn the Fed into a campaign arm of the White House. And that makes Trump furious because he can't control Jerome Powell. He claims groceries and oil are down, but the Fed's own data shows that prices are still elevated in key sectors. Trump cherry picks whatever fits his latest rant. We're getting rich on tariffs. Trump says it's not how tariffs work. Tariffs are import taxes paid by American businesses and consumers. They're not an atm, a magical ATM you go to and you get money out and it's just like, where did it come from? How does it work? Tariffs slow growth down when done in this haphazard, no lead time, sort of catch all way. And Jerome Powell is correctly warning the tariffs are going to be bad for the economy. But we won't be bullied by your haphazard economic policy that is so, so short sighted into doing what you want us to do with rates. Now, of course Trump can't fire Powell. The Fed is independent by law. He has a fixed term. He can be removed for cause. Trump can throw tantrums all day. He can't rewrite that part of the law. What Trump can try to argue, and I'm curious to see whether he does it, is that there is cause to fire Jay Powell. And the way he would do that is by saying that the economic circumstances so obviously point to a federal funds rate cut. That Powell not doing it is justifiable cause for firing him. I don't believe that anybody would accept that. Not anybody. I mean, listen, Stephen Miller would accept it. Caroline Levitt would accept it. But I don't think anyone seriously with economic knowledge would accept that not lowering, lowering interest rates when Trump wants you to is justifiable cause to be fired from an independent agency. Trump melting down the least surprising thing in the world. Trump not understanding the impact of his own tariff program. The least surprising thing in the world. Someone potentially being able to actually resist the bullying of Trump, that is a little more surprising. And we'll see if Powell is actually able to do it. You know, every time we call out Donald Trump's authoritarianism, the right calls it media hysteria. But I want to remind you that Trump admits he's looking for ways to defy the Constitution and maybe even pursue another term. Now, if you don't Know the bias behind your news you might believe. Oh, Trump's just teasing us. There's nothing here. Go to Ground News, slash pacman and see how media bias influences more than your perception from Trump's policy and ability to understand and undermine constitutional norms. I've been with Ground News for years now because this is what they do. They expose the hidden agendas behind reporting sources and make it easy to compare coverage and understand critical issues. Even better, if I'm reading a story on another site, the Ground News browser extension will flag the source's political bias and give me other reports on the same story so I can verify the information. My viewers get 40% off the same unlimited vantage plan that I use. So you get their top tier plan for just $5 a month. Go to Ground News Pacman. The link is in the description or scan the QR code. It's great to welcome to the program today, Congressman Robert Garcia, representing California's 42nd congressional district. Congressman, it's so great to have you on. And, you know, the timing is both fortunate and unfortunate in the sense of we're dealing with a lot of very serious things right now, and it's hard to know where to even start, maybe to pick one place. Senator Chris Van Hollen was denied a visit with Abrego Garcia, you're requesting to go with other members of Congress. What is it that you think you need to see or want to see there? What do we need to know right now?
- [28:19]
Pam Bondi
Well, I think two things are really important about this moment. The first, which I should not get lost, is the fact that Donald Trump is openly defying a Supreme Court order to bring back Abrego Garcia from El Salvador. The fact that the president is denying that and essentially saying that the Supreme Court is agreeing with his position is a constitutional crisis of the moment. This is an emergency. Look, the president can appoint judges that we may disagree with, justices that we may disagree with strongly, but you have to, as an equal branch of government, abide by the laws of the Supreme Court. So the fact that he is not doing that is really serious as a country and a democracy. The second piece of this is Donald Trump is now sending people that have legal status to be here, which he had, to a foreign prison, which he himself has admitted was a mistake, that he went down there and now he's refusing to bring him back. And so we have a duty to ensure that he is safe and most importantly, that we bring him home, which is why we've made these requests to the Republican majority.
- [29:34]
David Pakman
There is so much speculation about this very, it's a surreal moment where sitting in the Oval Office, the president of the United States and the president of El Salvador both said we don't really have the power, even working together to move one individual from one of their countries to the other. Very difficult to believe that two presidents wouldn't be able to do that. Which has raised some to ask the question, do we even know that Garcia is alive? Do you? Is that a concern you share?
