- What we're seeing from the Trump administration is an effort to essentially throw out the rule of law.

We even had the president question whether he had to follow the Constitution.

That's a very dangerous moment.

(spirited music) - Hello and welcome to "GZERO World."

I'm Ian Bremmer, and I am coming to you from inside United States Capitol Complex in Washington DC.

And I'm here to interview the senior US Senator from Maryland, Chris Van Hollen.

If his name rings the bell, that's not by accident.

He is one of the few Democrats in Congress who've managed to grab a slice of media attention during the first 100 days of the Trump administration.

In April, he took a highly publicized trip down to El Salvador to visit Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland father of three who was wrongly deported to CECOT, the Central American country's notorious mega-prison.

The Trump administration has maintained that Abrego Garcia has ties to the gang, MS-13, but admitted that his deportation was a, quote, "administrative error."

The White House and its allies, including the president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, dismissed Van Hollen's El Salvador trip as a political stunt.

The public opinion is more recently on his side.

An ABC News poll found that only 26% of respondents supported keeping Abrego Garcia in a Salvadoran prison, while 42% supported returning him to the United States.

Van Hollen is trying to define himself as an offender of the rule of law and an opponent for Donald Trump's unchecked power.

It wasn't just this recent jet-setting that made me wanna sit down with Van Hollen.

The senator is also part of a small group of Democrats offering a full-throated rebuke of the Trump administration.

Alongside Bernie Sanders, AOC, and Corey Booker, Van Hollen is emerging as a party leader at a time when the Democrats surely need one.

I'll ask him about all that and more.

Don't worry, I've also got your Puppet Regime.

- It's an abandoned human spine, one of many that have been found across the United States lately.

- But first, a word from the folks who help us keep the lights on.

- [Announcer] Funding for "GZERO World" is provided by our lead sponsor, Prologis.

- [Announcer 2] Every day, all over the world, Prologis helps businesses of all sizes lower their carbon footprint and scale their supply chains, with a portfolio of logistics and real estate and an end-to-end solutions platform, addressing the critical initiatives of global logistics today.

Learn more at prologis.com - [Announcer] And by: Cox Enterprises is proud to support GZERO.

Cox is working to create an impact in areas like sustainable agriculture, cleantech, healthcare, and more.

Cox, a family of businesses.

Additional funding provided by: Jerre and Mary Joy Stead.

Carnegie Corporation of New York.

And... (bright music) - Senator Chris Van Hollen, thanks so much for joining.

- Great to be with you, Ian.

- Thank you.

So, hard to break through the media cycle in this environment, you managed to do it by going down to El Salvador, visiting a man that was illegally deported from the United States.

Was also initially illegally in the United States, and all hell broke loose.

Talk about why was you decided to go and visit this resident of Maryland.

- I went to visit him because his illegal abduction and deportation was a gross violation of our constitution, right?

Our constitution provides due process rights to anybody residing in America, and the Trump administration initially admitted in court that they had illegally removed him from the United States.

But instead of fixing the problem, they actually fired the lawyer who told the truth in court.

And then we had a 9-0 Supreme Court decision.

You don't see 9-0 very often.

- [Ian] To facilitate?

- Or ordering that the Trump administration facilitate Abrego Garcia's return to the United States because he had been illegally abducted and taken to this notorious prison in El Salvador.

So, I went down there for two reasons.

One, to just set eyes on him to see if he was alive.

I spoke to his wife, I spoke to his mom, I spoke to his brother.

They had no communication with him, zero.

And to ask the El Salvadorian government to not be complicit in this illegal scheme with the Trump administration to violate the constitutional rights of people living in America.

- Now, I wanna talk about the trip and what you experienced, but, first of all, Trump is popular on the immigration issue.

How much were you aware of, concerned of, this is the constitutional crisis that the President wants to have?

- You know, my view is that it's never wrong to be defending the Constitution, not wrong on the merits.

And I do believe that when Americans get the full story regardless of political party or, you know, whether they're conservative, liberal or somewhere in between, they want to defend due process rights.

And when Americans recognize that their rights are threatened, when the rights of one man are taken away, they overwhelmingly support the position that I've taken.

And it's pretty clear now that surveys show that that is the view of the majority of the American people.

When I went down to El Salvador, I had no idea.

I had no idea exactly what the reaction would be.

My goal was simply to make sure that this person's rights were protected.

Because if you allow them to be taken away from him, you really do threaten them for everybody.

- Now, we've heard a lot of both defensiveness and reaction from the Trump White House that there should be a difference, there needs to be a difference for due process for citizens and non-citizens because otherwise, you'd have millions and millions of cases that would be required and it would never be accomplished.

