SATURDAY: This whole discourse is "not normal!"

SATURDAY, APRIL 19, 2025

Dissembling, Red and Blue: Can the Fox News Channel's Rachel Campos-Duffy possibly be this stupid?

Granted, she's being paid millions of dollars to push the company line. But can she really be this dumb?

Today, at the start of Fox & Friends Weekend, she considered the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was illegally rendered to El Salvador on March 15 through an act of "administrative error."

Question! Is, or was, Abrego Garcia ever a member, or even an affiliate, of the violent gang, MS-13? 

At this point, we'd say there's no clear answer to that question—but at the start of this morning's "cable news" program, Campos-Duffy close to go with true belief and with mandated corporate messaging.

You can see her do that here. Please don't make us transcribe it.

Campos-Duffy seemed to assume that the people shipped into the gulag in question must be guilty as alleged. In fairness to Campos-Duffy, the people who appear on the Fox News Channel are paid to adopt such stances.

Is, or was, Abrego Garcia ever a member of MS-13? At this point, we can't answer that question with any strong assurance.

Neither can anyone else you know, not even Joe Scarborough. That said, the thumbs have been on the scales all over American "cable news" with respect to that lingering question. 

Borrowing from Al Pacino, this whole American discourse of out of order! For example:

Yesterday afternoon, on the most-watched "cable news" program of all, one of the program's disordered co-hosts started a pseudo-discussion of this matter in the manner shown below. 

His presentation started at 5:04 Eastern. A quotation by Judge Wilkinson had already been doctored as Dana Perino pretended to lay out the basic facts of the case.

Tape had been played of President Trump calling Senator Van Hollen "a fake." Indeed, Trump had said that Van Hollen "looked like a fool" in his recent visit with Abrego Garcia, moderator Perino had said. 

Perino then threw to co-host Greg Gutfeld. He started the pseudo-discussion in the manner shown. We'll focus on the mandated presumption of guilt, along with the standard name-calling:

GUTFELD (4/18/25): ...I remember the beer summit between Obama and Henry Louis Gates. This was the barf summit. 

People are talking about the margarita. I get it. that is like debating the type of iceberg that the Titanic hit.

You know, if you hadn't pushed for this ridiculous stunt using this thug as a prop. Sorry, you can't complain if we turned it into a more absurd joke. 

You know, your photo op was ruined by a margarita. We don't care. Again, this is all downstream from the real and original sin, the Dems' abdication of the border. 

You let him in. Our job to ship him out. We're cleaning up the mess you made. 

Again, the legal argument, above my pay grade. I refuse to use this beautiful brain of mine on some solitary, violent creep out of billions on the planet, Dana. 

I have a family. I have a dog. I have a job. I have friends, co-workers. I have high cholesterol! [STARTING TO SHOUT] He doesn't deserve a spot in my brain, and he can't jump to the front of the line just because he's convinced the left that he's father of the freaking year. Just because you're dating a dirtbag doesn't mean I have to like his pictures on Instagram.

And the fact that Trump has to waste his time on this scum? This is what the Dems do! They choose one anecdote, one solitary person, and expect you to play their fake game of concern.  I won't. 

Again, I don't care. You want to make, you want to make this about due process? That's fine. Maybe try to pick an example that is more appealing, like an actual American perhaps.

I will finish shortly but I'm a little mad. Not really. 

The Dems always make one anecdote really important without processing whether it has any connection to the greater whole. Here you have a victim of a murder and a rape, Rachel Morin. Everybody looks at her and goes, "That could be my sister, that could be my mother. That could be my daughter." 

What do the Dems offer? A gang banger.  Nobody at home is going, "Oh, that could be my husband, my son. Oh, my brother, the MS-13 wife beater."

You picked the wrong example. You know, we didn't say, "We are going to take Rachel. You take the gang banger." You chose that option yourself! And you've done it before. You've done it with Hamas, you've done it with BLM. You did it with Antifa, you did it with looters. You did it with—I could go on.

This is the sunk cost fallacy of the Democrats. They can't admit that they picked the wrong person. or else, you know, they could turn back, but they can't.

Just find a better example and we'll listen. But you know what? I'm not interested in the legal argument. I'm interested in getting criminals out. I'm not going to waste any more breath on this guy.

PERINO: Well, those are good breaths.

That's the way the "discussion" started. For the record, Perino is included in the cast to convey the questionable impression that the Red co-hosts aren't all nuts.

