Karoline Leavitt Reveals Shocking Logic on Wrongly Deported Immigrant (2025)

The White House is trying to use semantics to dodge the Supreme Court’s unanimous ruling that it has to help return Kilmar Abrego Garcia to the United States from El Salvador.

At a press conference Friday, Newsmax’s Mike Carter asked press secretary Karoline Leavitt about Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele’s coming visit to the White House on Monday and whether Trump wanted Bukele to bring Abrego Garcia with him. Leavitt’s response was not encouraging.

“The Supreme Court made their ruling last night very clear that it’s the administration’s responsibility to facilitate the return, not to effectuate the return,” Leavitt replied.

It’s true that the high court ruled the Trump administration must abide by a lower court ruling to “facilitate” the return of Abrego Garcia. But focusing on this language ignores the bigger point that both courts ruled against the administration.

The government was barred from returning Abrego Garcia to his native El Salvador due to his life being in danger from gangs, before ICE chose to deport him anyway. Administration officials continue to insist that Abrego Garcia is an MS-13 gang member but failed to provide any evidence to that effect, as earlier court rulings had found. Abrego Garcia does not have a criminal record and is married to a U.S. citizen and the father of a child with autism.

Five more major law firms have succumbed to President Donald Trump’s punitive threats as he continues his blatantly illegal intimidation of legal professionals.

Kirkland & Ellis LLP, Allen Overy Shearman Sterling US LLP, Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP, and Latham & Watkins LLP will provide pro bono services of at least $500 million, Trump boasted in a Truth Social post Friday afternoon. In a separate post, Trump revealed another $100 million deal with Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft LLP.

The firms will provide services to causes “President Trump and the Law Firms both support and agree to work on, including in the following areas: Assisting Veterans and other Public Servants, including, among others, members of the Military, Gold Star families, Law Enforcement, and First Responders; ensuring fairness in our Justice System; and combatting Antisemitism,” Trump wrote, adding that the firms will not engage in “illegal” diversity, equity, and inclusion practices either.

“The Law Firms will take on a wide range of pro bono matters that represent the full political spectrum, including Conservative ideals,” the post continues. In other words, the law firms will aid the Trump administration’s volatile attack on free speech, civil liberties, and the Constitution—for free.

“Concurrent with these agreements, the EEOC has withdrawn the March 17, 2025 letters to the Law Firms, and will not pursue any claims related to those issues,” Trump noted, referring to his intimidation of the firms.

The announcements come as part of Trump’s widespread attack on law firms, punishing themfor filing lawsuits he disagrees with or hiring attorneys he doesn’t like. He’s issued executive orders penalizing some of the country’s top law firms, many of which have bent to the president’s will—including Wilkie Farr & Gallagher, the law firm of former second gentleman Doug Emhoff.

The total amount of free services pledged by law firms has now reached more than $900 million, a concerning statistic not only for other law firms but for the rule of law itself.

The Department of Justice offered a flimsy excuse Friday for why it couldn’t comply with an order to present plans to return the Maryland father wrongly deported to a notorious prison in El Salvador.

The Supreme Court upheld an order from U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis Thursday night directing the DOJ to deliver plans to the court by 9:30 a.m Friday morning “to facilitate and effectuate” the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia.

Lawyers for the DOJ asked to have the hearing delayed to provide time to “evaluate” the Supreme Court’s order. When the clock elapsed on the government’s deadline, lawyers for Abrego Garcia argued that the DOJ had no excuse for being unprepared because it already had been under order to deliver their plans before Chief Justice John Roberts issued a stay on the order on Monday. Xinis granted the government’s request for an extension, which then elapsed again.

Finally, in a brief two-page filing Friday, lawyers for the government claimed that the court had set an “impractical” deadline and that they had been provided “insufficient” time to draw up plans.

The lawyers claimed that they didn’t fully understand Xinis’s order (“The Court has not yet clarified what it means to ‘facilitate’ or ‘effectuate’ the return,”) and that their perfect compliance with Roberts’s stay had prevented them from doing their homework.

The Supreme Court had instructed Xinis to clarify “the intended scope of the term ‘effectuate’” and warned that it “may exceed the District Court’s authority.” But the high court ruled that Xinis had “properly” ordered the government to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s return.

In its insistence not to share its plan going forward, the government completely ignored Xinis’s request to share “what it can concerning the steps it has taken” prior to the order, according to Kyle Cheney, Politico’s senior legal correspondent.

“Defendants are not in a position where they ‘can’ share any information requested by the Court. That is the reality,” the government’s lawyers wrote in its filing, arguing that the order had come in too late in the evening Thursday.

The Trump administration is desperate to convince Americans that Donald Trump’s trade war won’t affect their wallets.

U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer took to Fox News Friday, attempting to claim that the tariff plan had not destabilized the U.S. economy—but even on his favorite network, Trump’s policies faced heat.

“They say tariffs are gonna cost the American household $4,800,” prompted co-host Brian Kilmeade. “What do you say to those households?”

“First of all, I would say, with respect to those projections, a lot of those are Wall Street analysts who have a lot to lose themselves,” Greer said.

Except those numbers didn’t come from Wall Street analysts. Instead, the prediction came from a new report by the Yale Budget Lab, which assessed that Trump’s tariffs would raise the cost of goods by 2.9 percent, “the equivalent of a loss of purchasing power of $4,700 per household on average in 2024 dollars.”

And Greer’s point that it’d be men on Wall Street rejecting Trump’s roller-coaster ride of a market agenda rings especially hollow in light of the fact that the market has already seen its fair share of winners and losers. Some of the biggest winners, however, appear to be Trump’s billionaire buddies—notably his right-hand man Elon Musk, who has seen massive gains amid the up-and-down chaos.

