SCOTUS says US must begin process to release man deported to El Salvador | The Excerpt
On Friday’s episode of The Excerpt podcast: The Supreme Court has ordered the Trump administration to begin the process of releasing Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a man mistakenly deported to El Salvador. China will increase tariffs on U.S. goods to 125%. Inflation eased in March. Paste BN Congress Reporter Riley Beggin discusses the blueprint approved by House Republicans to start work on President Donald Trump's agenda. Plus, the House GOP passes a bill to require proof of citizenship for voter registration, and approves a bill to restrict the reach of judges. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. says the Department of Health and Human Services will know the cause of the 'autism epidemic' by September. Paste BN Wellness Reporter Charles Trepany recounts his stay at a real-life 'White Lotus' hotel, and the broader appeal of wellness travel.
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Taylor Wilson:
Good morning. I'm Taylor Wilson and today is Friday, April 11th, 2025. This is The Excerpt. Today, the Supreme Court says the US must begin the process to release a Maryland man who was deported to El Salvador, plus China responds on tariffs, and let's talk about wellness travel.
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The Supreme Court has ordered the Trump administration to begin the process of releasing a Maryland man they mistakenly deported to Central America. In an unsigned order issued late yesterday, the high court said the US must facilitate the release of Kilmar Abrego Garcia. The justices did not say exactly what Abrego Garcia's release from custody will look like or how he can get back to the US. Instead, they sent the case back to a district judge in Maryland who last week ordered the administration to bring him back to the US. Federal immigration agents arrested the 29-year-old last month after pulling him over near his home in Beltsville, Maryland, about half an hour outside of Washington. Officials have contended he is a member of the MS-13 criminal gang, though they have presented no evidence to back up that claim.
Three days after his arrest, Abrego Garcia was deported even though he had a protective order barring his expulsion from the country. He was sent to El Salvador's Terrorism Confinement Center known as CECOT, which has been criticized for its harsh and dangerous conditions, as well as its rough treatment of prisoners.
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China earlier today increased its tariffs on US imports to 125% following President Donald Trump's decision to hike duties on Chinese goods to 145%. China's mission to the World Trade Organization also said today it had filed an additional complaint to the trade body over US tariffs. Trump said yesterday he would revive the reciprocal tariffs that he paused for 90 days if countries do not agree to satisfactory trade deals. He made the warning as his administration accelerates negotiations with other nations after he paused massive reciprocal tariffs for countries other than China Wednesday, but left in place a 10% universal tariff rate for all imports.
Inflation eased more than expected to a five-month low last month as gasoline and used car prices tumbled and rent increases continued to soften offsetting a sharp rise in grocery costs. In March, consumer prices increased 2.4% from a year earlier, down from a 2.8% rise the previous month according to the Labor Department's consumer price index, a measure of average changes in goods and services costs. That's the lowest annual increase in September, but still leaves inflation above the Federal Reserve's 2% goal. The report provides some relief though to Americans amid tariff concerns and a rocky stock market that again tumbled yesterday. You can read more with a link in today's show notes.
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House Republicans have approved a blueprint to start work on President Trump's agenda. I caught up with Paste BN Congress reporter Riley Beggin to discuss that and more from Capitol Hill this week. Riley, thanks for joining me today.
Riley Beggin:
Anytime.
Taylor Wilson:
Starting here, what's in this resolution from House Republicans as it pertains to Trump's agenda?
Riley Beggin:
This is the blueprint that will eventually become President Donald Trump's legislative agenda on Capitol Hill. And once it eventually passes, it will probably be the marquee piece of legislation that Republicans accomplish in his second term as President. But this is a skeleton bill, it doesn't have a lot of policy in it, in fact it doesn't have any policy in it. What it has is spending totals, so how much money lawmakers should spend on policy and how much they should cut. We can get into the details here, but a top line agreement is $1.5 trillion in cuts that they expect to come out of this, a lot more that will be spent on tax extensions and other policy as well.
