Judge admonishes U.S. for failing to return man deported to El Salvador | The Excerpt
On Wednesday’s episode of The Excerpt podcast: A judge Tuesday reprimanded the government for failing to return a Maryland man wrongly deported to El Salvador. Paste BN White House Correspondent Francesca Chambers takes a look at President Donald Trump's approach to Russia's war in Ukraine, after he accused Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of starting the war. An aide to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has been put on leave. Paste BN Education Reporter Zachary Schermele explains why Trump is threatening to revoke Harvard's tax-exempt status.
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Hit play on the player below to hear the podcast and follow along with the transcript beneath it. This transcript was automatically generated, and then edited for clarity in its current form. There may be some differences between the audio and the text.
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Taylor Wilson:
Good morning. I'm Taylor Wilson, and today is Wednesday, April 16th, 2025. This is The Excerpt.
Today, the latest on the fight to return a Maryland man wrongly deported to El Salvador. Plus Trump accuses Zelensky of starting Russia's war on Ukraine, and he threatens to revoke Harvard's tax-exempt status in an escalating feud with the Ivy League school.
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A federal judge declined yesterday to hold the Trump administration in contempt for failing to return a Maryland father wrongly deported to El Salvador, but admonished government attorneys for failing to provide evidence of what they were doing to bring him home. A US district judge ordered the US to show what steps it is taking to comply with a court ruling to release Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran national who was expelled from the US in March. That follows a ruling last week by the Supreme Court, which said the administration must begin the process of releasing Abrego Garcia, who has lived in the US for more than a decade. He was sent to a prison in El Salvador despite a previous court order protecting him from deportation to that country. The Trump administration says Abrego Garcia is a member of the MS13 criminal gang, but the government has not provided evidence to support that clan. Speaking to a crowd of demonstrators and reporters yesterday, his wife Jennifer Vasquez Sura said her family was torn apart after her husband was abducted and disappeared by the United States government.
Jennifer Vasquez Sura:
I will not stop fighting until I see my husband alive.
Taylor Wilson:
You can stay up with all the latest on usatoday.com.
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President Donald Trump is blaming Ukraine's leader for starting Russia's war on the country. I spoke with Paste BN White House correspondent, Francesca Chambers for more on his approach to the conflict.
Francesca, thanks for joining me.
Francesca Chambers:
Thanks, Taylor.
Taylor Wilson:
So starting with this, Francesca, how is President Donald Trump blaming Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for this conflict?
Francesca Chambers:
On Monday, he was asked about the Russian attack on the Sumi region over the weekend, which he had previously said was a mistake. Asked what he meant by being a mistake, he said, "Well, the mistake that was made was that this war ever started in the first place." And then he went on to say that everybody's to blame for the war, but he did point the finger of blame at former President Joe Biden, as well as the Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelensky saying that Zelensky is always looking to purchase missiles. He said, "When you start a war, you've got to know that you can win the war right. You don't start a war against somebody that's 20 times your size and then hope that people give you some missiles." Now, Taylor, the war began in 2022 when Russia violated Ukraine's sovereignty and launched its full-scale invasion.
Taylor Wilson:
And I know this isn't the first news this year relating to these two. What led up to this point, Francesca? How have Trump and Zelensky already clashed?
Francesca Chambers:
In another Oval Office meeting when President Trump met with President Zelensky at the White House in February, as you noted, they got into a war of words, and that also involved Vice President JD Vance. Since then, they have resumed speaking and they discussed a ceasefire in Russia's war against Ukraine that would be both temporary and limited. Now, that ceasefire was something that Russia initially agreed to also, but it never went into effect when Russia, after the fact, tried to renegotiate the terms of that deal to include some things that weren't in the original agreement.
Taylor Wilson:
Well, this was strong language from Trump, Francesca. How is Zelensky responding to these latest comments?
Francesca Chambers:
In a social media post, Zelensky noted that Ukraine had agreed to the ceasefire proposal that the United States laid out a month ago. He said that it's Russia that has refused to agree to the ceasefire now. Zelensky said that he does want the war to end and that peace is needed, but it must be lasting. He also said that when the war ends, the world must clearly know that it happened because Russia was the aggressor and was forced into peace. He also said that he does want the war to end and that peace is needed, but it must be lasting. Zelensky also added that when the war does end, he wants the world to know that it happened because Russia was the aggressor and Russia was forced into peace. He also noted that this began really in 2014 when Russia invaded Crimea.
Taylor Wilson:
So in terms of those peace negotiations, Francesca, what is the US role functionally in these talks?
Francesca Chambers:
The US has served as an intermediary between Russia and Ukraine. The US has had direct talks with both nations, and Steve Witkoff, who is one of the President's Special Envoys, has had direct talks with Vladimir Putin. But the President has said recently that it's coming close to a time where Russia needs to put up or shut up when it comes to the ceasefire given that it has now been a month since the US first laid it out.
Taylor Wilson:
In terms of Trump's approach broadly to Russia and Ukraine, Francesca, just how stark a shift is this really from the Biden era in this moment?
Francesca Chambers:
Ever since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the Biden administration didn't talk to Vladimir Putin anymore. And that's a key thing that's changed in the Trump administration is that US officials are now talking to Russia because they say that that's the only way that they think that they can get a peace agreement here is if they're talking to both sides of this conflict. But so far, those conversations, Taylor, haven't resulted in a peace agreement. The Trump administration's timeline for this has been first, get a ceasefire in place, then use that as a building block for a peace agreement.