In that lengthy harangue, you see the way the pseudo-discussion started. There's merit to some of what this fellow said, but we invite you to focus on one point—on his assumption that Abrego Garcia is in fact a "gangbanger," and a "criminal," and a member of MS-13.

(He was also said to be a violent creep, a dirtbag, scum and a thug.)

Gutfeld explicitly said that Abrego Garcia was a gangbanger and a criminal. He called him a gangbanger twice. Along the way, he also said the whole thing was too much for nis brain—and he said he doesn't care. 

No one will doubt those last two points. But what about the central assumption—the assumption, loudly voiced by this multimillionaire messenger man, that Abrego Garcia is a criminal gangbanger with MS-13?

Question! Is, or was, Abrego Garcia some part of MS-13? It's possible that he actually was or is—but it's also possible that he isn't and that he never was. 

That said, for the messengers on this propaganda program, there's only one possible stance. To these corporate errand persons, Abrego Garcia is known to be "a gang banger." 

Except, no such thing is known to be true at the present time.

For an example of the way this game is played, we invite you to click ahead to the point where Jessica Tarlov, the lone liberal among the five co-hosts, tried to make the liberal case about this complex matter. 

In our view, she too offered a selective account of what is actually known at this time. But the fun began when she tried to present that case. 

As you can see, Gutfeld interrupted her first, with other interruptions to follow. This is the way these highly paid, corporate stooges play this sick reindeer game.

At this point, we refer back to the headline which sat atop yesterday's column by David Brooks. The headline started with this unmistakable claim:

What’s Happening Is Not Normal...

Truer words were never spoken. Or is the conduct of errand boys like the 60-year-old Gutfeld the most normal thing on the planet, given the actual nature of our badly flawed human wiring?

Full disclosure! Why do we say it's possible that Abrego Garcia was, or possibly still is, some sort of MS-13 affiliate? 

In part, we say that because of what happened 2019—because of events which were disappeared from Blue America's account of this matter right at the very start.

Improbably, Pam Bondi even made a statement about those events which was basically accurate! Here's what we're talking about

In 2019, immigration judge Elizabeth Kessler made an assessment which could possibly have been right. In a formal written order, Judge Kessler said this:

[Abrego Garcia] was arrested in the company of other ranking gang members and was confirmed to be a ranking member of the MS-13 gang by a proven and reliable source...The evidence shows that he is a verified member of MS-13.

That was the judge's assessment. That assessment may have been wrong—but it also may have been right. 

Full disclosure! In this report for The New Republic, Greg Sargent reported new material which could cast doubt of the evidence presented to Judge Kessler—but Sargent also explicitly stated this obvious point:

By itself, of course, this does not settle whether Abrego Garcia was ever in MS-13. 

We tip our hat to Sargent! That said, other Blues, not excluding Tarlov herself, have taken Sargent's revelation and run, suggesting that the evidence presented to Kessler was just plainly wrong.

There's no good reason to say that. It's entirely possible that Kessler's assessment was actually right.

Is it possible that Abrego Garcia actually was an affiliate of MS-13 back in 2019? It's possible that he was, and it's possible that he wasn't. But then too, there's the peculiar incident from 2022 that came to light this week.

With apologies, here's the way the new information was reported on the Fox News site. We regard this presentation as basically fair and accurate:

Kilmar Abrego-Garcia suspected of human trafficking in report obtained by Fox News

Kilmar Abrego-Garcia, who was recently deported to El Salvador, was suspected of partaking in labor/human trafficking, according to a 2022 Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) report obtained by Fox News....

According to the report, on Dec. 1, 2022, a Tennessee Highway Patrol trooper stopped Garcia after he was "observed speeding" and unable to stay in his lane. The trooper noticed eight individuals in the car with Abrego-Garcia, who said he began driving three days prior from Houston, Texas, to Temple Hills, Md., via St. Louis, Mo. to "perform construction work." The report states that the trooper suspected it was a human trafficking incident, as there was no luggage in the vehicle. Additionally, the individuals in the car reportedly gave the same address as Abrego-Garica's home address.

When speaking with the trooper, Abrego-Garcia allegedly "pretended to speak less English than he was capable of and attempted to put encountering officer off-track by responding to questions with questions." After the incident, the officer decided not to give Abrego-Garcia a citation for the driving infractions, but rather to give him a warning for driving with an expired license. 

