The White House has dug in on its refusal to return a man who US officials have acknowledged was wrongly deported last month from Maryland to an El Salvador mega-prison.

Press secretary Karoline Leavitt doubled down on accusations that Salvadoran national Kilmar Ábrego García was a member of the MS-13 gang, which his lawyer denies.

Leavitt also accused the 29-year-old of domestic violence, citing records showing his US citizen wife once filed a protective order against him.

A Maryland judge has ordered President Donald Trump’s administration to bring Mr Ábrego García back to the US. But El Salvador President Nayib Bukele said on a visit to the White House this week that he did not “have the power” to return him.

  • Potatisen@lemmy.world
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    4 days ago

    Aaaand which one do you think it is?

    America has been lost for a while, Trump is just not smart enough to keep it together.

      • halcyoncmdr@lemmy.world
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        4 days ago

        Got to admit, he’s accomplished a shit ton in his first 100 days already, way more than basically any president in history.

        He’s doing a fantastic job of destroying the country in every single way simultaneously. Not just destroying the democracy directly, but all American influence and soft power worldwide. He has already managed to do more damage to America than any terrorist attacks ever could have imagined, in record time.

        • NoneOfUrBusiness@fedia.io
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          4 days ago

          He has already managed to do more damage to America than any terrorist attacks ever could have imagined, in record time.

          There’s an argument that the war on terror gave rise to Trump, so in a way Bin Laden gets to claim this.

            • merc@sh.itjust.works
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              3 days ago
              1. USA is the world’s only superpower, and puts military bases around the world
              2. Saudi Arabia is one of the countries with military bases
              3. A Saudi man is angry with US military bases in his country
              4. That Saudi man executes a plan to crash airplanes into American skyscrapers
              5. USA invokes NATO’s article 5, the one and only time it has ever been invoked

              I’m not sure that the famous US military is keeping Americans safe. Crazy as it may be, sometimes a big military makes you a target.

          • SabinStargem@lemmy.today
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            4 days ago

            Nah, Bin Laden couldn’t do this. He didn’t own media empires or any kind of business in America. The likes of Thiel, Musk, Trump, DeSantis, and so forth are the true architects of America’s death. They are the embodiment of the saying…

            “Better to rule over hell, than to serve in heaven.”

          • andxz@lemmy.world
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            4 days ago

            If he could he would probably be laughing real hard right now, at the very least.

            Both of the global powers he fought during his lifetime are extremely busy at destroying themselves at an accelerated speed.

            Meanwhile everyone else suffers.

        • fox2263@lemmy.world
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          4 days ago

          His handlers and controllers had 4 years (or 10+) to plan for this. He’s just the meat puppet in front of the camera signing all the orders.

          • halcyoncmdr@lemmy.world
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            4 days ago

            See, that’s very true… but he clearly is doing some shit on his own. The tariffs serve no useful purpose, not for political gain, or for the billionaires, it is actually bad for them. They’re stuck trying to ride the wild and unplanned market volatility from the inconsistencies and rollbacks.

            If anything, it seems like that’s the shiny thing they’re letting him focus on so he doesn’t do other stupid shit that gets in the way of the actual plans.

            • fox2263@lemmy.world
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              4 days ago

              I imagine the stuff he’s doing on his own are the more whacky things like shower head pressure

            • limelight79@lemm.ee
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              3 days ago

              Pfft they are buying low and selling high. Trump tells them his next move. Insider trading to make millions.

            • sinceasdf@lemmy.world
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              3 days ago

              The tariffs destroyed the US dollar and legitimized China cutting the world off from rare earth metals. It also did a reverse pump and dump so Trump and friends could insider trade the whole thing.

              The tariffs absolutely accomplished something. Just nothing in the interests of anyone but those who want the US weakened or are happy to get paid to help do that.

      • sin_free_for_00_days@sopuli.xyz
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        4 days ago

        I’ve let my friends know for many decades that if my wish comes true, and I am taken out by a meteor, I expect them to laugh their heads off and say cheers. I just wanted it to be a little micro-meteorite or something, but I’m OK with a large scale extinction size rock, I think.

      • NoneOfUrBusiness@fedia.io
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        4 days ago

        No I assure you he is. Trump is a fascist dictator; he’s a true threat in the same way Hitler was a true threat.

        • Geetnerd@lemmy.world
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          4 days ago

          Yes… I said he was a threat.

          But the people who a richer than him, and fund all of this Right Wing Media, and put him in power are worse.

          I’m done with this.

          • NoneOfUrBusiness@fedia.io
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            4 days ago

            You’re not seeing it. This man will put the oligarchs in concentration camps if they piss him off. The power dynamic completely changed after Jan 20th; now he is in charge and they are his lackies.

            • sinceasdf@lemmy.world
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              3 days ago

              I don’t think it’s in his interest to do any of that. He does not control the machinery that influences public opinion and he doesn’t have money like the richest people in the world have money.

              You’re not completely wrong, but I think he still needs at least most of them. They help inform him of strategy via data harvesting and the means of selling it to his supporters, trump does not have the ability to do that all on his own.

              • NoneOfUrBusiness@fedia.io
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                3 days ago

                Here’s the thing: He can just seize all that stuff; the left doesn’t have a monopoly on seizing the means of production. Of course it’s not in his interest to do that, but he can if push comes to shove, like say if they suddenly team up with the liberals. Of course this is much more true in the later stages of fascist dictatorship so in the earlier stages it’s more of a symbiotic relationship, but even then I’d consider both Trump and the oligarchy equally threatening rather than the latter being the true threat. It’s still imperative to take out the first so you can get to the latter.

        • Geetnerd@lemmy.world
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          4 days ago

          A useful puppet, that can’t be entirely controlled like Reagan, but is mostly getting the oligarch’s desires achieved.

          He’s absolutely dangerous, but he’s not the true threat.

        • halcyoncmdr@lemmy.world
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          4 days ago

          Not a billionaire, that’s for sure. Him being so sensitive about it and never wanting to appear less than that, proves it, and it’s been the case for decades.

          • Raiderkev@lemmy.world
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            He definitely wasn’t in term 1, but all the grifts and that stupid meme coin likely put him over the threshold.

            • halcyoncmdr@lemmy.world
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              4 days ago

              That assumes he didn’t need all that to pay back Russian debts immediately.

              I wouldn’t be surprised if 20 years from now we find out that Trump money directly funded the continued Russian invasion of Ukraine.