Taylor Wilson:
All right, Francesca Chambers covers the White House for Paste BN. Lots still to come here. Francesca, thanks so much.
Francesca Chambers:
Thanks so much.
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Taylor Wilson:
An aide to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was escorted from the Pentagon and placed on administrative leave yesterday as part of an investigation into an unauthorized leak of information according to a defense official. The Pentagon did not disclose specifics of the alleged defense by Dan Caldwell because the matter is under investigation according to the official who was not authorized to speak publicly. The move comes after Hegseth disclosed operational details of the Pentagon's airstrikes on Houthi militants last month. He discussed the attack's timing with senior Trump administration officials on the encrypted commercial app Signal in a chat that had mistakenly included the editor of the Atlantic magazine. Hegseth has denied releasing sensitive information, but several current and former military officials have told Paste BN that the information Hegseth disclosed, the timing of attacks is among the most closely-guarded national security information.
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President Trump is threatening to revoke Harvard University's tax-exempt status, the latest in tensions between the White House and some of the nation's most prestigious colleges. I spoke with Paste BN Education Reporter, Zach Schermele for more.
Zach, thank you so much for carving out some time on this.
Zach Schermele:
Of course, Taylor.
Taylor Wilson:
So what has President Donald Trump threatened to do here as it pertains to Harvard's tax-exempt status? Let's start there.
Zach Schermele:
Trump is really frustrated with its institution because it is refusing to comply with a list of really broad and sweeping demands related to overhauling broad sections of the way in which the university operates. So the Trump administration's joint taskforce to combat antisemitism on college campuses is asking all sorts of institutions, including Harvard, to reform its admissions practices, its hiring practices, and to ban diversity, equity and inclusion programing within the classroom and in offices. Trump took to Truth Social to say that if it doesn't comply with those requests, that he will find a way to revoke its tax-exempt status. So Harvard, like other nonprofits, does not pay federal income taxes or state income taxes by virtue of its nonprofit status.
Taylor Wilson:
In terms of whether Trump can even do this, Zach, revoke tax-exempt status in this way, what have you found?
Zach Schermele:
The President doesn't necessarily have the unilateral authority to revoke an organization's tax-exempt status, but there are processes by which the Internal Revenue Service, the IRS can rescind nonprofit status. Nonprofits are not supposed to engage in certain forms of lobbying activities. They're also not supposed to be outwardly partisan in certain forms. There was also a Bill that was introduced in Congress last year that would give the President and the Treasury Secretary more latitude to target nonprofit institutions and organizations. It was pretty widely referred to here in Washington as the nonprofit killer by critics of that particular piece of legislation. But like many things that are happening in the Trump administration, this is not something that has been considered before or has been acted on by a President. So it's really not entirely clear what the next step would be after Trump or the IRS try to engage in an effort to rescind the tax-exempt status from a university like Harvard. I'm sure that a legal challenge would inevitably follow.
Taylor Wilson:
Well, Zach, we're talking about Harvard here, but how has Trump also gone after other schools and how have they responded? Have we seen similar approaches to how Harvard is kind of tackling this?
Zach Schermele:
This stands really in stark contrast to how Columbia University, which is another Ivy League institution in New York City, negotiated with the Trump administration over a pretty similar list of demands related to overhauling much of its admissions and hiring practices. Columbia agreed to the demands largely that were imposed on it by the Trump administration, and I think that there are a lot of folks who are watching what's happening at Columbia as sort of a bellwether for how negotiating with the Trump administration can play out on other university campuses. But the federal funding that the administration has withheld from Columbia has not been un-paused since it agreed to that list of demands. And I think that is a source of frustration among a lot of advocates in the higher education space, and ostensibly led to some of the decisions from Harvard about not wanting to negotiate with the administration here.
Princeton University is another school among many others that has found itself in the cross-hairs of the Trump administration's efforts to freeze federal research funding. It's considered selling bonds to the tune of a couple hundred million, as has Harvard. And I think that that's one of the ways also, and keeping with looking into endowments that universities have the ability to pull from, that I think a lot of institutions are trying to find ways to ensure that they can shore up their budgets in the wake of all these attacks.
Taylor Wilson:
I'm trying to get a sense here, Zach, on just what President Trump's end goal is here.
Zach Schermele:
Conservatives largely in the last several years, the last decade, have been increasingly critical of American higher education. And what the Trump administration has said is that its efforts to increase federal oversight of schools like Harvard is largely due to wanting to ensure that those institutions are places where Jewish students and staff can feel safe. There has been an increase in antisemitic incidents on campuses across the country since the Israel-Hamas War broke out. That is a criticism that has been levied by the administration consistently. I think that when you consider some of the demands that the administration has tried to impose on institutions of higher education, including Harvard, it becomes less clear whether or not these efforts are actually related to curbing antisemitism and more in the vein of wanting to reform broadly the ways in which higher education institutions act and how they influence the thinking and the viewpoints of students.
Taylor Wilson:
Terrific insight on this. As always, Zach Schermele covers higher education for Paste BN. Thanks, Zach.
Zach Schermele:
Thanks, Taylor.
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Taylor Wilson:
Thanks for listening to The Excerpt. You can get the pod wherever you get your audio, and if you're on a smart speaker, just ask for The Excerpt. I'm Taylor Wilson, back tomorrow with more of The Excerpt from Paste BN.