No, Gavin: Trump Disappearing People Isn’t a ‘Distraction’

Democrats don’t need to take Republicans’ word that zero-process deportations are popular.

, and

Apr 18, 2025

A major intra-Democratic story to watch going forward: David Hogg, one of several vice chairs of the Democratic National Committee, is planning on spending millions on primary challenges against some House Democratic incumbents next year through a separate group he leads.

As you might expect, many House Democrats are less than thrilled about this. “What a disappointment from leadership,” Rep. Hillary Scholten, a Michigan swing-district lawmaker, told Axios. “Fighting Democrats might get likes online, but it’s not what restores majorities.”

California Rep. Ro Khanna had a different take: Hogg “is supporting every frontline Dem” while “also giving new candidates a chance to run in safe seats where we need change,” he posted on X last night. “Dems should embrace a new generation of leadership & competition!” Happy Friday.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom. (Photo by Frazer Harrison/WireImage.)

Gavin Newsom, Coward

by Andrew Egger

Were you under the impression that Donald Trump’s obliteration of legal process for deportees was a story that mattered? Were you concerned, perhaps, that the White House’s open contempt for court rulings in this area had brought the country to the brink of a constitutional crisis?

Well, bad news: According to California Gov. Gavin Newsom, you’re a silly dupe who’s playing right into Trump’s hands.

That’s going by a remarkable statement Newsom made during a press conference Wednesday, convened to announce California’s new lawsuit against Trump’s global trade war. Asked to comment on the ongoing standoff between Trump, El Salvador, and the U.S. judicial system, Newsom scoffed. “You know, this is the distraction of the day,” he said. “This is the debate they want. This is their 80-20 issue, as they’ve described it.”

He went on:

You know, those that believe in the rule of law are defending it. But it’s a tough case, because people are really—are they defending MS-13? Are they defending, you know, someone who’s out of sight, out of mind in El Salvador? . . . It’s exactly the debate [Republicans] want, because they don’t want this debate on the tariffs. They don’t want to be accountable to markets today. . . . They want to have this conversation. Don’t get distracted by distractions. We’re all perfect sheep.

Well.

You can understand, I suppose, why Newsom’s snap instinct was to dodge the question. He was there to spotlight his state’s punch back against Trump’s tariffs, not to make headlines with commentary on unrelated Trump scandals.

On the merits, though, this is indefensible stuff. Who’s playing into Trump’s hands here, exactly? Those who want to hold him to account for his utterly lawless conduct in immigration enforcement? Or those who are ready to cede the entire issue to him because they buy his framing of an “80-20” issue and are terrified of being perceived as allied with “someone who’s out of sight, out of mind in El Salvador”?

Newsom’s invocation of the “80-20” figure is illuminating. Trump flunkies love to trot out the phrase, which they wield as a talisman against charges of illegal behavior. “President Trump is winning on these 80-20 issues,” Stephen Miller recently told Sean Hannity. “Democrats are clinging to these radical, losing propositions.” On the matter of those imprisoned in El Salvador, Miller’s confidence has only grown: During the White House summit between Trump and Bukele, he described the split as “90-10.”

Even if this were true, it wouldn’t be a good reason for Democrats not to stand up for bedrock American principles like due process and the rule of law. But here’s a fact perhaps more to the interest of knock-kneed Democrats like Newsom: It’s a lie. Opposing Trump’s lawless El Salvador operation isn’t a fringe electoral position. Just the opposite: A YouGov poll this month found that six in ten respondents said they did not support “deporting immigrants without criminal convictions to El Salvador to be imprisoned, without letting them challenge their deportation in court.” Only 26 percent of respondents said they were in favor of such deportations.

Last November’s loss to Trump was a shameful low for the Democratic party, but Democrats who think like Newsom are taking all the wrong lessons from it. Their confidence in their ability to win on issues is shot. They are terrified to press Trump on any issues other than “SCOREBOARD” ones—things like sagging markets and spiking prices, where they hope the facts are so self-evidently bad that they are absolved of the work of having to persuade.

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And look: Far be it from me to suggest that Democrats shouldn’t hit Trump on his insane, self-immolating trade war! God knows we’ve been doing plenty of that around here ourselves. But refusing to engage on other issues simply because Republicans assert confidently that their position is popular is nothing but cowardice.

