Rep. Jamie Raskin threatened foreign leaders who “facilitated authoritarianism in our country” by currying favor with President Trump on issues like deportation, saying that Democrats will not “look kindly” on his supporters when they “come back to power.”
Referencing El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele specifically, Raskin (D-Md.), 62, suggested that Dems should keep score of foreign leaders who brownnose Trump, 78, during his second term.
“Implicit in it should be the idea that if and when we come back to power — and we will — we are not going to look kindly upon people who … facilitated authoritarianism in our country,” Raskin told “Pod Save America” host Tommy Vietor in an episode that dropped Saturday.
Vietor had told Raskin that a Latin American policy expert suggested to him that Democrats should “threaten to take action against any foreign government that participates in the extraordinary rendition of American citizens.”
Trump has tapped into warpowers under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to rapidly deport alleged gangbangers outside of traditional deportation channels to El Salvador’s notorious Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT) mega prison.
So far, those deportations have pertained to illegal immigrants, but Trump has publicly mused about exploring the legality of shipping extremely violent criminals who are US citizens to foreign countries.
Raskin praised the concept of putting foreign countries on notice and called for cutting off foreign aid to El Salvador in response to its cooperation with the Trump administration’s deportations of alleged gangbangers via warpowers.
“The whole idea that Bukele doesn’t have any power to return an American prisoner who was sent to him under an agreement where he’s getting paid $6 million by America is ridiculous,” Raskin contended. “He’s our legal agent in this dubious arrangement they created. Of course, he’s got the power to return them.”
Last week, Bukele met with Trump in the White House, becoming the first Latin American leader to do so, and claimed that he lacked the power to return Kilmar Abrego Garcia to the US, calling questions about returning him “preposterous.”
Abrego Garcia, 29, a citizen of El Salvador, had illegally entered the US in 2011, and was blocked from being deported back home in a 2019 court decision due to gang threats against him.
The Trump administration deported him to El Salvador last month in what its attorneys initially described as an “error.” Top officials have since defended his deportation and alleged that he’s had ties to MS-13, something his attorneys and family deny.
Raskin added that his party needs to engage “in far more work of transnational Democrat solidarity” to try and “prevent the spread of lawlessness and the fascist chaos that’s been unleashed against us.”
Raskin, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, has emerged as one of the most vocal critics of Trump in Congress.
He had previously been a top defender of Hunter Biden from GOP-backed inquiries into the scandal-scarred first son.
A former constitutional law professor, Raskin argued that “we’re living in something like a gangster state right now” under Trump.
“We have to stop that, obviously, to prevent a slide into complete dictatorship,” Raskin said of the administration’s use of foreign prison systems.
“Donald Trump is a convicted criminal. Could he be sent off to a foreign prison?,” he mused.
“We’ve got to become the leaders of a nationwide popular movement to arrest the descent into fascism in America,” he argued before pivoting to slamming tech guru Elon Musk’s kindred spirits in Silicon Valley.
“These people really believe that democracy is defunct. They say we live in a constitutional America.”
