Van Hollen Expertly Exposes Trump’s Hypocrisy on Kilmar Abrego Garcia

Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen perfectly dismantled Donald Trump’s administration’s argument for ignoring the due process rights of immigrants such as Kilmar Abrego Garcia.

During an appearance Sunday on NBC’s Meet the Press, Van Hollen was asked to respond to comments from Patty Morin, the mother of Maryland resident Rachel Morin who was raped and killed by a Salvadoran man in 2023, a tragedy that Trump administration officials regularly revisit in their justification of the president’s mass deportation scheme.

Morin had criticized Van Hollen’s visit to El Salvador to find Abrego Garcia, whom the Trump administration mistakenly deported in March, during a White House press briefing last week.

“To have a senator from Maryland who didn’t even acknowledge, or barely acknowledged, my daughter and the brutal death that she endured, leaving her five children without a mother and now a grandbaby without a grandmother, so that he can use my taxpayer money to fly to El Salvador to bring back someone that’s not even an American citizen. Why does that person have more right than I do? Or my daughter?” Morin asked.

Van Hollen responded to Morin’s comments Sunday.

“My heart goes out to the Morin family. They suffered—experienced an unspeakable tragedy in the murder of their daughter, and I said at the time that my heart goes out to the Morin family. And I’m very glad that the killer of Rachel has been convicted in a court of law. That is how we hold guilty people accountable,” Van Hollen said.

“The courts of law are also where people get to have their due process so we don’t unfairly punish people who don’t have criminal records,” Van Hollen continued. “And so, my view is you can crack down and hold guilty people accountable and also respect the due process rights of everybody who is in court. And I am not sure why Abrego Garcia’s rights should be denied based on an awful murder that he had absolutely nothing to do with.”

Van Hollen returned from El Salvador Friday after finally meeting with a “traumatized” Abrego Garcia, and recounted the outrageous lengths the Salvadoran government had gone to to try to mislead the public about its treatment of Abrego Garcia.

The Trump administration has claimed that Abrego Garcia, who has no criminal record, was not only a member of MS-13 but a “top leader” and “engaged in human trafficking,” while only providing thin evidence that he was even affiliated with the group. In fact Abrego Garcia was deported to El Salvador as the result of an “administrative error.”

In the spirit of Easter, Donald Trump spent Sunday ranting on Truth Social, attacking judges, the left, and former President Joe Biden.

His first Easter address began normally enough, wishing Americans a “very happy Easter” and a day “full of Peace and Joy for all who celebrate the Resurrection of Jesus Christ.” But within minutes, the president flipped the script and went on a furious rampage against his favorite targets.

“Happy Easter to all, including the Radical Left Lunatics who are fighting and scheming so hard to bring Murderers, Drug Lords, Dangerous Prisoners, the Mentally Insane, and well known MS-13 Gang Members and Wife Beaters, back into our Country,” he wrote.

“Happy Easter also to the WEAK and INEFFECTIVE judges and Law Enforcement Officials who are allowing this sinister attack on our nation to continue, an attack so violent it will never be forgotten!” Trump continued, on par with his attack on the courts that’s reached new heights in recent weeks.

Right on cue, Trump’s message then turned into a frantic blitz against the left, blaming Biden and the Democrats for allowing “millions of CRIMINALS” to enter the country in the “single most calamitous act ever perpetrated on America.”

“He was, by far, our WORST and most Incompetent President, a man who had absolutely no idea what he was doing.… But to him … and to all of the people who CHEATED in the 2020 Presidential Election in order to get this highly destructive Moron Elected, I wish you, with great love, sincerity, and affection, a very Happy Easter!!!” Trump concluded.

The official White House account shared the message on X, along with a graphic of Trump standing beside a person in an Easter bunny costume, seemingly addressing the country. The graphic reads, “Happy Easter to All, Even the Radical left Lunatics …”—a sobering comparison to last year’s Easter Sunday, which the White House declared Transgender Day of Visibility.

Donald Trump made nearly $240 million off of inauguration donations from billionaires and corporations eager to kiss the ring. 

The New York Times reported that this round of donations is more than double the already record-setting amount of money that Trump raised at his first inauguration, in 2017. 

The three biggest donations—made out to the Trump-Vance Inaugural Committee—were from poultry company Pilgrim’s, which gave $5 million; crypto company Ripple Inc., which gave just under $5 million; and Republican donor, businessman, and potential ambassador to the U.K. Warren Stephens, who gave $4 million. Multiple other high-profile companies, including Meta, Amazon, JP Morgan, Target, also contributed to Trump’s massive inauguration haul. The record-setting donations underscore the level of corporate influence within this administration and raise the question of just how much it takes for President Trump to be bought. One million dollars sounds about right, as a whopping 140 people or companies each donated at least that. 

