| April 21, 2025 08:32:36 AM |
|
|
| April 21, 2025 08:32:36 AM |
|
|
A mild-mannered Maryland senator has suddenly emerged as a leading figure in Democrats’ resistance to Donald Trump’s norm-busting presidency. We look at Chris Van Hollen’s rise. Welcome to this week’s edition of AP Ground Game.
|
Policy changes, but facts endure. AP delivers accurate, fact-based journalism to keep the world informed in every administration. Support independent reporting today. Donate. |
Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., speaks during a news conference upon his arrival from meeting with Kilmar Abrego Garcia in El Salvador, as Abrego Garcia's mother Cecilia Garcia, left, and wife Jennifer Vasquez Sura, right, listen at Washington Dulles International Airport, in Chantilly, Va., Friday, April 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana) |
Anti-Trump resistance sees another leader in Van Hollen |
Van Hollen traveled 2,000 miles to El Salvador last week to meet with Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran citizen who had been living in Maryland and was wrongly deported as federal courts say he should be returned. Van Hollen did not secure his release. But by meeting with him, Van Hollen created a new sense of hope and momentum for Abrego Garcia's family and people opposed to President Donald Trump.
Van Hollen’s emergence in a critical national debate offers a fresh window into the Democratic Party's monthslong leadership carousel. Democrats have struggled to counter a series of Trump administration policies with far-reaching consequences, from slashing the federal workforce to stripping funding from universities, pushing back against court orders and launching a trade war that's rattling the global economy.
Democrats’ most visible elected leaders, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries and Sen. Chuck Schumer, have lost the confidence of many progressive activists. That’s opened a void for people like Sen. Cory Booker, who delivered a record-breaking 25-hour speech on the Senate floor that briefly served as a rallying point for the frustrated anti-Trump movement. Voters also have packed into rallies hosted by Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who have launched a national “Stop Oligarchy” tour.
At the same time, potential 2028 presidential contenders such as Govs. Gavin Newsom and Gretchen Whitmer have gone the other way by downplaying their Trump criticism at times. Others, including Govs. Josh Shapiro and Wes Moore, have largely avoided stepping into the national debate. Read more. |
|
|
Of note:
No stranger to national politics, Van Hollen perhaps has spent as much time shaping the political landscape during his two decades in Congress as fighting on its front lines, serving at times as head of both the House and Senate campaign arms. But this year, Van Hollen has been especially aggressive against Trump, co-hosting the first major rally against Trump and Elon Musk’s cuts at the U.S. Agency for International Development, and serving as a leading advocate against Trump's across-the-board cuts.
|
| |
Alito's dissent in deportation case says justices rushed to block Trump |
The Supreme Court acted “literally in the middle of the night” and without sufficient explanation in blocking the Trump administration from deporting any Venezuelans held in northern Texas under an 18th-century wartime law, Justice Samuel Alito wrote in a sharp dissent that castigated the seven-member majority. Joined by fellow conservative Justice Clarence Thomas, Alito said there was “dubious factual support” for granting the request in an emergency appeal from the American Civil Liberties Union. The group contended that immigration authorities appeared to be moving to restart such removals under the Alien Enemies of 1798. The majority did not provide a detailed explanation in the order early Saturday, as is typical, but the court previously said deportations could proceed only after those about to be removed had a chance to argue their case in court and were given “a reasonable time” to contest their pending removals.
“Both the Executive and the Judiciary have an obligation to follow the law,” Alito said in the dissent released hours after the court’s intervention against Trump’s administration. Read more. |
|
|
Of note:
The justices’ brief order directed the administration not to remove Venezuelans held in the Bluebonnet Detention Center “until further order of this court.” Alito said that “unprecedented” relief was “hastily and prematurely granted.” He wrote that it was not clear whether the Supreme Court had jurisdiction at this stage of the case, saying that not all legal avenues had been played out in lower courts and the justices had not had the chance to hear the government's side.
The administration has filed paperwork urging the high court to reconsider its hold. |
|
|
DOGE's cuts tear through Kansas City, Missouri, a federal worker hub |
The impact of the cuts by Trump appointees and Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency can be found everywhere in the Kansas City metropolitan area, which has long been a major hub for federal agencies about 1,000 miles away from Washington, D.C.
Money once promised to the region for public health, environmental, diversity, food aid and an array of other programs has been axed, and thousands of local jobs are in jeopardy.
With nearly 30,000 workers, the federal government is the largest employer in the region. One longtime Kansas City economic researcher said he believes the region could lose 6,000 good-paying federal jobs, which in turn would wipe out thousands of others in service industries. Read more. |
|
|
Of note:
Musk said last year that Trump’s budget cuts would cause a “temporary hardship” that would soon put the economy on stronger footing. One local economic researcher said it remained unclear just how deep that hardship will be in Kansas City, including whether it will just slow growth or cause population losses. “It's a big burden that’s being placed on a narrow group of people,” said Frank Lenk, director of the Office of Economic Development at the Mid-America Regional Council, a nonprofit of city and county governments in the Kansas City region. “It will definitely take some of the steam out of the local economy." |
| |
Supporters wave as the motorcade for President Donald Trump travels from Trump National Golf Club, Saturday, April 19, 2025, in Sterling, Va. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon) |
- The annual Easter Egg Roll takes place at the White House on Monday.
|
|
|
|