- [30:07]
Pam Bondi
Well, I mean, we don't know, obviously, but we're hopeful. You know, the president of El Salvador had made some remarks that he's being held and he's safe, what, days ago. But that's, it's very concerning. I mean, we need to be able to check in and ensure that he is safe. And at the end of the day, he is owed due process, as are other individuals that are being sent to this prison that have had some type of legal residency here or some type of ability to be here. Those folks should be sent down there. And on top of that, what we're seeing right now is Donald Trump deporting and essentially I think causing great harm to not just them and their families. But deporting students with visas, deporting workers that have work permits, this is not the United States that we know. Nobody wants to have someone that's committed crimes or that's here causing problems in the US we can all agree on that. But if you are a student and you're on a campus and you're contributing, you're getting deported and not being told why, that's not the United States that we know. And if you are here on a temporary visa or some type of temporary or permanent residency, and then you're being deported, sent to a foreign prison without due process, without a judge actually sentencing you, that is a huge problem.
- [31:28]
David Pakman
You know, we talked earlier on my program today, the story of a naturalized American citizen who's been in the country 40 years as a citizen for 10 of those years, who was detained for hours at a Canadian Vermont border crossing, American citizen, to be clear, naturalized. And I was thinking to myself, you know, at the beginning we were told the focus will be so called criminal illegals. Not a term I use, but I'm using their term. Then it was, well, anybody who's undocumented, then it was like, well, maybe the visas, maybe we'll start looking at permanent residents. We're now talking about a naturalized citizen. I thought of myself, I have come over that border 30 times growing up as my family would go to Montreal and come back. My sister currently lives in Canada. Am I at risk of the same sort of detention as a naturalized US Citizen coming over that very border in Vermont? I mean, is that where you think we are right now?
- [32:21]
Pam Bondi
I think that's where we're headed. And there's, I also think that Donald Trump is now openly discussing sending U.S. citizens to foreign prisons, as we saw kind of in that hot mic moment with the president of El Salvador. So I think this is a, we're only three months into the Trump presidency, and so I think people need to understand that he's crossing red lines in the sand that have not been crossed before, and we've got to take those very seriously. And it's not, you know, it's not just, this is not a moment where we can just have business as usual. And Congress needs to fight back really, really hard and be aggressive, which is why so many of us have tried to lean in not just on this issue, but, but so many others, whether it's, you know, Elon Musk and Doge, whether it's the illegal, unconstitutional destruction of our federal agencies that Donald Trump is trying to do, or in this case, deporting people here that have legal status. We've got to speak out, protest, and we've got to get down to El Salvador as well. I really commend Senator Van Hollen for going down there. There's a group of House members, as you know, that we're planning on going down there as well.
- [33:24]
David Pakman
One of the things that my audience has been saying to me is what can Congress do in this particular context? I've caught myself over the last week when I start saying the Constitution guarantees or due process guarantees. What does it mean that something is guaranteed if it can be ignored with no real consequences? So I think what many people in my audience want to hear very plainly, and if the answer is you're not sure what we can do, then fair. If there is this dismissal of a legal court order as we just don't want to do that, what does it mean that something is guaranteed by the Constitution, and what can your legislative body do about that?
- [34:07]
Pam Bondi
Well, I think Congress can, can fight, bring attention and get reversals on these positions and file lawsuits, which we've been doing, and a few other things as well. I mean, look, one is Congress and leaders in this country need to put themselves in front of the problem, in between the problem, and be out protesting, leading, bringing public attention, pressuring Republicans going to their districts, because obviously we don't have the majority in Congress to pass laws and so that is what's really, really important, is that we're very vocal that we're going, we're communicating everywhere that we can about what's actually happening to inform the public, because there is power in people and movements across this country. The second thing that's really important is we have filed over 100 lawsuits in the courts as members of Congress. We've won about half of those, reversing some of the most extreme firings at some of these departments, reversing some of what Elon Musk is trying to do in the government. That has been very effective. And then we've also got to show up where these issues are happening, which is why it's so important that members of Congress from the House and Democrats are in El Salvador asking questions, talking to people on the ground, meeting with the family, going to the prison. And if. And if they're not going to let us in, then we've got to cause a ruckus there and demand to the news media and the authorities that we ensure that he. That in this case, that Abreu Garcia is safe and that the prison is not holding other United States legal residents or others that have temporary status. Those folks need to be brought back to the US and have their due process through the court system.
- [35:44]
David Pakman
Yeah, I think that's something that's missed in the sense of, you know, we heard from the attorney general and others that if this particular individual showed back up in the United States, he would immediately just be deported. And that misses a critical detail which is subject to deportation. If you get due process and a decision is made is very different than you would immediately be deported. And I have said before, if there is due process, individuals who are undocumented and are here, of course, by the law of the land, are subject to deportation. But subject to, at the end of a legal process is different than just being grabbed and sent somewhere else. This is a critical distinction.
