Not Just El Salvador: Trump Looking for Other Places to Deport People

The Trump administration is currently in talks with several countries to find a new place to deport immigrants, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Officials are seeking countries willing to accept deportees whose native countries are slow to take them back. The countries currently in talks with U.S. immigration officials are reportedly Benin, Eswatini, Kosovo, Libya, Moldova, Mongolia, and Rwanda, the Journal reported Tuesday night.

Ricardo Zuniga, a former senior State Department and National Security Council official, told the Journal that most countries willing to go along with U.S. demands would likely be “problematic.”

“But even they are asking, ‘What’s in it for us? Who’s going to pay for it? How am I going to explain the political burden of accepting people on behalf of the United States?’” Zuniga said.

Talks are currently being spearheaded by White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, the architect behind Trump’s inhumane plan for massive deportations and known for his emotionally volatile run-ins with the press.

“Friendly reminder: If you illegally invaded our country the only ‘process’ you are entitled to is deportation,” Miller wrote on X Tuesday, advocating for the Trump administration to suspend due process to expedite the removal of alleged members of gangs the administration deems terrorist groups, as it did last month with the sudden removal of 261 alleged members of Tren de Aragua to El Salvador.

Deals with other countries may have been in the works for some time. U.S. conservatives began plotting to send deportees to Rwanda before Trump was even elected, copying a contentious plan from the U.K.’s conservative leadership to offload asylum-seekers there. The U.K.’s Rwanda plan, which has been in motion since 2022, has proved both inefficient and expensive, according to The Guardian.

Additionally, the U.S. government has previously raised concerns about human rights conditions in Rwanda, including reports of extrajudicial killings, arbitrary arrest and detainment, disappearances, and torture. The State Department reported similar conditions in Benin and Libya.

While these plans may have already been in the works, there may be a renewed sense of urgency after a judge’s decision barring the Trump administration from deporting people to El Salvador without first giving them an opportunity to challenge their removal.

Last week, U.S. District Court Judge Brian Murphy issued a temporary restraining order requiring the government to provide written notice and an opportunity for detainees to apply for protection before deporting them to a third country.

The order was a clear rebuke of Trump’s $6 million deal with Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele to accept deportees at the Latin American country’s Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo, or CECOT, a prison notorious for human rights abuses.

This wasn’t the first time that a judge challenged El Salvador as a destination for deportees. In a filing late last month, Judge James Boasberg said that by sending the prisoners to CECOT, the Trump administration had likely violated the Foreign Affairs Reform and Restructuring Act of 1998, which states that “it shall be the policy of the United States not to expel … any person to a country in which there are substantial grounds for believing the person would be in danger of being subjected to torture.”

The government admitted Monday that it had wrongly deported one Salvadoran national to El Salvador as a result of an “administrative error.” ICE was aware that a judge had previously ruled that the man could not be removed there for concerns that he’d be targeted by gang violence, but his name was mistakenly included as an alternate on a manifest for removal. A judge ruled that there would be no way to rescue the man from CECOT, as he was no longer in U.S. custody.

Despite dubbing himself the “Father of IVF,” Donald Trump actually won’t be funding federal infertility research.

The administration fired a team of researchers focused on infertility research and assisted reproductive technology Tuesday afternoon, the latest group to lose their jobs in sweeping new cuts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“It is vital that the CDC, our nation’s public health agency, employs doctors and scientists who understand infertility, a disease that impacts one in six people worldwide,” Barbara Collura, president and CEO of the national infertility group RESOLVE, said in a statement. “Following today’s layoffs at the CDC, there will be no experts on infertility who will be able to inform public policy, brief members of Congress, publish articles and reports, and advance public awareness on the causes and treatments for infertility.”

The team was responsible for tracking in vitro fertilization cycles and creating and maintaining infertility-related databases. Speaking with HuffPost’s Alanna Vagianos, Collura said that questions remain regarding the future of that data—if it will be updated, and who would be doing the updating.

“That’s a lot of information and knowledge that walked out the door today,” Collura said.

The cut comes barely a week after Trump referred to himself as the “fertilization president” during a Women’s History Month event. Trump bragged about his purported efforts to expand IVF access and promised that there would be “tremendous goodies in the bag for women,” including “the fertilization and all the other things we’re talking about.”

So far, the Trump administration—directed by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency—has fired more than 100,000 federal employees. But tens of thousands more government jobs are expected to be on the chopping block as Trump pursues a second round of “voluntary” buyouts.

More than 10,000 jobs are expected to be cut at the Department of Health and Human Services, which encompasses the CDC. HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has proposed downsizing the agency’s 82,000-person workforce by nearly a quarter. Other shuttered departments were responsible for research and policy recommendations on older adults, disabilities, HIV, minority health, mine safety, and smoking.

