Chris Van Hollen Shows Gavin Newsom What A Human Spine And Soul Look Like

That's leadership.

It’s a reasonable assumption that California Gov. Gavin Newsom wants to become president, and his current platform appears constructed from craven cowardice and transparent opportunism.

During a press conference last week, Newsom called Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s illegal disappearance to a Salvadoran prison “the distraction of the day.”

“This is the debate they want,” Newsom said. “This is their 80/20 issue, as they’ve described it, you know, those that believe in the rule of law defending it, but it’s a tough case because people are really [asking] ‘Are they defending MS-13?’”

It’s one thing to believe that Garcia should rot in a torture prison without due process. It’s evil but it’s an actual belief. However, Newsom is arguing that Democrats should avoid any issue that could prove difficult politically. It’s all a “distraction” from the single goal of gaining power and then behaving even more cowardly in fear of losing that power.

Democrats Need Primaries, Maybe Even Gladiatorial Combat

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During an appearance on Sunday’s Meet the Press, Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen dismissed Newsom’s shallow argument. (Watch below.)

“I don’t think it’s ever wrong to stand up for the Constitution,” Van Hollen said. “And this is not about one man. If you deny the constitutional rights of one man, you threaten the constitutional rights for everybody.”

“I think Americans are tired of elected officials or politicians who are all finger to the wind,” he added. “Anybody who can’t stand up for the Constitution and the right of due process doesn’t deserve to lead.”

Van Hollen is correct that Newsom doesn’t deserve to lead, but I don’t think Newsom wants to lead. He’d rather polls, focus groups, and overpaid consultants lead him to power. That’s why he boldly surrendered trans people to his personal ambitions.

Why Republicans Will Never Stop At One

Data analyst Lakshya Jain posted on social media,“You will usually find me shouting, ‘Democrats should shut up and focus on topics where they're popular.’” However, he points out that shipping undesirables to torture prisons is actually not that “popular.” It’s perhaps a bad idea for Democrats to conflate overall immigration policy with shredding the Constitution.

“I don’t think it’s so clear-cut here,” Jain added. “Dems are not actually beginning from a deficit here. It’s 61-26 *against* the deportations to El Salvador.”

But even if the polling was in favor of Trump’s illegal deportations, Democrats don’t have to passively accept the numbers. They do have the ability to influence public opinion, as Van Hollen demonstrated last week when he went to El Salvador to visit Garcia and push for his constituent’s return to the United States. This immediately put Trump and his fellow dictator bestie Nayib Bukele on the defensive. The White House ramped up the smear campaign against Garcia.

Newsom thinks it’s a losing battle for Democrats to defend a MS-13 gang member, but Van Hollen argues that the Trump administration has to actually prove that Garcia is a gang member, terrorist, and bad parallel parker. This is America, after all. (Watch below.)

“I say to the president and the Trump administration, if you want to make claims about Mr. Abrego Garcia and MS-13, you should present them in the court, not over social media,” Van Hollen said at a press conference on Friday.

“This is a quote from [U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis’s] opinion: 'Defendants,' —and in this case, this is the Trump administration she's referring to — 'have offered no evidence ... linking Abrego Garcia to MS-13 or any terrorist activity,” Van Hollen said. “And vague allegations of gang association alone do not supersede the express protections offered under the [Immigration and Naturalization Act].’”

“In other words, put up in court or shut up,” Van Hollen said. “What the Trump administration did admit in court was that Kilmar Abrego Garcia has been mistakenly detained. They called it a[n] ‘administrative error.’ An ‘administrative error’ that has resulted in him being abducted off the streets of Maryland and put into prison in El Salvador that has deprived him of his personal freedom and liberty.”

Litigating the specifics of Garcia’s case isn’t political quicksand, as Newsom seems to think. In fact, Van Hollen has forced the Trump administration to publicly undermine its legal arguments. Trump’s current paid liar, Karoline Leavitt, has now repeatedly admitted on air that Garcia’s detainment wasn’t an “administrative effort” but deliberate.

While trying to justify its own horrific actions, the Trump administration has exploited grieving Maryland mother Patty Morin, whose daughter Rachel was brutally raped and murdered by an illegal immigrant from El Salvador. However, Victor Antonio Martinez-Hernandez, who a jury convicted last week, is not Kilmar Abrego Garcia. Patty Morin isn’t confused about the identity of her daughter’s killer, either. She just seems to think that everyone who shares his background should get whisked off to a Salvadoran torture prison. Meanwhile, she met with a president who an actual court determined is a rapist.

Van Hollen masterfully rejected this blatant bigotry during an interview with Fox News’ Shannon Bream.

“What happened to the Morin family was awful and unacceptable,” Van Hollen said. “I cannot imagine losing a child like they lost Rachel, and I said at the time that my heart goes out to the Morin family.”

“I’m glad that the killer of Rachel Morin has been convicted in a court of law,” he added. “That’s how we hold guilty people accountable — in a Court of Law. Courts of law are also where people get their due process rights respected.”

Van Hollen also told Meet the Press host Kristen Welker, “I’m not sure why Abrego Garcia’s rights should be denied based on an awful murder he had absolutely nothing to do with.” (Watch below.)

Van Hollen makes challenging MAGA BS look easy. All you have to do is speak with conviction, and it helps to have convictions, unlike Newsom, who’s spent the past couple months interviewing different political shades of white men on his podcast.

In just a few short days, Van Hollen has raised his national profile and perhaps ended any hopes Newsom might have for higher office. That’s very impressive for someone I didn’t know existed last week.