- [36:27]
Pam Bondi
Huge difference. Look, I'm an immigrant myself. I came to the U.S. when I was 4 years old. I gained and earned citizenship at 23, about 23. I've lived part of my life undocumented. I've been part of my life as a. As a temporary resident trying to earn my way to citizenship green card. And so I know how, you know, those. Those parts of what it's like to be not fully a part of this country. And there is. There's. There's always been a sense of.
- [36:58]
David Pakman
Of.
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Pam Bondi
Of concern, of worry, but never at the level that it is now. I mean, people now that have some type of legal, temporary status, are frightened and scared about what the Donald Trump administration is doing. Every single person, if you're undocumented or you have temporary legal status or a work permit or student visa and you're in this country and you commit some type of crime, then you need to be held accountable by the justice system like everybody else in this country. And in that. And if in that process you are deported, that is how our system works. And you will be and should be deported in the United States because there was a judicial process that made that decision. No single president should have the ability to just pluck somebody, whoever that they want and send them to a foreign prison without that due process.
- [37:46]
David Pakman
One of the things that's a concern to some in my audience is that much of what we're seeing right now from the Democratic Party is, to use their word, performative. And I'll give you some examples. Cory Booker's 25 hour speech was a performance. It didn't get anybody health care. The Bernie AOC rallies, the town halls, these are interesting events, but they're not solving hunger. My view has been given that right now the Democratic Party is mostly out of power at the federal level, and of course governorships are different. But maybe some performance is ok. But to let people know about the issues that are going on, to try to build a movement that will grow into something effective into the midterm. So I acknowledge that a lot of these things are performances of sorts, but maybe that's kind of what's needed right now to reinvigorate the left. I don't know. What's your view on it?
- [38:44]
Pam Bondi
Yeah, I mean, I would argue that the Cory Booker, you know, kind of filibuster speech, as well as the rallies are very effective. And look what, what Cory Booker did was he galvanized tens of millions of people across this country, many who, who got interested in politics for the first time through TikTok, through social media, being on the news. And he brought people in and told stories of what's actually happening to people. He made people understand the stakes. He encouraged people to talk and talk to their members of Congress. People took action steps to reach out to their own constituents, their own communities, organize themselves. That was a huge, huge moment that he brought attention to a lot of issues. Take these AOC rallies with Bernie. They're incredibly, incredibly successful. They're organizing people. I mean, they're in places like Idaho and Montana, red states and red districts, because they also know that we've got to flip the House as it as that election is coming up here in a year and a half, two years, in order to actually stop Donald Trump's agenda. So they're already doing the organizing work on the ground and getting people to engage. So I find those actions to be very effective. We, it needs to be an all hands on deck and all everything on the table approach. We've got to be in the courts, we've got to be at rallies, we've got to be at town halls. We've got a filibuster in the Senate and the House. Those are the actions that's got to be taken.
- [40:07]
David Pakman
I want to just briefly ask you a little bit about tariffs and then I'll let you go privately. Your colleagues on the other side of the aisle in the House, are they wishing that Trump would just permanently say, we're not doing the tariffs and so we could stop the chaos and move on to other things? Are they privately supportive? What are you, you know, you don't have to out anyone in particular, but what are you kind of hearing from what Republicans really feel about this?
- [40:35]
Pam Bondi
Yeah, I mean, look, yeah, some Republicans in private will certainly say that they don't support the terrorists, but quite frankly, that's very cowardly. If you're not going to publicly say and oppose the tariffs, then it doesn't really matter what you say in private.
- [40:48]
David Pakman
Right.
- [40:48]
Pam Bondi
This is a huge impact to the economy. It's going to raise prices. Regardless of the fact that Donald Trump has clawed back some of the most extreme tariffs. Many are still in place. We don't know what he's actually going to do. He's kind of chaotic about the issue. A lot of the supply chain has already been disrupted and will continue to be. And so I just think that Republicans in the House especially and the Senate are being cowardly. If they don't believe in the terrorists, they should be speaking out against them. Speaking out against Donald Trump. They refuse to do so. So that's, I think what's really the most upsetting with Republicans is that the refusal to actually take any sort of accountability.