If Newsom could tear his eyes away from Stephen Miller long enough to see it, he might note that the ground beneath the White House’s feet here is soft and growing softer. Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen’s trip yesterday to El Salvador to meet with Kilmar Abrego Garcia plainly wrongfooted Bukele, who first denied Van Hollen an opportunity to meet with the wrongfully deported man, then reversed himself and tried to sully their meeting with some hamfisted propaganda, directing an aide to place “glasses with cherries and salted rims” on the table “in an attempt to stage the photo.” Meanwhile, as Bill notes below, Trump’s legal losses on the due-process question keep piling up.

Democrats can stand up for what’s right and win on this issue. All they need is the courage of their convictions—and the confidence to bet that fascism isn’t popular just because Nosferatu insists it is.

Update (April 18, 2025, 7:02 p.m. EST):

After publication of this newsletter, Gavin Newsom’s team pushed back on my characterization of these remarks, noting that Newsom has called for the return of deported Venezuelan migrants and pointing out more forceful comments he made on the subject in a separate interview Wednesday. “The governor’s point is simple: This is about the rule of law,” a spokesman told me. “If the administration is in contempt of a federal court order, that should be the focus—not inflammatory diversions about whether someone is a gang member or not.” In my view, that’s pretty far from the off-the-cuff answer he gave in the remarks above—of which you can read a more complete transcript here—but it’s a good thing to hear nonetheless.

A Judge Plants a Flag

by William Kristol

Yesterday, the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit denied an attempt by the Trump administration to stop the legal case on behalf of Kilmar Abrego Garcia from moving forward.

The court could have simply dismissed the administration’s request and left it at that. Its whole opinion could have consisted of its first paragraph:

Upon review of the government’s motion, the court denies the motion for an emergency stay pending appeal and for a writ of mandamus. The relief the government is requesting is both extraordinary and premature. While we fully respect the Executive’s robust assertion of its Article II powers, we shall not micromanage the efforts of a fine district judge attempting to implement the Supreme Court’s recent decision.

But instead Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson, writing for the court, chose to take a few pages to try to educate the nation not simply about the issue before the court, but about the broader significance of the moment at hand.

A word about Judge Wilkinson. He’s served on the court since his 1984 appointment by Ronald Reagan. He’s been on the short list of possible Republican Supreme Court nominees. He’s a strong and thoughtful judicial conservative of the old school (think Edmund Burke, not Carl Schmitt; or Alexander Bickel, not Adrian Vermeule). He’s also the author of six books that deal not just with law but with the character of the American political order.

Wilkinson’s opinion is sufficiently important and impressive that I urge you to read the whole thing. (It’s also admirably concise.) But I’ll quote a few highlights here.

After the first paragraph quoted above, Wilkinson gets right to the point:

It is difficult in some cases to get to the very heart of the matter. But in this case, it is not hard at all. The government 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. Further, it claims in essence that because it has rid itself of custody that there is nothing that can be done.
This should be shocking not only to judges, but to the intuitive sense of liberty that Americans far removed from courthouses still hold dear.

Wilkinson elaborates on the Supreme Court’s unanimous decision upholding District Judge Paula Xinis’s order that the administration “facilitate” the return of Mr. Garcia:

“Facilitation” does not permit the admittedly erroneous deportation of an individual to the one country’s prisons that the withholding order forbids and, further, to do so in disregard of a court order that the government not so subtly spurns. “Facilitation” does not sanction the abrogation of habeas corpus through the transfer of custody to foreign detention centers in the manner attempted here. Allowing all this would “facilitate” foreign detention more than it would domestic return. It would reduce the rule of law to lawlessness and tarnish the very values for which Americans of diverse views and persuasions have always stood.

Wilkinson also provides a helpful discussion of the nature of the judicial and executive powers, concluding,

If today the Executive claims the right to deport without due process and in disregard of court orders, what assurance will there be tomorrow that it will not deport American citizens and then disclaim responsibility to bring them home? And what assurance shall there be that the Executive will not train its broad discretionary powers upon its political enemies? The threat, even if not the actuality, would always be present, and the Executive’s obligation to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed” would lose its meaning.

Wilkinson emphasizes the threat to the rule of law, but concludes on a hopeful note:

It is, as we have noted, all too possible to see in this case an incipient crisis, but it may present an opportunity as well. We yet cling to the hope that it is not naïve to believe our good brethren in the Executive Branch perceive the rule of law as vital to the American ethos. This case presents their unique chance to vindicate that value and to summon the best that is within us while there is still time.

“...while there is still time.”

One sees, beneath Wilkinson’s stately prose, his sense of alarm and urgency. The American constitutional order is under assault from an authoritarian movement. It is, as Wilkinson writes, a time of crisis. All honor to Judge Wilkinson in this crisis for raising a standard to which the wise and honest can repair.