Taylor Wilson:
What's next for this blueprint going forward, Riley?
Riley Beggin:
The Senate has already passed this, so this is good to go. What it means now is they're going to start working on the actual legislation, filling it out with policy. There has been a lot of back and forth between the two chambers because there are different appetites for cutting and spending here, but now they began the hard work of digging into policy, negotiating on what that becomes and eventually trying to pass a party line bill.
Taylor Wilson:
Meanwhile, House Republicans also passed a new voter registration bill. What does this mean going forward, Riley, and what does supporters or critics say on this point?
Riley Beggin:
This legislation would require people to prove their citizenship before they can register to vote or while they're registering to vote. That requires documentary proof like birth certificate. Proponents of the legislation say that it's a common sense measure that will prevent people who are not citizens from voting in American elections. It is already illegal to vote in American elections if you're not a citizen. And so voting rights advocates say this is just an added hurdle that is going to make it harder for citizens to vote.
Taylor Wilson:
We know President Donald Trump and his various administrations have been critical of judges across the courts. We've also now seen the House GOP approve a bill to restrict the reach of judges, Riley, what can you tell us about this move?
Riley Beggin:
This bill that passed on Wednesday night would essentially prevent federal judges from issuing nationwide injunctions. That is something that we've been seeing a lot of actually across multiple Presidential administrations where a case is brought up in the DC district court, for example, and it applies to the President's policies across the country. What this bill would do is prevent that from happening, say that the parties to the lawsuit are the only ones that are impacted by injunctions. And if there are multi-state lawsuits, so states banding together to oppose a policy for a President that that case would go to a multi-judge panel appointed with random judges.
What I will say about this bill is that it is unlikely to pass the Senate. There is a filibuster that they have ahead of them actually both for this one and for that voting bill that we discussed. In the Senate, Republicans control the Senate with 53 votes, but they need 60 to bypass the filibuster. The legislative agenda that we discussed at the top of this, that one is not going to need to meet the filibuster because it is using a specific tool called reconciliation, which I'm sure we will talk a lot more about as things move forward.
Taylor Wilson:
Great insight as always. Riley Beggin covers Congress for Paste BN. Thank you Riley for joining us on another busy week for you. I appreciate you.
Riley Beggin:
Of course. No problem.
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Taylor Wilson:
Health and human services, secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said yesterday during a meeting of President Trump's cabinet that he expects his agency will soon know the cause of what he called the autism epidemic. Characterizing autism as an epidemic will likely anger many, especially those in the autism community who do not view being autistic as something to be eradicated, though for others it may be welcome. The CDC says that some people with autism spectrum disorder have a known difference such as a genetic condition, other causes are not yet known. After Kennedy's remarks, Trump said without any basis that autism could be caused by something artificial and maybe it's a shot.
Kennedy is known for anti-vaccine views and has spread debunked claims that vaccines cause autism. Autism diagnoses in the United States have increased significantly since 2000, concerning segments of the country. Scientists have been researching for decades what genetic or environmental factors might contribute to autism, but the causes of most cases remain unclear. They say the major drivers of the increase in US autism rates are an expanded definition that includes more types of behaviors and more widespread awareness and diagnoses.
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Amid excitement for the White Lotus TV show, Paste BN wellness reporter Charles Trepany got the chance to stay at a real life White Lotus Hotel for a weekend. I chatted with Charles about the experience and the popularity of wellness travel. Charles, thanks for hopping on today.
Charles Trepany:
Thanks for having me.
Taylor Wilson:
Charles, you checked into a real White Lotus experience. I'm jealous. What does that mean for folks who have not seen the show? Let's start there.