And the border is broken and we're not removing illegal immigrants from the United States.

How do you... Clearly, that is having some resonance and not just with their base.

How do you respond to that?

- The constitution's very clear, as are many of the Supreme Court precedents, that the rights in the Constitution apply to people who are residing in the United States.

That's true for students and their First Amendment rights.

It's true for any individual who is here.

And it's important to remember Abrego Garcia had legal status here, right?

In 2019, a court had actually prohibited the earlier Trump administration from deporting him to El Salvador.

They said his life would be put in danger by gangs.

And the Trump administration in 2019 never appealed that decision, so he was given a work permit.

And he was driving, you know, with his five-year-old autistic son when he was illegally detained.

And I think when Americans think about that situation, they recognize that it is important that every individual who lives in our country at least get due process.

We have courts to prosecute the guilty, but we also have courts to make sure that people's rights are protected and secured.

That is a system that has really stood the test of time and served our country well.

It's one of the things that distinguishes us from authoritarian regimes.

And what we're seeing from the Trump administration is an effort to essentially throw out the rule of law.

We even had the president question whether he had to follow the Constitution.

That's a very dangerous moment.

- So you get to El Salvador.

I assume it was your first trip down there.

I'm not certain of that.

- No, it was my first trip to El Salvador.

- Okay.

So, you know, clearly, this is also a government run by President Nayib Bukele, extremely popular.

Actually, Democratically elected president, not an authoritarian regime.

Popular in significant part for brutally rounding up and blocking away anyone that is deigned to be a violent criminal or attached to one or grabbed in proximity to one, frankly.

So you knew that this was going to be a fraught environment, that they were gonna try to make hay out of this.

How did you... Talk a little bit about how you planned to deal with that as you're showing up.

- Well, you're absolutely right in describing the situation down there.

I mean, President Bukele is popular.

I will say he has used that popularity to dramatically reduce political space in El Salvador.

They've, you know, essentially reappointed judges to courts.

And I understood that we were going into that environment.

My main goal was to ask them to reconsider their complicity in the overall scheme of violating people's constitutional rights, but also just to lay eyes on Abrego Garcia.

I had told his wife, Jennifer, and his family, I would try to do that.

And so look, I didn't know exactly what to expect.

I had a meeting with the vice president of El Salvador.

The president was actually out of country.

So I made the point that Abrego Garcia had been illegally abducted from the United States, and I asked him whether or not El Salvador had any independent basis for holding him.

His answer was, "No, we are holding him here, we're lock him up here, because the Trump administration is paying us money to do so."

Cash for collusion.

- So, clearly, there has been, continues to be no effort by the Trump administration to facilitate his return before your trip, during your trip, after your trip.

- That is exactly right.

One of the first questions I asked our embassy team in San Salvador was, "Have they gotten any direction from the Trump administration to facilitate his release?"

The answer was no.

When I talked to the vice president of El Salvador, he made it clear repeatedly that the ball was in the Trump Administration's court, not their court.

And again, they were only holding him because he was being paid to do so.

And, of course, the president of the United States within the last week admitted that he could get him back by simply picking up the phone on the Resolute desk and giving President Bukele a call.

President of the United States admitted that to the whole country.

And so, clearly, they are in violation of a 9-0 Supreme Court order to facilitate his return.

- What do you do about that?

- I mean, so you made the trip, you're making the point very clearly to me and to the audience, but Trump isn't doing anything about it.

I mean, that's pretty clearly, like, rule of law, checks and balances.

Supreme Court, 9-0.

The answer is no.

So, what do you do about that?

- So there are three things we're doing about it.

The first is happening in federal court.

So Judge Xinis, the federal district court judge in this case, has ordered the administration to provide her with information, showing that they're facilitating his return.

This is a process that will probably play out over the next 10 days.

She's shown her frustration.

She's said that they've been, you know, they've not been acting in good faith, but she's given them a little more time.

I think what she's doing, Ian, is showing the Supreme Court where this case will probably return to at some point, that she's given the Trump administration every opportunity to show that it is facilitating his return.

But as of now, they're not.

That's one.

Number two, Senator Kaine and I introduced a resolution here in Congress that will come up for a vote within the next two weeks that requires the Trump administration to provide us with a report, showing, you know, what they're doing effectively to facilitate his return and also requiring them to describe the human rights situation in El Salvador.

It's called a 502-B Report.

It has expedited procedures.

And finally, and this has been the hardest thing, is just to try to shame our Senate Republican colleagues into standing up for the Constitution of the United States.

Because as of today, there seems to be no bottom to which they will sink in defending Donald Trump's tearing up of the Constitution.

- Have you gotten any sense from any of your Republican colleagues in the Chamber privately that they are uncomfortable with the fact that rule of law is not being adhered to in this case?