This seems like a rather unusual incident. The conduct here may have been completely innocent—but then again, imaginably not. Here's the way the somewhat peculiar incident has been reported by the Associated Press:

Who is Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the man ICE mistakenly deported to an El Salvador prison?

[...]

In 2022, according to a report released by the Trump administration, Abrego Garcia was stopped by the Tennessee Highway Patrol for speeding. The vehicle had eight other people and no luggage, prompting an officer to suspect human trafficking, the report stated.

Abrego Garcia said he was driving them from Texas to Maryland for construction work, the report stated. No citations were issued.

Abrego Garcia’s wife said in a statement that he sometimes transported groups of workers between job sites, “so it’s entirely plausible he would have been pulled over while driving with others in the vehicle. He was not charged with any crime or cited for any wrongdoing.”

It's true! After a lengthy stop, no charge of trafficking was made. 

Other reports of this incident go into more detail about the way that decision was made, stretching back to a call to the FBI. That said, Blue American observers have tended to wish this apparent strangeness away, to the extent that they mention this matter at all.

(The matter of domestic violence has also surfaced in the past week. This has no apparent relevance to the question of affiliation with MS-13, but we liberals are accepting the way his wife is now explaining this matter. It's hard to miss the way our stance seems to contradict previous tribal consensus about matters of this type.)

Is it possible that he was? is it possible that he wasn't?

As Judge Wilkinson said, the answer to each of those questions is yes! But maniacs on the Fox News Channel are assuming that Abrego Garcia was and is "a gangbanger" and "a criminal." Playing defense, people on MSNBC are largely disappearing that possibility, or are finding ways to wish it away.

We'll end at the beginning. When Bondi amazingly got something right, she said that two immigration judges had said, in 2019, that Abrego Garcia was a gang member.

Those assessments may have been right or they may have been wrong. But Judge Kessler had clearly stated that assessment, and a second immigration judge had basically seemed to concur.

That actually happened in 2019—unless you read The Atlantic! Here's the relevant passage from the original report—from the report which first brought this unresolved matter to light:

An ‘Administrative Error’ Sends a Maryland Father to a Salvadoran Prison

[...]

Abrego Garcia, who is married to a U.S. citizen and has a 5-year-old disabled child who is also a U.S. citizen, has no criminal record in the United States, according to his attorney. The Trump administration does not claim he has a criminal record, but called him a “danger to the community” and an active member of MS-13, the Salvadoran gang that Trump has declared a foreign terrorist organization.

[His lawyer] said that those charges are false, and that the gang label stems from a 2019 incident when Abrego Garcia and three other men were detained in a Home Depot parking lot by a police detective in Prince George’s County, Maryland. During questioning, one of the men told officers that Abrego Garcia was a gang member, but the man offered no proof and police said they didn’t believe him, filings show. Police did not identify him as a gang member.

Abrego Garcia was not charged with a crime, but he was handed over to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement after the arrest to face deportation. In those proceedings, the government claimed that a reliable informant had identified him as a ranking member of MS-13. Abrego Garcia and his family hired an attorney and fought the government’s attempt to deport him. He received “withholding of removal” six months later, a protected status.

It is not a path to permanent U.S. residency, but it means the government won’t deport him back to his home country, because he’s more likely than not to face harm there.

We read that account when it appeared. From it, we formed our initial impression of this complicated matter.

Later, we came to feel that we'd been misled by what The Atlantic published. As you can see, Nick Miroff completely disappeared a basic part of the story—the part of the story in which Judge Kesslsr did in fact reach the formal assessment that Abrego Garcia was in fact a gang member.

That assessment somehow disappeared from The Atlantic's report. By the way, also this:

During questioning, one of the men told officers that Abrego Garcia was a gang member, but the man offered no proof and police said they didn’t believe him, filings show.

Police said they didn’t believe him, filings show? The Atlantic offered no link to those alleged filings. We've never seen anyone else refer to any such statement by "police."

Our whole discourse is out of order. It may be too late to fix the situation which exists.

In our view, Fox News Channel is a cancer on the American project. What Joe Scarborough did yesterday morning, during Morning Joe's first half hour, was perhaps almost as bad.

Blues are offered one account. Reds are offered another. 

A modern nation can't function this way. Next weel, all week long: 

Quoting from Mary Trump's best-selling book, we'll consider "The Great I Am"