- [41:25]
David Pakman
What's your best guess as to the future of this? Is it a quiet off ramp with Trump saving face by saying, everybody gave me what I wanted? Is it what. What do you anticipate?
- [41:36]
Pam Bondi
Yeah, I mean, we don't know. I think with Donald Trump, you never know what you're going to get. Just chaos and dysfunction. So I wouldn't be surprised if he claws more back to try to take some credit. But the damage is already done. And I think Donald Trump has already proven that he doesn't care about the American worker or the American economy. He cares about enriching himself and his billionaire friends. That's what he's most interested in. And he, he partners with dictators like, like Vladimir Putin. And I think that's what's really, really dangerous is the moment that we're in right now.
- [42:09]
David Pakman
We've been speaking with Democratic Congressman Robert Garcia, representing California's 42nd congressional district. A lot of congressional districts in that state of California, Very, very big state. Congressman, really appreciate your time today.
- [42:22]
Pam Bondi
Thank you guys.
- [42:24]
David Pakman
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- [44:53]
Caroline Levitt
We want to restore the records of these young women. You know, these women lost records. One didn't go to regionals, one didn't go to State, all because of a boy. All of these records should be restored not only in Maine, but around the country of these young woman. You know, Riley Gaines started training for swimming when she was four years old. She made it to the Olympics. A lot of this around the country is being taken away from young women now because boys are competing in women's sports. And it's more than that. It's a safety issue. They are completely changing clothes, getting nude in young women's bathrooms. Try being the parents of these young women. It's ridiculous what they're doing. They're going in the restrooms, they're going in the locker rooms. Our young women throughout this country should not have to go through this. And under President Trump's directive, we're going to fight to keep women safe.
- [45:43]
David Pakman
Yeah. So anyway, Riley Gaines never made it to the Olympics. Just a flat out lie. She tied for fifth place in an NCAA swim meet. And that is the truth. But it doesn't matter to Pam Bondi. And of course it gets worse. More substantively, Pam Bondi was pressed during a press conference she gave right, right before, right after this Fox News appearance about the deportation of Abrego Garcia. And a reporter asked, where is the evidence? You will notice that Pam Bondi does not assert any of the evidence topic.
- [46:16]
Donald Trump
Over the past few weeks, Kilmar Abrego Garcia in Maryland. He's in a prison now in El Salvador. He was sent there. You insist the president, everybody in the administration insist that he's MSD 13. It appears that there's not going to be any sort of trial. He's not going to come back. DHS said he would be arrested and redeported. If he comes back, why not show the American people the evidence that he's MS.13 so they can make an informed decision. And that goes the same with this Henry Jose Santos, who was picked up in Virginia, who is now presumably going to be deported as well. Why not show the public the evidence?
- [46:52]
David Pakman
Get ready for condescension and anger, but no evidence.
- [46:56]
Caroline Levitt
Well, he is an illegal alien who has been living illegally in our country from El Salvador. ICE testified. An immigration judge ruled he he was a member of Ms. 13. An appellate judge ruled he was a member of Ms. 13. Hard stop. He should not be in our country. He was deported. They needed one additional step in paperwork. But now MS.13 is characterized as they should be as an FTO, as a foreign terrorist organization. So he is not coming back to our country. President Bukele said he was not sending him back. That's the end of the story. If he wanted to send him back, we would give him a plane ride back. There was no situation ever where he was going to stay in this country. None. None. He would have come back, had one extra step of paperwork and gone back again. But he's from El Salvador. He's in El Salvador and that's where the president plans on keeping him.
- [47:58]
Donald Trump
The evidence. We're not going to see the evidence.
- [48:00]
Caroline Levitt
We have the transcripts from the. The court hearings. I'll be glad to give you the court hearings from 2019, what we have.
- [48:08]
David Pakman
Sure, that's right. Saying someone's undocumented isn't proof of criminal activity. And then she says, well, ICE testified that Abrego Garcia was Ms. 13, except there wasn't actually any testimony. If you go back and you look at the transcripts, first of all, she's talking about 2019. It's an ICE memo. And the memo is based on what a confidential informant allegedly told the detective. There were no witnesses, there was no cross examination, and there was no due process. It's all a house of cards. They're making it all up. We then get to the next line that they love using, which is, even if he came back, he'd be immediately.
- [48:54]
RFK Jr.
