Reporter Asks Trump if He Violated Judge’s Court Order

A dramatic showdown between the white House and the federal courts after the Trump administration deported hundreds of suspected Venezuelan gang members. They were placed on planes and flown to El Salvador over the weekend. Despite a federal judge blocking the move and requiring any planes in the air to turn around and return to the United States.
In a rare move, President Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 for the first time since World War two to speed up the deportations on Air Force One. Last night, he was asked, did his administration violate the judge’s order? I don’t know, you have to speak to the writers. Are you planning to do more deportation? I can tell you this.
These were bad people. That was a bad move. As I say. The white House denying it, defied the order to halt the flights that actually flew, saying it came after the migrants had already been removed from the U.S. territory, though the Washington Post now reporting that two of the flights left while the judge was reviewing the case, and a third departed after the judge’s ruling, CNN Delaney is joining us now from the white House.
Elena. Look, there are concerns that we are going to crash right into a constitutional crisis because of all this. What are you hearing? Yes. I mean, this could be one of the most significant legal challenges and really legal quagmires that this administration faces ever since taking office. Depending on how this moves forward.
But look, this is something that the president long vowed to do. And I know from my conversations with white House officials that he’s behind the scenes, talked about wanting to personally do for quite some time now, but it’s also something that the white House expected would face significant legal challenges.
And that is because the Alien Enemies Act is an 18th century lodge designed to be invoked when the United States is at war with another country, or is expected to be invaded or invade another country shortly. right now, the United States is clearly not at war with Venezuela, but the president actually, also speaking on Air Force One last night, argued that this was worse than war.
Take a listen to how he put it. Invaded our country. So this isn’t in that sense. This is war in many respects. It’s more dangerous than war because, you know, in war, they have uniforms. You know, you’re shooting at, you know, who you’re going after. These are people that came out. They’re walking on the streets.
Now, Sarah, again, this could be one of the most significant legal challenges the administration has faced yet because, there are questions right now over whether or not the administration knowingly and intentionally violated that federal judge’s order to halt this temporarily this order, and also turn any planes carrying Venezuelan migrants to an El Salvador prison back around now, the white House has been insisting repeatedly now that they did not defy the judge’s order.
I’m going to read to you quickly what some of white House press secretary Caroline Leavitt said in a statement yesterday. She said, quote, the administration did not refuse to comply with a court order. The order, which had no lawful basis, was issued after terrorist aliens there. She’s referring to migrants associated with the Venezuelan gang trend.
Arugula had already been removed from U.S. territory. It went on to say a single judge in a single city cannot direct the movements of an aircraft carrier full of foreign alien terrorists who were physically expelled from U.S. soil. Now, to get to your point earlier, share a key question, of course, is what the timeline was for those flights going to El Salvador, what the deportation timeline really was, and whether or not it did, you know, whether or not they had those flights in the air or even in El Salvador when this judge’s order came down.
But I think the big picture here to keep in mind is that this is a pattern we’ve now seen with this administration. They do things very quickly, things they know are likely to face an uphill, legal, uphill battle in court, and then wait for the repercussions. And it’s something we’ve continued to see them do.
And it’s definitely become a strategy behind closed doors of theirs. Sarah. Yeah. Elena Strain, great reporting from you this morning there at the white House. Thank you so much. I’m joined now by Elie Honig, our CNN senior legal analyst. first of all, I guess the biggest question here is, did the Trump administration defy a court order? Whether it was verbal or written? Doesn’t matter.
Correct. Well, Sarah, they came right close to the line and maybe over it. And let me tell you the specific details that we need to know in order to make this determination at the moment. The judge gave the order, he said in court on Saturday afternoon, I want you to not fly anyone out of here or if the flights are already in the air, I want you to turn them around at that very moment, where were the airplanes? If they were on the ground in the United States, then yes, there was a defiance of the order.
If they had already landed in El Salvador, that no, there was no defiance of the order. It was already too late. If they were mid-flight, then we get into questions of where were they? Were they over American territory or international waters? And that’s some gray area that may give the Trump administration something to hang their hat on.
But I want to make this point. Also, it doesn’t matter when the written opinion came out from the judge. What matters is the moment when the judge says it in court. I’ve seen the Trump administration say while the written order came out a few hours later, anyone who’s practiced in federal court will tell you when the judge says it from the bench. That is law.
