Democrats have long intensely debated whether to appear on Fox News. Going on Fox risks providing a sheen of legitimacy to a propaganda outlet. But not going on risks leaving Republican news consumers—and even some GOP-leaning independents—even more out of reach in an undiluted, impenetrable information universe where contrary facts and complicating nuances are rarely permitted to penetrate.
Fox News host Laura Ingraham’s long segment with Democratic Representative Yassamin Ansari on Tuesday night makes a strong case for Democrats to go on Fox and mix it up with those bozos a good deal more. Critically, repeated descriptions of Trump’s lawlessness and outright defiance of the Supreme Court managed to reach the eyes and ears of Fox viewers.
How often does that happen on Fox News? Approximately never.
A basic fact about this whole saga has gotten lost: President Donald Trump is already defying the Supreme Court. This is not some theoretical final showdown that may or may not happen later. It’s upon us right now. It’s happening the way experts say such lawlessness takes root: insidiously, almost imperceptibly but, over time, very consequentially. The high court has pronounced Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s rendition to a Salvadoran prison “illegal” and directed Trump to “facilitate” his return. Trump refuses.
During this segment, Ansari managed to tell Fox’s audience that Trump is currently defying the Supreme Court around five times. Ingraham barely bothered to contest this claim. That’s remarkable, but ominous. Indeed, the whole segment—which you can watch in this link—also shows how MAGA personalities will help soften the ground for Trump to engage in rampant lawlessness on an even larger scale.
What angered Ingraham was Ansari’s attempt to visit Abrego Garcia—an “illegal alien gangbanger,” as Ingraham put it—in El Salvador this week with other House Democrats. Senator Chris Van Hollen already went there and found Abrego Garcia in decent shape. Why go again? “It seems like a political stunt,” Ingraham seethed.
In response, Ansari noted that what’s at issue here is whether Abrego Garcia will get due process under U.S. law. “If this could happen to someone without due process, tomorrow it could happen to a U.S. citizen,” Ansari said. “We are turning into an authoritarian country.”
How many times have Fox News viewers been told those things?
Ingraham settled on what’s become the go-to for Vice President JD Vance and others in defending the indefensible.
“I am very interested in Democrats caring about ‘due process’ for illegal aliens,” she said archly. “What process do you think is still due an individual who two courts found had [reason] to believe he had an affiliation with MS-13?”
“That needs to happen in court,” Ansari replied.
This is a sleazy trick from Ingraham (and Vance, who also pushes it). The claim involves the 2019 proceedings that granted the Salvadoran Abrego Garcia “withholding of removal” to El Salvador (which Trump has now defied). Abrego Garcia was initially denied bail when a judge deemed claims of MS-13 affiliation moderately credible. That was upheld on appeal. Thus his gang ties have been litigated, and Trump has no obligation to return a confirmed public safety menace.
The answer to this nonsense is straightforward. The denial of bail was based on the “confidential source” of a Maryland cop. His evidence of MS-13 ties was laughably thin, and the cop was subsequently suspended and indicted for serious misconduct. The source and the cop were never cross-examined. It’s an absurd basis for declaring MS-13 affiliation as fact.
What’s more, there is no mystery about what process is now due to Abrego Garcia. What triggers the need for due process now is that the government affirmatively acted—illegally—in defying the previous court’s “withholding of removal” directive. Trump should bring him back, and if he wants, he can recontest Abrego Garcia’s “withholding of removal” status or attempt to deport him to a third country. When Ansari told Ingraham that this can be returned to court, she’s correct.
Ingraham also offered an irritable riff on the idea that if Abrego Garcia were returned, he’d be deported again. She noted that Democrats like Ansari would oppose this outcome. Yes, it’s true that Democrats don’t think longtime nonviolent residents should be deported and should gain a qualified path to legalization instead. So what? Democrats can hold that position while also insisting that Trump should follow lawful processes, even if their end result doesn’t prove to their liking.
Ingraham’s kill shot—or so she imagined—was to bring up the horrific case of a woman murdered in Maryland, allegedly by another migrant. “Do your constituents care about those victims?” Ingraham asked angrily.
“I’m appalled by any violence that takes place in this country,” Ansari replied. “That’s why this case is so important. That’s why I believe in the rule of law.”
Here’s the rub: We need due process for people like Abrego Garcia precisely because it will settle who is guilty of violent or murderous crimes like those and who is not guilty of them. Abrego Garcia was never even charged with any gang-related crime. He deserves due process again because the government’s rendition of him to El Salvador is illegal. Reopening his case in the U.S. would allow for formal scrutiny of the government’s claims against him.
This is the very thing Trump doesn’t want, which is exactly why Trump won’t bring him back. Trump telegraphed the long game on Tuesday, declaring flatly that “you can’t have a trial for all of these people” and that he’s “entitled” to remove them without one:
Trump: "We're getting them out. And a judge can't say, 'No, you have to have a trial. The trial is gonna two take years.' No. We're gonna have a very dangerous country if we're not allowed to do what we're entitled to do." pic.twitter.com/ZF3UFMK2bx
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 22, 2025
The endgame is to dispense with due process for migrants entirely. Ingraham’s segment shows how MAGA will build this case: Migrants are “illegal alien gangbangers” simply because Trump declares them so. That unlocks Trump’s power to declare thousands or millions of migrants to be dangerous criminals by definition. Lawful processes will not remove the dangerous criminals fast enough; therefore let’s dispense with those processes to the greatest extent possible.
Where this circular argument leads is obvious: deportations of those with other types of lawful status—those awaiting asylum hearings, those with student visas, those with other temporary protections against removal—also with no due process. On the chopping block here is the very bedrock ideal that all people in the U.S. deserve due process regardless of status. This is Trump’s true project. It’s lawless to its marrow.
As political theorist Kevin Elliott notes at Liberal Currents, the mass removals of undesirables has historically been key to the fascist goal of purifying the “Volk” of contaminating elements to bring about “national rebirth.” We’re now seeing an effort to erect a new legal order in which migrants simply cannot contest their designated status as dangerous criminals in any sense, which in turn makes the leader’s declaration of that status by fiat unalterable and supreme. To use Trump’s language, he is “entitled” to simply decree untold numbers of migrants to be contaminants sapping our national renewal—which is basically what “MS-13” has come to mean—making them subject to expulsion outside of any legal constraints.
Democrats need to get in there and disrupt these declarations-by-fiat, and expose the lawlessness at their core, wherever possible.