Sales of Elon Musk’s Tesla fell 13 percent in the first quarter of this year, representing the largest drop in deliveries in the company’s entire history. Deliveries dropped by more than 50,000 cars, to just 336,681 vehicles.

This was the worst quarter since 2022 for Tesla, as the company’s market cap also fell by $460 billion. 

The electric vehicle company has attributed the horrendous development to changes in the production for the Model Y that negatively affected deliveries. But this flop has been brewing for weeks. Tesla’s stock has lost 36 percent of its value since the year started. In March, it got so bad that Musk and Trump had a gaudy Tesla-themed photo op at the White House. The president even promised to buy one himself as a “show of confidence.” That confidence may be starting to erode. And it’s not just domestically: European Tesla sales have fallen by a staggering 43 percent.

This all comes as Musk’s far-right antics and DOGE’s hostile government takeover have (unsurprisingly) become synonymous with the prominent E.V. company he is in charge of. It might finally be catching up to him—and his pockets. The world’s richest man has lost over $100 billion from his own personal net worth since December.  

It’s also been reported that Musk may be stepping away from the Trump administration, a possible clue into just how urgent his business struggles are. But what “stepping away” actually means—and in what capacity—has yet to be determined.

Trump-backed Brad Schimel’s loss in Wisconsin’s Supreme Court election Tuesday has Republicans in the state freaking out. 

Schimel, who enjoyed $25 million in funding from tech oligarch Elon Musk in the most expensive judicial election in U.S. history, lost handily to liberal Susan Crawford, with Musk’s involvement probably hurting Schimel’s chances. Nearly every county in the state, even ones that voted for Schimel, shifted several percentage points to the left compared to the 2024 presidential election, when the battleground state delivered a narrow victory to Trump.  

As a result, the Badger State’s Republicans are worried. 

“I’m honestly shocked. I thought we had it in the bag,” Pam Van Handel, the Republican Party of Wisconsin’s Outagamie County chair, told Politico. “I thought [Musk] was going to be an asset for this race. People love Trump, but maybe they don’t love everybody he supports. Maybe I have blinders on.”

The race “throws up a bunch of warning signs for the midterm election,” said Rohn Bishop, the GOP mayor of Waupun, Wisconsin, and former chair of the Republican Party of Fond du Lac County.

“I thought maybe Elon coming could turn these people to go out and vote,” Bishop said, adding “I think [Musk] helped get out voters in that he may have turned out more voters against [Schimel].”

Musk also handed out $1 million checks to select voters in the state and paid cash for people to sign a petition against “activist” judges and to canvas for Schimel, but all of it was for nought. He and Trump still tried to spin the loss as a victory, claiming that a ballot measure enshrining voter ID laws into Wisconsin’s Constitution was the real contest, despite the fact the measure was already state law. 

A major election loss in a battleground state that went for Trump in 2024 is a major warning to Republicans everywhere, not just in Wisconsin. It shows how toxic the GOP has become with Musk in tow, and offers a playbook for Democrats to win in 2026 and beyond.

Lawmakers are calling on the Social Security Administration chief to resign after internal emails revealed that the administration shut Maine off from the late-age insurance program in retaliation for publicly defying the MAGA agenda.

Representative Gerry Connolly called Tuesday for the resignation of Leland Dudek, the acting commissioner of social security. In a release, Connolly’s office shared emails sent by Dudek in which the DOGE acolyte inquired to his staff about which contracts Maine had with his agency and ultimately chose to cancel them, despite being aware that doing so would increase fraud and waste.

“Despite reinstating the contracts on March 7, 2025, and claiming that he did not intend to harm the people of Maine, the emails obtained by the Committee show that Acting Commissioner Dudek knew of the negative impacts of cancelling the programs and was willing to hurt the people of Maine and waste taxpayer money to avenge President Trump,” Connolly’s office wrote.

When Dudek asked his staff to cancel the contracts, he acknowledged in the emails that “while our improper payments will go up, and fraudsters may compromise identities, no money will go from the public trust to a petulant child,” referring to Governor Janet Mills.

Dudek’s request came days after Donald Trump and Mills got into a spat over one of the president’s executive orders in February. During a speech before the nation’s governors, Trump singled out Maine for defying his order banning transgender women from women’s college sports.

“Are you not going to comply with it?” Trump asked Mills at the time.

“I’m complying with state and federal law,” Mills said.

But that wasn’t enough for Trump, who argued that his administration was tantamount to federal law. “You better do it, because you’re not going to get any federal funding at all if you don’t,” he said.

But Mills threw the heat right back at the president.

“See you in court,” she replied.

“Good, I’ll see you in court. I look forward to that,” Trump said. “That should be a real easy one. And enjoy your life after governor because I don’t think you’ll be in elected politics.”