Deported, illegal that was shipped out to El Salvador or had been living in Maryland. It's a hot topic. Wall Street Journal editorial board summarizes the following way. It says Mr. Trump would be smarter to play the long game. He has many much bigger issues in the fate of one man that will come before the Supreme Court. By taunting the judiciary in this manner, he's inviting a rebuke on cases that carry far greater stakes, end quote. What they're saying is keep your powder dry for now. Don't blow it on this guy. What do you think about that?
- [49:23]
Caroline Levitt
Well, we did the right thing. It was one additional step in paperwork that needed to be taken. Now he is declared as a foreign transnational gang member. So Bill, even declared by whom? If he. Even if President Bukele said we'll send him back, all that would happen is one more step in paperwork and he would go right back to El Salvador because he is a. An Ms. 13 member. ICE testified to that. There was a witness testimony. There was an immigration judge who testified in 2019. There was an appellate judge. All of these are.
- [50:00]
David Pakman
All right, so now she goes into the same lies again. There was no witness testimony at his 2019 hearing. It was an ICE memo, supposedly from a confidential informant. OK, but here's the critical thing that they're getting wrong. He would immediately be deported. No, he wouldn't. He would be subject to deportation. And nobody that I know on the left is saying that people who are here undocumented should not be subject to deportation. Everybody who claims asylum and is given a court date is subject to deportation. All of it with the caveat that it is depending on the outcome of your hearing. That is not. He steps back in and is immediately sent back. It's. Well, depending on the outcome of the judicial process that he's entitled to, it may be that he has to leave the country. And then I would say that's due process. That's the decision that was made. All right. Finally, later in the day, Bondi also grotesquely suggests that the family of Abrego Garcia is better off without him.
- [51:05]
Caroline Levitt
Maryland is safer because he is gone. And that woman that he is married to and that child he had with her, they are safer tonight because he is out of our country and sitting in El Salvador where he belongs with a straight face.
- [51:23]
David Pakman
It's sort of like a family improvement plan called deportation. Really nuts. No clear evidence, no trial, no testimony, and a complete subjugation of public accountability. All right, we go to Pam Bondi. To Caroline. From Pam Bondi to Caroline Lovett. Which one is more clueless? Which one is more dishonest? Which one is more of a Christian? They both wear their very big crosses, that we know, but it doesn't seem to prevent them from lying. Donald Trump's press secretary, Caroline Lovett, went on Fox News last night to defend not the deportations, but the failing economic strategy. And I have to tell you, she sounds so desperate. Just waiting around unrequited love, where I never hear from the person I'm obsessed with. She says, china, we're waiting for your call. Please call us. China. But China's moved on. And China is making trade deals with other countries.
- [52:21]
Robert Garcia
That is the party that they now represent. That's fine if that's where they want to be. Do we have an update? I know that there was discussions today regarding trade and tariffs with Japan. I expect that probably a lot of countries are going to be signing deals in the days and weeks ahead. Can you update us?
- [52:39]
I
I don't have an update for you, actually. Just left a dinner with The President in Patty Moore and in some great faith leaders in celebration of Holy Week. So I haven't checked in with our Secretary of Treasury or Jameson Greer, our United States Trade ambassador, yet. However, I did run into the Secretary of Treasury and he told me the meetings were productive and they were moving along and they were here for quite some time. And the President met directly with one of the trade representatives from Japan because the President wants to be involved in these negotiations and these talks. And I think it speaks volume about the number of countries we have seen come to the table reaching out to this administration to cut deals. It's because the entire world knows they need to do business with the United States of America. And China knows that too, Sean. And as President Trump directed me to say yesterday, it remains true tonight, the ball is in China's court. They need to do business with the United States. They need the best thing on the face of the planet, and that is the American consumer. And we have. We are the best place in the world to do business. The rest of the world knows that. And that's why Japan was here today to negotiate a trade deal.