AROUND THE BULWARK

Programming Note: For those not with school-aged children, the Easter Holiday is also the unofficial middle of Spring Break Season. Public schools are typically on break before Easter, and Catholic schools after, with exceptions. We bring this up to explain certain substitutions you may have seen to Bulwark shows and newsletters, which will continue through next week.
On the pods…
- GEORGE and SARAH on Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson’s powerful rebuke to Trump’s lawless tactics. Be forewarned: You might need a cigarette.
- SARAH and TIM bring the receipts as Vance and Rubio were once against weaponizing the IRS against your enemies.
- Lisa Murkowski says she’s scared. TIM says quit the GOP and join the fight.
- SARAH and JVL break down the new poll showing declining support for Trump—among Republicans!
- TIM reports and comments on Senator Chris Van Hollen’s trip to El Salvador, where he was finally able to meet with Kilmar Abrego Garcia.
In Newsletter World…
- Is This Texas Suburb the New ‘Ground Zero Mosque’? In False Flag, WILL SOMMER highlights the right-wing hysteria about a mostly empty field in Texas.
- ‘Most Powerful Lobbyist in Trump’s Washington’ Cashes in on Corporate Fear… In Press Pass, JOE PERTICONE takes a look at Ballard Partners—and offers a fashion bonus: I never thought the leopards would eat MY clothing brand.

Quick Hits

DISASTER IN THE MAKING: How is Trump’s tariff regime playing out in practice for consumer-goods companies with global supply chains? On his Plain English podcast this week, the Atlantic’s Derek Thompson interviewed Molson Hart, the owner of toy company Viahart. What’s most catastrophic about the current moment, Hart says, is that businesses are being forced to pick one of several mutually incompatible tariff coping strategies, with no way of knowing in advance which strategy will ultimately be rewarded by U.S. policy:

Right now, amongst the people I know who are selling toys, people are kind of falling maybe into three buckets. The first bucket is ‘I’m going to cheat to win.’ The second bucket is ‘I’m going to figure out a way to shift my manufacturing over to Southeast Asia as fast as I can.’ And we fall in that bucket. And the third bucket is ‘This policy doesn’t make any sense and it’s going to change tomorrow, so I’m just going to wait and see.’ And so depending on what the enforcement of these policies looks like, the first bucket could get in trouble. Depending on whether or not the tariffs are reversed, the second and third buckets of toy companies may either find success or be in trouble. . . .
It’s kind of hard to know what’s going to happen, but it’s definitely dark days for the industry no matter what does.

Listen to the whole thing.

SELF-DEALER IN CHIEF: Putting aside our aforementioned disdain for the apparently irresistible urge to exclaim of every Trump transgression, “It’s a distraction!,” there’s no denying that it really is pretty much impossible for a person to keep all this administration’s outrageous abuses in their mind at once. We’ve previously covered the way Trump and his family are making huge and largely invisible profits from their completely opaque and scammy constellation of cryptocurrency ventures. But this report from Molly White’s Citation Needed newsletter still took our breath away:

In an unprecedented abuse of presidential power, Donald Trump is dismantling federal cryptocurrency oversight while building a sprawling family crypto empire worth billions. Through World Liberty Financial, a planned decentralized finance platform that also recently announced its own stablecoin, the Trump family is positioning to profit from facilitating cryptocurrency lending and trading. Through Truth.Fi, they seek direct exposure to bitcoin and profits from hawking investment products to Trump’s most loyal base. Through a new bitcoin mining venture, they’re gaining control over crypto infrastructure and expanding exposure to assets that Trump himself can influence from the White House. And through a series of memecoins, NFTs, and even a planned crypto game, the Trumps are converting political support directly into cash. This empire is set to profit precisely because Trump is gutting the regulations that would normally constrain it—brazen self-dealing that dwarfs even the unchecked emoluments violations of his first term.

Read the whole thing.

SAYONARA TO THE FOOD INSPECTORS?: CBS News reports the latest in “huh, guess the federal government’s not doing that anymore” news:

The Food and Drug Administration is drawing up plans that would end most of its routine food safety inspections work, multiple federal health officials tell CBS News, and effectively outsource this oversight to state and local authorities.
The plans have not been finalized and might need congressional action to fully fund, said the officials, who were not authorized to speak publicly. Andrew Nixon, a spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services, denied that the FDA was making plans to do this.

The change, if implemented, would accelerate a shift already underway within the FDA, which has begun leaving more low-risk inspections to state regulators in recent years. And CBS notes that “some higher-risk routine food inspections would likely remain at the FDA under the plans.”