Since then, Trump has nixed federal funding for the University of Maine System, which supports seven colleges in the state.

“This pause is temporary in nature while USDA evaluates if it should take any follow-on actions related to prospective Title VI or Title IX violations,” read an email issued from the Agriculture Department, obtained by the Bangor Daily News last month. “Please take any necessary actions to effectuate this direction from leadership. This pause will remain in effect until further notice.”

The shocking results of the Wisconsin Supreme Court election may have far-reaching effects on the U.S. House of Representatives.

In the state election Tuesday, Judge Susan Crawford beat Judge Brad Schimel, cementing a 4–3 liberal majority on the Wisconsin Supreme Court. Crawford’s win could have a significant impact on efforts to redraw congressional maps ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.

Crawford’s victory gives Democrats the opportunity to challenge Wisconsin’s congressional maps, and Republicans seem to know it.

Republican Representative Derrick Van Orden told CNN’s chief congressional correspondent Manu Raju Tuesday that if Crawford won, he and Representative Bryan Steil would surely lose their seats as a result of redistricting.

“We both lose,” he said. “So that’s why everyone’s paying attention to this on a national level.”

Van Orden’s concerns about his seat aren’t unwarranted.

In 2023, Wisconsin’s Supreme Court found that the state’s Republican-drawn state Assembly and Senate maps were unconstitutional. The justices determined the earlier conservative-controlled court had been wrong to say that new maps should be required to have the “least change” possible from the already established maps. The redrawn maps saw Democrats gain 14 seats in the state Assembly and Senate.

The Elias Group, a Democratic law firm, then challenged Wisconsin’s congressional maps using the same argument, that the maps drawn up in 2021 were designed to make the “least changes” to Republican-approved maps from 2011. While the liberal-majority court denied the firm’s bid, Crawford’s presence may give Democrats another shot to challenge the “least change” requirement and redraw the maps.

Republicans have amassed six out of the state’s eight U.S. House seats, despite holding thin margins in statewide races. Van Orden and Steil both won their reelection bids in November, but since representatives serve just two years at a time, they will both be vulnerable to being unseated in the 2026 midterm elections.

Earlier this week, Elon Musk, who spent millions backing Schimel in the Supreme Court race, told Fox News that Crawford’s win could not only cost Republicans their majority in the House, which currently sits at a narrow split of 218 Republicans and 213 Democrats, but it could also spell trouble for Donald Trump.

“Losing this judge race has a good chance of causing Republicans to lose control of the House. If you lose control of the House, there will be nonstop impeachment hearings. There will be nonstop hearings and subpoenas,” Musk warned.

Now Musk’s worst nightmare has come true.

Former second gentleman Doug Emhoff’s law firm has cut a deal with the Trump administration, against Emhoff’s wishes—leading to calls from activists for him to resign.

Willkie Farr & Gallagher, where Emhoff is a partner, agreed to provide $100 million in pro bono services for causes the administration supports. The subjects would “represent the full political spectrum, including conservative ideals,” and the firm would also stop engaging in “illegal DEI discrimination and preferences” and choosing clients based on political views, according to a Truth Social post from the president Tuesday.

According to an internal memo, the firm’s executive committee knew that it would be targeted by the administration and believed that taking a deal, which other law firms have also done amid criticism, would be the best way to avoid “potentially grave consequences.”

“We know this news is not welcomed by some of you and you would have urged a different course of action. Needless to say, this was an incredibly difficult decision for Firm leadership,” the memo states.

Trump has used executive orders to target specific law firms in a shakedown attempt, with some, such as Paul, Weiss and Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, cutting deals to avoid retribution from the administration. At least one other firm, Perkins Cole, is challenging Trump in court.

Emhoff has been a partner at Willkie Farr since January, following Vice President Kamala Harris’s defeat in the 2024 presidential election. Emhoff reportedly told the firm’s leadership on Tuesday before the move that they shouldn’t make a deal with Trump and instead should fight, according to The New York Times.

At an event at Georgetown University Law School Tuesday night, Emhoff alluded to his firm’s decision, saying, “The rule of law is under attack. Democracy is under attack. And so, all of us lawyers need to do what we can to push back on that.” At a time when Trump is ignoring the law at every turn in an effort to increase his power, such resistance is needed by all in America.

If conservatives cared about Hillary Clinton’s email scandal, then they should be up in arms over Mike Waltz.

The national security adviser and his staff have been using Gmail to communicate, The Washington Post reported Tuesday.

Waltz and one of his senior aides relied on the commercial email service to discuss “sensitive military positions and powerful weapons systems relating to an ongoing conflict,” according to email receipts obtained by the Post.