Charles Trepany:
Important to say off the bat, the White Lotus is not a real hotel chain, but it is inspired by the Four Seasons and every season of the White Lotus has filmed at a different Four Seasons location around the world. I'm based in Los Angeles and the Four Seasons Westlake Village is about an hour away from L.A. Basically in honor of the finale, HBO took over the Four Seasons Westlake Village and turned it into a White Lotus retreat experience for people and they had all these wellness offerings from the show, which was pretty cool because something that was interesting is that this season of the White Lotus is set at a wellness resort, White Lotus that the characters go there to see Thailand, but also specifically for yoga, meditation, massages, medical testing, that kind of thing, so they have some of those offerings at the Four Seasons Westlake Village as if it were a real White Lotus.
Taylor Wilson:
All right. You went for a couple of nights, a couple of days. Tell us about your experience. How was it?
Charles Trepany:
It was so fun. I'm not going to lie. I felt very lucky to be working there and to have that be a work assignment for a job because it really did feel like a vacation. On the first day on Sunday, they screened the finale for us and had a panel afterward with the cast, some of the cast members about it. And then Monday was basically all different wellness activities and I wanted to get as much as I could out of it. I wanted as much of a White Lotus experience as I could get, so I did a yoga class that was really, really intense. It was a good class, but I'm a beginner and I was very, very challenged by it. I had a meditation class that was based on principles of Buddhism and I had a Thai massage that was really relaxing and I spent a lot of time by the pool.
I kept waiting to hear some sort of gossip or imagining myself in an episode. I will say though, I think that the wellness experience that stuck with me the most and that I wrote about the most, I think it also actually got at some of the deeper themes of the season of the White Lotus was the meditation class. Like I said, the class focused on some core principles of Buddhism. One of those core principles of Buddhism was metta or love and kindness. And so we focused on meditating in a way where we wish love and gratitude on different people in our lives. And at the end she had us call to mind somebody who she said was either difficult for us to do that for or who's challenging for us and to wish love and kindness on them anyway. And I thought that was really great because I won't spoil the finale, but I think it does drive home themes of gratitude and love and not being so overly focused on material possessions.
Taylor Wilson:
Charles, you cover wellness. How is wellness travel really having a moment right now writ large. And why is that? Can we point to the popularity of this show maybe as one reason or are there bigger factors at play?
Charles Trepany:
One of the biggest reasons also why I wanted to go to this is because it was at a Four Seasons specifically geared towards wellness. Wellness travel is a huge booming industry and it has been for a few years now. I was talking to the CEO and co-founder of Fora Travel. Her name is Henley Vazquez, and she basically told me that since the pandemic wellness travel has been increasing, and you can read into that. I think personally it's pretty clear why. I think there was a big shift for a lot of people in terms of wanting to focus on their health, prioritizing their wellbeing. And she was also saying that people are just tired of being more stressed when they get back from vacation than they were going into it. And the number one thing is they just feel better than necessarily check off a bunch of tourist boxes or see a bunch of sites even.
And I thought this White Lotus experience was a good opportunity to get a glimpse into that world of wellness travel because it's being spotlighted now in such a big way on this huge HBO show. White Lotus has definitely impacted people's travel plans. She told me that every time a new season of the White Lotus drops, wherever it's set has gotten a big boost in travel. Her travel agency for us saw an average 44% month-over-month increase in bookings to Sicily and Thailand has been pretty similar after season three. From February to March of this year, travel to Thailand she says, has outpaced all other travel growth on for her travel agency. The White Lotus effect is definitely very real and I'm curious to see after season three, if it'll influence more people to want to take vacation, specifically geared towards wellness rather than just tourism.
Taylor Wilson:
All right. This was a great piece and I promise no spoilers in it, folks, if you need to catch up. It was a really, really good read from Charles. Charles Trepany covers wellness, lifestyle, and entertainment for Paste BN. Thank you, Charles.
Charles Trepany:
Thank you.
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Taylor Wilson:
Thanks for listening to The Excerpt. We're produced by Shannon Rae Green and Kaely Monahan, and our executive producer is Laura Beatty. You can get the podcast wherever you get your pods, and if you're on a smart speaker, just ask for The Excerpt. I'm Taylor Wilson and I'll be back tomorrow with more of The Excerpt from Paste BN.