Meanwhile, Trump’s weeklong global tariff volley and its ensuing volatility affected some 62 percent of Americans who participate in the market in some way or another, either by way of holding individual stocks or investing their money in retirement plans such as 401(k)s, IRAS, or pensions.

“I think the economic fundamentals of our country are still very, very good, and while there may be an adjustment, I think we’re going to be on a good path and I don’t think we’re going to see that level of increase in household expenses,” Greer added.

It turns out that Donald Trump’s erratic tariff policy is not popular with manufacturing workers.

A new Washington Post poll of over 500 workers showed that 52 percent oppose the trade measures, believing that they are bad for their livelihoods and the country. In addition, 57 percent of them said that tariffs would hurt their jobs and careers, while 59 percent said that tariffs would hurt the companies they work for.

When broken down on partisan lines, less than half of Donald Trump voters (44 percent) said they believed tariffs would help them, while 87 percent of Harris voters said they would hurt them. A slight majority of the poll’s respondents said they favored or leaned toward the Republican Party, making the results more striking.

Trump has alternately raised and lowered tariffs, confusing markets and businesses. At the moment, there are 145 percent tariffs on China, 25 percent tariffs on Mexican and Canadian goods not covered by the USMCA trade agreement, and 10 percent on most other countries. The moves have already led to layoffs in certain American industries, such as automobiles, and a looming recession would lead to even more job losses.

But Trump doesn’t seem to have any kind of plan with his tariffs and is making it up as he goes along. Without any clarity as to where things are going, not only will industries and markets continue to slide, but Trump may start to lose support from manufacturing workers, many of whom were part of the reason for his election victory in 2024.

Donald Trump’s plan to acquire Greenland is very real, and it apparently involves convincing the country to hand itself over to U.S. control.

The White House National Security Council has met “several times” to make Trump’s desires for the arctic island a reality, reported The New York Times, which spoke to a U.S. official who said the council had sent “specific instructions to multiple arms of the government.” But those instructions apparently never specified the use of military force.

Instead, the effort is driven by a massive P.R. campaign consisting of spending federal dollars on advertising and social media campaigns with hopes of persuading Greenland’s 57,000 residents to basically annex themselves for America.

The prospect of that happening, however, is laughable. Greenland, which is a semiautonomous territory of Denmark, has not taken kindly to Trump and his associates’ sudden interest in acquiring their land. After months of heavy pressure from the Trump family, including an embarrassing stunt in which Donald Trump Jr. reportedly convinced homeless residents to wear MAGA merchandise in exchange for food, and an effort in the U.S. Congress to rename the territory“Red, White, and Blueland,” Greenland’s various political parties set aside their differences in March to unite under a singular goal: opposing U.S. aggression.

“We don’t want to be Americans. No, we don’t want to be Danes. We want to be Greenlanders, and we want our own independence in the future,” Demokraatit Party leader Jens-Frederik Nielsen told Sky News the night his party won a decisive majority in Parliament, making him prime minister. “And we want to build our own country by ourselves.”

Other Greenland officials have been more blunt. In January, the chair of Greenland’s parliamentary Foreign and Security Policy Committee Pipaluk Lynge warned the U.S. not to “invade” the nation, which is largely composed of Indigenous tribes, in light of America’s historical treatment of Alaska’s Indigenous population.

A late January poll by pollster Verian found that 85 percent of Greenland’s residents do not want to become part of the United States. Just 6 percent were in favor of the switch, while 8 percent were undecided, according to The Guardian.

That disinterest became more apparent in late March, when second lady Usha Vance’s trip around Greenland was gutted and canceled after American representatives were spotted walking around Nuuk, the island’s capital, failing to find residents who would be interested in a visit from the vice president’s wife.

But none of that has thwarted Trump’s interest.

“We need [Greenland] for international security,” Trump said during a meeting with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte last month. “That whole area is becoming very important, for a lot of reasons. The routes are very direct to Asia, to Russia, and you have ships all over the place. We have to have protection.

“So, we’re going to have to make a deal on that, and Denmark is not able to do that, and you know, Denmark is very far away, and really has nothing to do. What happened? A boat landed there 200 years ago or something and they say they have rights to it, I don’t know if that’s true, I don’t think it is, actually,” the apparent anti-colonialist activist added.

A Republican lawmaker has a new wildly racist explanation for the deadly measles outbreak.

During a CNN town hall Thursday, Representative Ryan Mackenzie presented his own theory about the more than 600 confirmed cases of measles.

“Many of these instances that are coming into our country are from illegal immigrants who have crossed the border with no checks, no actual health records, and they are bringing these diseases into our country. There is a reason why measles have started to spread in our country after decades of being almost eradicated,” the Pennsylvania Republican said.

Last month, Dr. Jennifer Shuford, who oversees the Texas Department of State Health Services, told lawmakers that she had no data pinpointing the origin of the outbreak. But, she warned, its rapid spread was caused by lower immunization rates and a “decreased interest or decrease in trust in vaccines.”

Mackenzie’s claim that the measles outbreak was caused by undocumented immigrants holds absolutely no water, but is par for the course for MAGA Republicans intent on blaming the country’s ills on a vulnerable population. Mackenzie spent much of his stage time praising Donald Trump and defending the president’s sweeping tariff policy.

Mackenzie was promptly lambasted for his baseless and racist attempt to blame undocumented immigrants.

“Nope, sorry, Rep. Mackenzie. People in the U.S. - not getting vaccinated - is why it’s spreading,” the House Homeland Security Committee Democrats wrote Friday on X.

Courtney Rice, the communications director for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, wrote on X that Mackenzie’s comments were “despicable and, frankly, racist AF.”