But Gmail is not a secure platform to do so on. Users effectively sign away their privacy and metadata to Alphabet, Google’s parent company, when they sign up for a Gmail account.

“Every way you interact with your Gmail account can be monitored, such as the dates and times you email at, who you are talking to, and topics you choose to email about,” Rowenna Fielding, founder of privacy consultancy Miss IG Geek, told The Guardian in 2021.

It’s the latest in a growing series of flubs for Waltz, who made Donald Trump furious by accidentally inviting a journalist to a Cabinet group chat on Signal about bombing Yemen last month. Note here: Gmail is even less secure than Signal, which at least is an encrypted communication app.

In the days after the scandal broke, Wired reported that an account sharing the intelligence official’s name had seemingly left his Venmo profile public. In doing so, Waltz disclosed the names of hundreds of his personal and professional associates, including government officials and lobbyists.

And as the scandals pile up, it’s becoming increasingly clear that Waltz’s behavior is more than just a string of isolated mistakes—instead, they suggest a pattern of haphazard carelessness from an individual who should be one of America’s foremost security experts.

Last week, the German newspaper Der Spiegel reported that several senior administration officials had their personal data—including account passwords, cell phone numbers, and email addresses—listed online.

Some of the compromised Cabinet members include Waltz, as well as National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. The foreign publication was able to track down their information via commercial search engines as well as databases composed of hacked customer data.

Clinton was excoriated by the right for using private email servers as opposed to her government issued address. But the American public has seemingly been able to spot the difference, with a majority of people believing that the Signal scandal matters more than Republicans’ scapegoats.

A Harvard CAPS/Harris poll released Sunday suggested that 60 percent of polled Americans felt that the administration’s decision to use Signal was “wrong”—that included 73 percent of Democrats, 65 percent of independents, and 43 percent of Republicans.

A YouGov survey published last week found that 53 percent of nearly 6,000 polled Americans felt that the Trump administration’s Signal leak was “very serious,” while another 21 percent described it as “somewhat serious.”

Meanwhile, a survey conducted in the wake of Clinton’s email scandal by YouGov and The Economist in March 2015 found that 30 percent of polled Americans felt that Clinton’s server was “very serious.” Another 26 percent noted that it was “somewhat serious” to them.

A federal judge on Wednesday permanently dismissed the corruption case against embattled New York City Mayor Eric Adams, absolving him of his crimes while ensuring that his case will never be brought up again—eliminating any leverage that the Trump administration may have had over the mayor, who quickly capitulated to Trump and the MAGA agenda earlier this year in the hopes of a pardon.

Adams was indicted in September on charges of wire fraud, bribery, conspiracy, and soliciting campaign donations from Turkish officials. He pleaded not guilty and is up for reelection this November.

Trump’s Department of Justice had asked the case to be dismissed without prejudice, meaning the charges could be reinstated in the future. Judge Dale E. Ho of Manhattan refused, dismissing the case with prejudice so that going forward, the charges in the indictment cannot be used as leverage.

Ho also noted that he wanted to minimize the likelihood of Adams being bribed with freedom by the Trump administration.

“In light of DOJ’s rationales, dismissing the case without prejudice would create the unavoidable perception that the Mayor’s freedom depends on his ability to carry out the immigration enforcement priorities of the administration, and that he might be more beholden to the demands of the federal government than to the wishes of his own constituents,” Ho wrote.

When Attorney General Emil Bove ordered state prosecutors to drop the charges against Adams in February, the request was for a dismissal without prejudice, setting up a blatant quid pro quo dynamic that led to multiple staff resignations in protest.

This story has been updated.

Donald Trump has been looking at how to be president for a third term since at least October 2023.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Boris Ephsteyn, who worked in the White House in Trump’s first term and is now one of his personal attorneys, made the unfounded claim back then, during a meeting with an associate, that based on the law, he believed that Trump could run again in 2028.

Trump has asserted in recent weeks that he is “not joking” about staying in office past January 2029, when his second and final term is up, claiming that there are certain plans that would enable him to do so. Other White House officials are claiming it’s a nonissue, such as Karoline Leavitt last week, but only days later Trump contradicted her.

Others in the Trump orbit, such as Steve Bannon, think there’s merit in the idea, and some senior Republicans told the Journal that they believe him. Unnamed sources told the Journal that they see the lack of resistance from law firms, corporations, universities, and Congress as showing that he has the potential to bulldoze resistance to staying in office.

The Constitution bars presidents from being elected to more than two terms. Republican Representative Andy Ogles has introduced legislation to amend the Constitution to allow presidents to serve a third term if one is nonconsecutive. It would be a tall order, as a constitutional amendment requires a two-thirds vote from both the House and Senate, and ratification by three-fourths of the states. But Trump, unfortunately, has often found a way to get around checks to his power.