Secretary of State Marco Rubio is apparently aware of the national controversy surrounding Kilmar Abrego García, whom the Trump administration improperly sent to a Salvadoran prison but isn’t trying to bring back.
But to hear the former Republican senator put it, he’s confused about the nature of the debate. The Washington Post reported on Rubio’s comments to reporters at an Oval Office event:
Secretary of State Marco Rubio suggested that the Trump administration was not bound to follow court orders to return Kilmar Abrego García from El Salvador, saying that ‘no court in the United States has a right to conduct the foreign policy of the United States.’ … ‘I don’t understand what the confusion is,’ Rubio said. ‘This individual is a citizen of El Salvador. He was illegally in the United States and was returned to his country.’
He delivered the impromptu comments as if he were simply offering a commonsense perspective.
Rubio: "No court in the United States has a right to conduct the foreign policy of the United States."
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2025-04-14T16:03:59.864Z
Right off the bat, the idea that the federal courts are powerless on matters of foreign policy is bizarre.
But more specifically, in the García case, I don’t understand what it is Rubio doesn’t understand. A federal court ruled that García must not be sent to El Salvador. A variety of Trump administration officials, including the Trump-appointed solicitor general, have already admitted that it was a mistake to send him to the country.
And yet, to hear Rubio tell it, he’s mystified about the controversy — which necessarily leads to questions about whether the Cabinet secretary is genuinely confused or whether he was simply pretending to be foolish.
Either way, it was an unfortunate moment for the secretary of state, which followed a series of related missteps and misjudgments.
Late last week, for example, Rubio issued a memorandum arguing that the Trump administration has the authority to deport immigrants based on, among other things, their “expected beliefs.” Soon after, he reportedly encouraged State Department employees to be on the lookout for anti-Christian bias among their colleagues — and report on officials who might be guilty. This week, after Rubio’s unfortunate display in the Oval Office and his decision to peddle some brazenly false claims about Tufts doctoral student Rümeysa Öztürk, NBC News reported that the Rubio-led State Department has proposed slashing the department’s budget by nearly half, dramatically reducing diplomatic engagement — including eliminating funds for the United Nations — and gutting U.S. foreign assistance. All of this comes against a backdrop in which Rubio has, on multiple occasions, found that he’s not on the same page as the White House, amid multiple reports that Trump has largely sidelined his secretary of state, keeping him out of the decision-making process on matters of foreign policy. Perhaps Rubio has been making outlandish comments as part of a strategy to impress the president?
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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