Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) said on Sunday that he does not think President Trump has defied any court orders in the case involving Kilmar Abrego Garcia, but the senator said he would “call him out on it” if he does.
“Yes,” Kennedy said, when asked on NBC News’s “Meet the Press” whether he thinks Trump is following court orders.
“And I don’t believe that President Trump will defy a federal judge’s order,” he continued. “If he does, I’ll call him out on it.”
“I love the rule of law. I love it like the devil loves sin. I think if we start not following federal judicial orders, we undermine the system entirely,” the senator added.
Kennedy stressed that doesn’t mean people can’t criticize court rulings. “You can criticize them. You can appeal them. But you can’t choose to not follow them. And I haven’t seen President Trump do that. And if he does, I’ll say very loudly and clearly that I think he’s wrong.”
The Supreme Court upheld the thrust of a district court’s ruling and ordered the Trump administration to “facilitate” the return of Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran national who was living in Maryland before he was sent to an El Salvador prison last month. An immigration judge had issued an order in 2019 preventing authorities from deporting him back to El Salvador over concerns he would face violence there.
The Trump administration previously referred to Abrego Garcia’s deportation as the result of an “administrative error.”
This past week, an appeals court rejected the Trump administration’s request to delay compliance with the district court’s ruling that the administration must take all available steps to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s return.
“The government is asserting a right to stash away residents of this country in foreign prisons without the semblance of due process that is the foundation of our constitutional order,” U.S. Circuit Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson wrote for the unanimous three-judge panel.
Wilkinson, an appointee of former President Reagan, rebuked the Trump administration’s claim that “there is nothing that can be done,” writing, “This should be shocking not only to judges, but to the intuitive sense of liberty that Americans far removed from courthouses still hold dear.”
Kennedy pushed back on Wilkinson’s opinion.
“What does he expect Trump to do? Declare war and go get [Salvadoran President Nayib] Bukele? I mean, he brought Bukele to America. President Bukele sat in the Oval Office in front of God and country and said, ‘I’m not sending this guy back.’ So I don’t know what Judge Wilkinson expects Trump to do,” Kennedy told “Meet the Press” moderator Kristen Welker in the interview.
When Welker noted Trump “could simply have asked for [Abrego Garcia] back,” Kennedy responded, “How do you know he hasn’t?”
Welker said she was basing her question on the president’s public comments that he did not plan to ask Bukele to send Abrego Garcia back.