- The short answer is, yes, I have.

Yes they have... - I'm not asking for names.

- No.

- Can you just talk about- - Sure.

They have conceded that we are at risk, the American people at risk when we have a lawless president who is ignoring the Constitution of the United States.

And at this point in time, when we ask them to join us in confronting the president on these questions, they say they just wanna leave this to the courts.

Right.

But, of course, you know, Donald Trump is beating up on the courts and they're essentially, the Republicans are standing silently by while he threatens judges with all sorts of things.

So, ultimately our system does require that not only the court's Article III do their job, but that Article I, members of Congress stand up and uphold their oaths under the Constitution.

That's being tested as we speak.

And so far, Republicans are failing.

- Is it fair to say or is it too far that actually privately some of these Republicans are comfortable with, even happy with the role that you are playing right now on this issue?

- Oh, yes.

Because, again, I think they recognize that the country's at risk when the President of the United States is directly attacking the Constitution, due process, First Amendment, and at least as we speak, ignoring a 9-0 Supreme Court order.

Yes, they understand that that puts the constitutional architecture of our country at risk.

- Chris, you also sit on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

This is a very, let's say, dynamic time in terms of US foreign policy.

Tell me a little bit about where you think the United States is heading presently on the global stage.

- You're putting it very diplomatically to say dynamically.

- I'm giving you an opportunity to respond here.

- So, I...

This is not America first in the sense that what President Trump is doing benefits our country.

What we are witnessing from the Trump administration is America in retreat in every part of the world.

And our adversaries like China are all too happy to fill the vacuum, right?

Our allies, European allies are worried and concerned that the United States has sort of abandoned its traditional role in terms of providing for the post-World War II structure that we led.

And our adversaries are cheering, even down to things where, you know, China's working to recruit our scientists who are being, you know, let go from places like NIH, and our European allies are also happy to benefit from that.

But if you look at the state department budget that's been proposed, they're talking about just under a 50% cut overall.

They're talking about, in terms of money, 50% cut to programs, 15 plus percent cut to personnel.

When you do that, you erode, undermine our ability to conduct diplomacy around the world.

And, of course, shredding AID has also essentially damaged a very important tool that we use.

So I would say this is America very much in retreat.

And on top of all that, you have a Secretary of State who, when he was in the Senate, you know, proclaim that we should have a US foreign policy based on the promotion of democracy, rule of law, human rights, freedom of speech.

But here at home, he's just tearing up that whole playbook.

I mean, I've seen Marco Rubio transform very quickly into just a total MAGA secretary.

- If you look at where the United States is right now on matters of trade, which is having the biggest impact globally, fair trade, not free trade is something we hear a lot about.

The fact that countries take advantage of the United States, need to see reciprocity in tariffs.

Deals are coming down the pike.

And indeed, there have been, there's been a fair amount of progress with a number of US allies.

Japan, for example, South Korea, an India deal may be coming soon.

Do you think it is possible, do you see any indications that from waving a very big stick on so-called Liberation Day, that you might come out in a better place than it looks presently?

- I do not.

I mean, I have supported targeted terrorists for strategic purposes, both now and in the past.

But the Trump, across the board, big tariff hikes and the chaos that's been created is hurting our economy.

I hear from small businesses in Maryland that are either having a layoff people as we speak, or in some cases say they have to close the doors because, you know, their entire calculation in terms of their supply chain has been totally disrupted.

Now, what Donald Trump is good at is he will claim to have gotten some concession from some country in exchange for the chaos that he's visited on America.

But in so many cases, that's just turns out to be not true.

So, you know, for example, the president claimed that the fentanyl crisis was the basis for him taking this economic action.

Yes, we have a fentanyl.

- Mexico, Canada, China, yes.

- Right, but he is, I mean he is violating the law in all sorts of ways.

One of the ways he's doing that is violating... You know, claiming economic emergency powers that he does not have.

- That Congress has.

- That Congress has, right.

And there have been lawsuits filed on this case and they're percolating through the courts right now.

So, the short answer to your question is, I think the damage being done far exceeds any narrow gains that President Trump will claim to come out of this.

Democrats like me continue to support sort of very targeted, you know, terrorists for strategic reasons, but opposed the across the board thing.

So just last week, we had a vote here in Congress, essentially challenging the president's abuse of his economic emergency powers.

- That was the 49-49 vote?

- Yes, JD Vance, the vice president, was sent down by the White House to cast the tie breaking vote, which just shows how determined they are to keep this tariff chaos in place and how Republicans of the Senate, with a very few exceptions.

And, unfortunately, with the help of JD Vance tie breaking vote, the Republicans continue to allow this lawlessness to continue.