While the Trump-Vance Inaugural Committee is not legally required to disclose how it’ll use its newly acquired millions, some have hinted that the funds will go toward the Trump Presidential Library. 

Not long before Pope Francis passed away Monday, he met with Vice President JD Vance and lectured him about immigrants.

The 88-year-old pontiff seemed to initially snub Vance over the weekend, having his deputy Cardinal Pietro Parolin and the Vatican Foreign Minister Archbishop Paul Gallagher meet with Vance on Saturday. The Vatican described that meeting as “an exchange of opinions on the international situation, especially regarding countries affected by war, political tensions and difficult humanitarian situations, with particular attention to migrants, refugees, and prisoners.

“Finally, hope was expressed for serene collaboration between the state and the Catholic Church in the United States, whose valuable service to the most vulnerable people was acknowledged,” the statement from the Vatican added.

Vance’s office issued its own statement, saying that the group discussed “the plight of persecuted Christian communities around the world” and Donald Trump’s “commitment to restoring world peace”—making no mention of immigrants, refugees, or prisoners.

On Sunday, Vance met with Francis in a brief meeting, telling the pontiff, “It’s good to see you in better health,” and accepting Easter eggs for his children. But the Pope’s official Easter sermon that day criticized hostility toward immigrants and international aid, a trademark of the Trump administration.

“How much contempt is stirred up at times toward the vulnerable, the marginalized and migrants?” Francis said in his address.

Vance, who converted to Catholicism in 2019, has provoked tensions with the church with his defense of the Trump administration’s immigration policies, and even attacked the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in January for assisting immigrants, saying their concerns about the Trump administration were due to the fear of losing federal funding.

“Are they worried about humanitarian concerns, or are they actually worried about their bottom line?” Vance said at the time.

Vance further drew the ire of the Vatican when he invoked the Catholic concept of “ordo amoris”—the order of love—to defend the White House’s mass deportation policies, claiming in January that the well-being of Americans trumped any concern for that of immigrants.

Francis, the first and so far only Latin American pope, responded with a letter saying, “Christian love is not a concentric expansion of interests that little by little extend to other persons and groups.

“The true ordo amoris that must be promoted is that which we discover by meditating constantly on the parable of the ‘Good Samaritan,’ that is, by meditating on the love that builds a fraternity open to all, without exception,” the February letter stated, pointedly criticizing mass deportation.

Francis more explicitly condemned Trump’s mass deportations on an Italian talk show that month, saying, “If true, this will be a disgrace.… This is not the way to solve things.”

Last month, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and other top officials were exposed for using encrypted messaging app Signal to discuss sensitive information regarding an attack on Yemen—a significant breach of security. Now it’s been reported that Hegseth shared similar information in a second Signal chat, this time with his wife and brother present in said chat.

His response to this second national security bombshell has been to insist that it’s simply a politically motivated smear campaign rather than yet another massive faux pas.

“Your agenda is illegals, trans & DEI—all of which are no longer allowed @ DoD,” Hegseth wrote late Sunday night, in response to the Democratic Party’s X account saying he “needs to go.”

A longer statement from the Department of Defense also downplayed the national security concerns of Hegseth’s actions.

“The Trump-hating media continues to be obsessed with destroying anyone committed to President Trump’s agenda. This time, the New York Times—and all other Fake News that repeat their garbage—are enthusiastically taking the grievances of disgruntled former employees as the sole sources for their article. They relied only on the words of people who were fired this week and appear to have a motive to sabotage the Secretary and the President’s agenda,” wrote Defense Department spokesperson Sean Parnell. “There was no classified information in any Signal chat, no matter how many ways they try to write the story. What is true is that the Office of the Secretary of Defense is continuing to become stronger and more efficient in executing President Trump’s agenda.”

Hegseth doubled down again Monday at the White House Easter Egg roll, of all places.

“What a big surprise that a few leakers get fired and suddenly a bunch of hit pieces come out from the same media that peddled the Russia hoax; that won’t give back their Pulitzers—they got Pulitzers for a bunch of lies,” he told CSPAN reporters on Monday morning, while Easter festivities went on behind him. “This is what the media does. They take anonymous sources from disgruntled former employees, and then they try to slash and burn people and ruin their reputations.”

While the first Signal chat was created by national security adviser Mike Waltz, the second one was created solely by Hegseth.

“Every day he stays in his job is another day our troops’ lives are endangered by his singular stupidity,” Senator Tammy Duckworth commented.

This story has been updated.