All right. Let’s talk about the use of the Alien Enemies Act from the 1779 98 to deport hundreds of Venezuelans. Is is that a constitutional use of that particular law that we haven’t seen since World War two? Well, so this will be hotly litigated in the courts, as you say, Sarah, this law goes back to 1798.
It’s actually been invoked only three times. All of them during wartime, during the War of 1812, World War one, World War two. Now, what the law says is it actually gives the president very broad discretion to deport non-citizen INS in two scenarios one, if there’s a declared war with the other country, of course, that’s not the case.
We’re not in any declared war right now. Or second, if there’s an invasion by a foreign government. Now, the Trump administration has argued that this gang today trying to drag was presence in the United States is essentially an invasion. And they’ve also argued that even though this is a gang, they’re sort of aligned with or inseparable from the Venezuelan government.
I think both of those are aggressive novel arguments that they’ll be making to the court. The other thing that the Trump administration is arguing is that judges cannot even review the president’s application of this law. So watch for that argument to play out, maybe later today in the coming hours and days in the federal courts in general.
You heard Elie and Sarah talk about the legalities there of those two issues. But then there’s the politics, broadly speaking, talking first about defying the judge’s order on the deportation. Charlie Kirk, the conservative activist who’s a big ally of the Trump administration. Axios found a tweet from him overnight in Charlie Kirk wrote, quote, a long overdue standoff with rogue district court judges appears to finally be underway.
That might be encapsulating what’s going on. I don’t think they want this fight. But yes, if you want to do the things that the Trump administration is attempting to do, like sort of willy nilly grab people and deport them and make us sort of a big film about it and try and terrify other groups of people.
That’s what you’re going to need to make as an argument. I don’t know if it’s going to have any standing and politically speaking, because that’s what you asked about. I think people are in favor of the Constitution. All polling shows it. It’s deeply embedded in the culture. The notion of judicial review of executive action is centuries old in this country.
I don’t think they’re going to overturn it 56 days into the second Trump administration. Just because they feel like it. There’ll be a lot of pushback. And it won’t just be from the American Civil Liberties Union. That’s interesting. Mark Carroll says that he doesn’t think the white House wants to pick this fight, but aren’t they picking a fight here when you have the white House press secretary, Karen Leavitt, coming out overnight saying that a judge doesn’t have any authority at all over U.S.
foreign policy, aren’t they picking a fight with the judiciary? You know, John, in many ways, when we look back at what Donald Trump, Elon Musk and the entire administration has done when it comes to these, job cuts, I think we have to say everyone underestimated their ability to go in and do what they’ve done so far.
I think Arrow’s right that, like, in theory, you know, the American people are behind the Constitution, obviously, and it’s stood for so long in hundreds of years. However, however, I do think in the short term politically, when Democrats are using words like we’ve got we’ve got Republicans on the run or, you know, you know, they’re violating the the rule of law.
I mean, that’s great. Like, but the rule of law like that doesn’t play well in the Dunkin Donuts in Arlington, Massachusetts, where the five, Denny’s, you know, out in Phenix, Arizona. I mean, it just doesn’t play well, the Democrats right now are incapable of connecting with voters. And I do think in the short term, Donald Trump wants this fight to the point of it.
He does want the fight because in the end, they know they’re not going to win every battle, but they’ll win enough of the battles to totally transform the government from what we know right now in this specific fighter. Well, I guess the question is, how do voters see it? Do they see it as a argument over whether the executive or the judiciary has supreme power over foreign policy, or do they see it as a fight about deporting bad gang members? Well, if it’s framed that way, you get one answer.
I think what we’ll find, though, and this is always the case with executive overreach. When we go through it, we’re going to find that they snatched up a bunch of people who didn’t deserve it in any way, shape or form. very much like this case of Mr. Carlisle, who’s been, sort of deported. They said, oh, he overstayed his visa.
Lo and behold, it wasn’t a visa question. Lo and behold, he’s in fact, a green card holder. He’s a legal, permanent resident. I think we’re going to find that. And if Democrats are skillful and that’s always a big effort, but if they’re skillful politically about this, they will lift these things up and they will say, this is what happens when you ignore the Constitution.
This is what happens when you ignore due process and the rule of law. Every person who was put on that plane has a valid legal claim. I suspect to say I’m not a member of trend Agua. You got it wrong.