- Democrats are not polling particularly well right now, even though Trump is down from where he was when he was inaugurated.

Maybe not a surprise since we're very early in the term, but what do you think the Democrats need to do?

What policies do they need to embrace?

How do they need to change from how they ran in 2024 to regain leadership in this country?

- Well, a couple things.

First, you know, I think voters, they don't like people who always seem to have their finger to the wind and are calculating, you know, their direction based on every single latest poll.

Probably, if I'd done that, I probably, you know, would not have gone to El Salvador if that was the basis of it, because I wouldn't have known that at the end of the day, the American people do wanna rally around the constitution and due process rights.

So we can do more than one thing at a time.

Yes, we should focus on economic issues, bread and butter issues, the chaos from the tariffs, but I think we can also fight to protect our constitution.

One other thing I would say is, in addition to simply being no on Trump, we do need to present an alternative.

And I think the upcoming debate over the Trump tax plan for the rich and the powerful at the expense of everybody else, both presents an opportunity to show that, you know, Trump continues to stand for the Elon Musk of the world.

But I've been advocating and will be preparing an alternative to that.

So I think the Democrats need to have a tax plan.

It really does help working people, the people that Donald Trump claimed that he wanted to be there for.

- And who voted for Donald Trump, by the way.

- And who voted for him.

Right.

So their tax plan, which essentially cuts taxes for the very rich at the expense of everybody else, is what I call the great betrayal.

It's exhibit A of the great betrayal.

He's throwing working people under the bus to help the Elon Musk of the world.

And we should point that out, but we should also present an alternative that shows we have a plan that will help working people, both in terms of tax relief for working people, extension of their ability to get the Affordable Care Act benefits.

So there are a number of things we can do beyond saying no that show who we are standing for at this moment.

- Tell me one policy that you see the Trump administration moving on right now, that you actually think, "You know what?

I'd like to see them succeed at that.

That's a direction I want my country to go."

- That's a very tough question because Donald Trump came into office saying that he was gonna end the war in Ukraine on day one.

He has thrown the Ukrainians under the bus.

He said he was gonna stop the war in Gaza on day one.

As we speak, the hostages have not been released and we have a total humanitarian disaster in Gaza.

We're day, I think, 65 in terms of a total blockade.

So Donald Trump has not delivered.

Now, I do hope that in this discussion about whether or not to go to war against Iran or not, the more sober-minded members of the administration, I think on this issue, there may be some, will prevail.

'Cause it's not in America's interest to go drop bombs on Iran when we have a path that we can achieve to negotiate limitations on their nuclear enrichment program.

They don't like to admit it, but that's of course what we had with the JCPOA.

It was Donald Trump and his first administration who ripped up the JCPOA.

And now a number of folks in the Republican Party I think recognize that negotiation with Iran would better serve our overall interests in preventing them from getting a nuclear weapon.

- Senator Chris Van Hollen, thanks so much for joining us today.

- Good to be with you, Ian.

(gentle serene music) - And now something a little lighter.

I've got your Puppet Regime.

- Ladies and gentlemen, a gruesome discovery.

That's right, it's an abandoned human spine.

One of many that have been found across the United States lately.

But witnesses give conflicting accounts of whom the spines belong to.

- [Interviewee] I'm pretty sure I just saw it flying out of an Ivy League president's office, but I can't be on camera saying that.

- Well, the Democrats aren't exactly known for vertebrae, but I would've thought Chuck Schumer and these guys would put up some kind of fight these days.

- Well, I don't want to be a Timmy Tattletale, but it could have come from one of those corporate CEOs I saw burning all their Pride Month merchandise out here the other night.

- Folks, the authorities are asking for your help to find the owners of these spines.

Whom do they belong to?

You tell us.

♪ Puppet Regime ♪ - That's our show this week.

Come back next week if you like what you've seen, or even if you don't, but you think you are the future of a major American political party, why don't you check us out at gzeromedia.com?

(upbeat music) (bright music) - [Announcer] Funding for "GZERO World" is provided by our lead sponsor, Prologis.

- [Announcer 2] Every day, all over the world, Prologis helps businesses of all sizes lower their carbon footprint and scale their supply chains, with a portfolio of logistics and real estate and an end-to-end solutions platform, addressing the critical initiatives of global logistics today.

Learn more at prologis.com - [Announcer] And by: Cox Enterprises is proud to support GZERO.

Cox is working to create an impact in areas like sustainable agriculture, cleantech, healthcare, and more.

Cox, a family of businesses.

Additional funding provided by: Jerre and Mary Joy Stead.

Carnegie Corporation of New York.

And... (bright music) (lively music)