Day: April 14, 2025

Is Trump Using El Salvador’s Techno-Autocrat Bukele as an Excuse to Defy the Supreme Court?

We begin with Trump’s White House meeting today with El Salvador’s techno-autocrat Bukele who derisively refused to hand over a Maryland resident the Supreme Court has ruled was wrongly deported saying “of course I’m not going to release him back to US soil…the question is preposterous.” Joining us to discuss the extent to which Trump is defying the Supreme Court using El Salvador’s president as an excuse is Ben Wizner, the Director of the American Civil Liberty Union’s Speech, Privacy & Technology Project, which is dedicated to protecting and expanding the First Amendment freedoms of expression, association, and inquiry. He has litigated numerous cases involving post-9/11 civil liberties abuses, including challenges to airport security policies, government watch lists, extraordinary rendition, and torture. Additionally, he has testified before Congress and traveled several times to Guantánamo Bay to monitor military commission proceedings.

Trump and Erik Prince’s Plans to Rendition 100,000 Prisoners from American Jails to El Salvador

Then we look into the Trump administration’s plan to deport US citizens to El Salvador and the deals it already has made with Erik Prince, the former CEO of the Blackwater mercenary group, who is planning the rendition of 100,000 prisoners from American jails to El Salvador and is also working with Ecuador’s President Naboa. Joining us is Ana María Méndez-Dardón, the director for Central America at the Washington Office on Latin America where she leads WOLA’s research and advocacy efforts on issues of human rights, rule of law and democracy.

The New Hegemon in the Middle East: Israel

Then finally we speak with Steven Simon, a visiting professor and distinguished fellow at Dartmouth College, who served on the National Security Council staff as senior director for Middle Eastern and North African affairs from 2011 to 2012. He also worked on the NSC staff on counterterrorism and Middle East security policy. Currently he is a Senior Research Fellow at the Quincy institute for Responsible Statecraft and was formerly a Fellow in International Affairs at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is the co-author, among other books, of The Age of Sacred Terror, and his latest book is Grand Delusion: The Rise and Fall of American Ambition in the Middle East and he has an article at The New York Times we will discuss “The US Must now Reckon With a Hegemon in the MidEast: Israel.”