Today’s edition of quick hits.
* Abrego Garcia is now set to travel back to Maryland: “Kilmar Abrego Garcia was released from criminal custody in Tennessee on Friday, but the Trump administration has signaled that it still wants to remove him from the country after illegally sending him to El Salvador in March, where he was held in that country’s notorious terrorism prison without having been charged with or convicted of any crime.”
* Given that Maxwell wants a pardon, this is awfully tough to take seriously: “The Trump administration on Friday released transcripts and audio recordings of convicted Jeffrey Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell’s unusual interview last month with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche … who was previously President Donald Trump’s personal defense lawyer.”
* The White House’s policy still isn’t working: “Russia’s top diplomat said in an interview released on Friday that ‘there is no meeting planned’ between President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine. It was the Kremlin’s most direct declaration yet that a summit the White House had suggested was imminent was nowhere close to materializing.”
* Republican orthodoxy on capitalism keeps devolving: “Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said on Friday that the U.S. government has taken a 10% stake in Intel, the embattled chipmaker that is the only American company capable of making advanced chips on U.S. soil.”
* In Florida: “A federal judge in Florida on Thursday night issued a significant ruling regarding the ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ immigration detention center in the Everglades, curbing the government’s use of the controversial site on multiple fronts. Florida officials quickly filed a notice with the court that they’re appealing the ruling.”
* A story worth watching: “The Trump administration said Thursday it is reviewing more than 55 million people who have valid U.S. visas for any violations that could lead to deportation, part of a growing crackdown on foreigners who are permitted to be in the United States.”
* In related news: “Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Thursday announced the U.S. is pausing all employment visas for commercial truck drivers, an escalation of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy’s effort to strictly enforce English proficiency standards on truck drivers in the name of safety.” * Putting PEPFAR’s future in doubt: “The Trump administration is ignoring a directive from Congress and refusing to fully fund a landmark H.I.V. program that is widely credited with saving millions of lives over the past two decades.” * The ugly politics of spite: “A year after a gunman killed 49 people at a gay nightclub in Orlando in 2016, Florida’s Transportation Department approved plans for a rainbow crosswalk to honor the victims of what was then the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history. On Thursday, residents and community leaders discovered that the same department painted over those rainbow stripes in response to dual directives from Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) and President Donald Trump to wipe crosswalks and sidewalks considered to have ‘social, political or ideological messages.’” Have a safe weekend.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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