Politics
JUST IN: CNN Legal Expert Shuts Down Media’s Latest Trump Hoax: ‘They Didn’t Do That’
Even CNN is pushing back on claims that President Trump is defying a Supreme Court ruling in the high-profile deportation case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia.
On Tuesday, CNN’s Chief Legal Correspondent Paula Reid appeared on air with Jake Tapper to clarify the court’s position, following mounting media accusations that the Trump administration is openly ignoring a Supreme Court order. But according to Reid, that narrative doesn’t hold up.
“They did not order the administration to return him to the United States,” Reid stated bluntly. “They said that they need to facilitate this return. They could have said, ‘We order him returned,’ but they didn’t do that.”
The segment quickly gained traction online, as Reid appeared to dismantle the media’s latest hoax—the suggestion that the administration is in violation of a Supreme Court ruling. “They’re working within the ambiguity that the Supreme Court justices gave them,” she added, calling the court’s language “mushy.”
Tapper pressed the issue, noting the Court had ruled in favor of Abrego Garcia and used language suggesting the administration must assist in his return. But Reid was clear: the administration is not out of bounds legally.
WATCH:
The case centers on Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland resident and father of three who was deported to El Salvador on March 15. A former unionized sheet metal apprentice, Abrego Garcia had lived in the U.S. since 2011 and had been granted legal protection from deportation due to credible threats from gangs in his native country.
He has since been held in El Salvador’s CECOT, a high-security prison known for housing dangerous gang members.
Critics of the administration have seized on the situation, accusing Trump of defying a Supreme Court ruling that upheld a lower court’s directive to “facilitate and effectuate” Abrego Garcia’s return. But as Reid explained, the wording of the ruling matters.
“Facilitate” is not the same as “mandate.” And because the court declined to order his return directly, the administration has legal room to maneuver—especially with El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele refusing to release Abrego Garcia.
Bukele has labeled the man a “terrorist” and said he lacks the authority to send him back to the U.S., further complicating the situation. Trump’s team has backed that position, arguing that matters of foreign policy remain firmly within the president’s executive powers—not the judiciary’s.
“How can I return him to the United States? Am I going to smuggle him? Of course I’m not going to do it. The question is preposterous,” Bukele said yesterday at the Oval Office. “How can I smuggle a terrorist into the United States? I don’t have power to return him.”
“We just turned from the murder capital of the world to the safest country in the Western Hemisphere, and now you want us to go back, into releasing criminals so we can go back to being the murder capital of the world?” Bukele continued. “That’s not going to happen.”
U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi made clear that the decision regarding Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s return rests solely with El Salvador’s president.
Bondi stated that if President Bukele “wanted” to send Abrego Garcia back, the United States would assist with transportation, but emphasized the ultimate call is “not up to us,” she said.