- [53:43]
David Pakman
Caroline, you're sounding very desperate. You're sounding very desperate that any second China is going to call you and ask you to the prom. But China's got a bunch of other dates already. It's the kind of forced optimism when the ship is clearly sinking. Caroline Levitt wants us to believe that the economic chaos caused by Trump, the threats, the trade wars, the tariff hikes and pauses and all of it, it's making the United States this irresistible center of global trade. Things are so stable here, Caroline, that everybody's desperate to do business with us. The reality is it's scaring off allies, it's disrupting supply chains, it's raising prices for American consumers. And the idea that the ball is in China's court is like the opposite of reality. China doesn't need to come back to us. They're doing business with Europe, they're doing business with South America. They're building alternatives to U.S. trade routes. We just heard about South Korean discussions that are taking place and others. Trump's waging economic war on the people of this country. And meanwhile, China's moving on. And Caroline Levitt is just begging, please call me back. I really like you. It's hoping that the tough sounding rhetoric is going to cover up the fact that Trump's trade policies have completely backfired. They backfired in his first term, crushed farmers, higher inflation, forced billions in bailout payments to taxpayers and Levitt's tone really says it all. This is not confidence, this is panic because they know the numbers don't back them up. And if China doesn't call, we are going to have a situation where Trump is going to have to back off of everything, find some way to save face and claim they could capitulated, or it's going to be economic devastation. All they have left is spin and Caroline pretending that everybody's just desperate, desperate to give us a call. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Just said something so ignorant and cruel and flat out wrong about autism that it's not just a question of, oh, it's offensive, it's dangerously misinformed. Put aside for a second that the parents of autistic kids and others are going to hear this and go, that's disgusting. It is so wrong and is feeding RFK backwards understanding of autism. Take a listen to this.
- [56:10]
Cenk Uygur
This is an individual tragedy as well. Autism destroys families. More importantly, it destroys our greatest resource, which our children. These are children who should not be, who should not be suffering like this. These are kids who, many of them were fully functional and regressed because of some environmental exposure into autism when they're two years old.
- [56:37]
David Pakman
Of course, that's signaling vaccines, as many of you know.
- [56:40]
Cenk Uygur
And these are kids who will never pay taxes, they'll never hold a job, they'll never play baseball, they'll never write a poem, they'll never go out on a date. Many of them will never use a toilet unassisted. And we have to recognize we are doing this to our children.
- [57:02]
David Pakman
This is, this is disgusting. Now, first of all, yes, obviously RFK knows very little about autism. Autistic people will never go on a date. There's like an entire series, a dating series. I don't know what it's called. I know people who love it about autistic dating, first of all. So it seems like plenty of them are going on dates. Many have jobs, many pay taxes, many go to the toilet unassisted. Of course, autism is a spectrum, right? You've got autistic folks who need more support, others that are fully independent, they go to school, they go on dates, they start companies. Elon Musk is autistic. I thought we were told lower on the spectrum. I guess potentially the explanation for why he relates to others in the way that he does and trying to be careful here. Many do play baseball. Certainly poetry is on the table. Yes, Elon Musk tries not to pay taxes, that's true. But this whole concept of the affliction of autism as one thing and reducing an entire group of people to a list of things they can't do, it's not just inaccurate, it's completely dehumanizing. And this is of course, the same guy who has spent so long now pushing debunked conspiracies about vaccines and autism that have been so clearly been demonstrated to be untrue. And now he makes it even worse by spreading an even darker lie, which is that autistic people are doomed to a life of complete incapacity and isolation. And it really tells you everything about how RFK sees people with disabilities. And there are people who say autism isn't even necessarily a disability. I'm trying to kind of respect all the different views on this, but he sees folks only as their challenge, rather than the value and the potential. They're a burden. That's the impression you get from how RFK talks about this. Now, we've interviewed experts about autism. It's a complex condition believed to have some combination of genetic, neurological, possibly environmental components. It doesn't seem that there is a single cause. Importantly, it often seems to develop long before kids ever get a vaccine. And we have large scale studies with hundreds of thousands of children showing no causal link between vaccines and autism. But this is becoming a political agenda and that's important to understand that this is not a medical reality that RFK is talking about. This is a political agenda that is part of why he even ended up on Trump's radar and why he was selected to be in this position to begin with. The world looks at who is the Secretary of Health and Human Services in the United States and they see that it's RFK and it's a combination of laughing and crying. We should be humiliated that this is who is in this role. And now we get the autism means people can't use the toilet stuff from rfk. Disgusting and embarrassing for the country. Huge bonus show today. We will talk about what is happening now with the Social Security cut possibilities and how former President Biden is reacting. Will Harvard have its tax exempt status stripped by the irs? That's what Trump wants. And finally, New York Attorney General Letitia James has become the latest target of Donald Trump's revenge tour. And we will talk about where that is going. All of those stories and more on today's bonus show. Remember that my book, the Echo Machine, back on the New York Times bestseller list. Incredible. Back on for a second week, is available everywhere. Books are sold. If you've bought the book, please do leave a review on Amazon. Barnes and Noble and Goodreads. I look forward to seeing you on the bonus show and, of course, back on the show tomorrow.