SMALL DICTATOR ENERGY

Donald Trump’s zeal for disappearing people into foreign prisons is even making conservatives nervous. Democrats are scrambling to raise the alarm, and fight back.

• Do American presidents have the power to imprison U.S. citizens in a foreign gulag, run by a Latin American despot? That might seem like an easy, “Hell no!” Yet, this appears to be President Donald Trump’s ambition, now that he’s openly mulling sending “homegrown” criminals (i.e., U.S. citizens) to foreign incarceration.

• To recap how we got here: As part of Trump’s pledge to conduct the largest mass deportation in history, ICE agents flew hundreds of migrants (most with no criminal record) to a mega-prison in El Salvador. Trump’s team admitted that Kilmar Abrego Garcia, one of the migrants, was sent there by mistake. But they scoff at the idea of bringing him back. Instead, they’re exploiting the opportunity as a chance to seize power from the court system, openly defying judicial rulings.

• “We’re experiencing an attempted authoritarian takeover of American society,” Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) said on Pod Save America today. “This is a period like the Salem witchcraft trials … But I do think that the country is waking up.”

• Liberal lawmakers aren’t the only ones sounding the alarm. Trump’s lawlessness is unnerving some conservatives, too. The administration is “asserting a right to stash away residents of this country in foreign prisons without the semblance of due process that is the foundation of our constitutional order,” wrote Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson, a Reagan appointee, in an opinion last night .

• How is Trumpworld responding? By photoshopping gang tattoos on a Democratic lawmaker’s face; perpetuating the lie that Abrego Garcia is a gang member; and, of course, threatening to deport “homegrown” American citizens from the United States.

Trump’s ghoulish dungeon fetish is making people draw comparisons to the Soviet Union.

• Sounds like a human rights abuse, right? Well, the Trump administration is removing critiques of harsh prison conditions and government corruption in reports on international human rights. They’re rewriting the rules in real time, blatantly upending norms designed to protect Americans and keep the presidency in check.

• Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), who has been at the forefront of this fight, returned today from a visit to El Salvador to speak with Abrego Garcia. During that conversation, Abrego Garcia told the senator that he wasn’t allowed a phone call before being deported. Once in El Salvador, he was placed in a cell with about two dozen others and has had no access to news or ability to communicate with anyone outside the prison. (What’s more, the El Salvador Nayib Bukele staged a photograph making it look like the two men were sipping margaritas during the meeting — by placing the drinks there mid-conversation.) “This should not be an issue for Republicans or Democrats. This is an issue for every American,” Van Hollen said.

• Not all Democrats believe the issue resonates with their constituents enough to make them forceful advocates — even calling Trump’s deportation policies the “soup du jour” and a “trap” for the party. Today, liberal blogger Matt Yglesias suggested that Democrats should focus more on inflation and trade issues rather than immigration, citing a poll. “Everyone should think about which topics they want to raise the salience of and why,” he wrote.

“I’d like to raise the salience of the government disappearing people to a foreign prison because I don’t think most people would like to be disappeared to a foreign prison,” Crooked’s Jon Favreau responded. Amen to that.

LOST CONNECTIONS

Donald Trump’s closest aides are all over the map on ending the Ukraine war. They can’t seem to straighten out whether peace is imminent, or out of reach.

“We are now reaching a point where we need to decide and determine whether this is even possible or not,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters today. That decision could come within days, Rubio added: “If we’re so far apart that this is not going to happen, then I think the president is probably at a point where he’s going to say, well, we are done.”

But Vice President JD Vance apparently didn’t get the memo, telling Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni he’s “optimistic” about the peace talks.

Why are Rubio and Vance saying different things? Shouldn’t they, y’know, be talking with each other?

It could simply be a lack of coordination, Liana Fix, an expert at the Council on Foreign Relations, told What A Day. “Obviously, Rubio is under greater pressure to deliver than Vance is, so he seems to deem it necessary to get out the sticks for Ukraine and Europe,” she added.

Rubio’s hard talk seems like an attempt to pressure Ukraine and Europeans to accept a “difficult-to-swallow” peace deal, Fix said. “Russia would actually love the U.S. to walk away.”

Trump officials are floating a plan  to end the fighting by easing sanctions on Moscow, freezing the battle lines, according to Bloomberg. Russia would keep control of Ukrainian territory that it has seized, and Ukraine wouldn’t be allowed to join the NATO military alliance.

NEWS NEWS NEWS

There are now more than 800 measles cases across 24 states, a 12 percent increase in cases since last week. Reminder: The measles vaccine is 97 percent effective after two doses. Come on, dead worm inside HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s brain, do something!

U.S. airstrikes on a Yemeni oil port killed 74 people and injured 171 others, Houthi rebels in the area said today. It’s the deadliest known U.S. attack since Trump took office, as he launches a new military campaign against the Iran-backed militants.

The Trump administration released 10,000 documents related to former Democratic Senator Robert F. Kennedy’s assassination in 1968. There doesn’t seem to be any major news from this — the case was primarily investigated and prosecuted locally, and many documents were already publicly available. One handwritten note from the gunman, however, reads: “RFK must be disposed of like his brother was.”

Trump’s team is pressuring Harvard University to hand over records detailing its funding from foreign sources over the past decade, the Wall Street Journal reports. It’s the “first step to ensure Harvard is not being manipulated by, or doing the bidding of, foreign entities,” Education Secretary Linda McMahon said. If they really care about foreign influence, I think they should check out Jared Kushner, Pam Bondi, Eric Trump — and Donnie himself! Bondi literally ended the FBI’s effort to combat foreign influence in U.S. politics.

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