--:-- Shamita Basu: Hey there, it's Shamita. I've got a quick request for you. If Apple News Today is an essential part of your morning routine, follow the show in Apple Podcasts. And if you have another 30 seconds, leave us a rating and a review too. It helps other people find our show and it helps us know what you like about it. Thanks. Good morning. It's Friday, April 18th. I'm Shamita Basu. This is Apple News Today. On today's show, how the Salvadoran president found an ally in President Trump, a federal indictment in the UnitedHealthcare CEO killing, and why some people are painting potatoes for Easter. Let's start with the big story all this week, which has been Trump's defiance of a Supreme Court order to bring back Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a father of three kids living in Maryland with no criminal record, who was wrongly deported by the Trump administration to El Salvador's harshest prison.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Yesterday, Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen, a Democrat, visited Abrego Garcia, who is his constituent. He initially tried to visit him at the prison, but says he was denied entry. Hours later, Van Hollen was able to meet him at a nearby hotel and said he just wanted to confirm Abrego Garcia is doing okay and underscore that he deserves due process. The man behind Abrego Garcia's detention, as well as the detention of hundreds of other migrants deported by the Trump administration, is El Salvador's president, Naib Bukele, who's become a key ally of Trump's and has said that he'll take no action to release Abrego Garcia.
--:-- Shamita Basu: How can I return him to the United States? Like, I smuggle him into the United States? Of course, I'm not going to do it. It's like, I mean, the question is preposterous. For more about the rise of Bukele and how he became one of Trump's most crucial and supportive foreign allies, I called up Vera Bergengruen, a national security reporter at The Wall Street Journal, who profiled Bukele for Time last year.
--:-- Vera Bergengruen: The most important thing to know, I think, about him is that he has an advertising background. He comes from a wealthy family in El Salvador. And his image has been all about rebranding. He wants to rebrand himself. He wants to rebrand his country. And when he was elected, he went about that by trying to change people's perception of El Salvador. He wanted to move away from this dangerous country that was being completely overrun by gangs.
--:-- Vera Bergengruen: Now, when you walk into the airport, it says, you know, the land of surf, volcanoes and coffee. And for him, one of the best ways to do that was building up this image that is very appealing to right-wing Americans, to MAGA Americans, this tough on crime guy who was brave enough to take on the courts, take on his own country, take on corruption to great effect. I mean, it is very safe now. And it's been very effective at earning him a lot of allies in Trump's inner circle.
--:-- Vera Bergengruen: Yeah, I'll just say this stat from your piece, Farah, it was kind of mind-boggling. You write that Bukele has incarcerated one out of every 57 people in his country. Correct. It's the highest incarceration rate in the world. And yet, again, it is something where he's able to say, you know, he said this at the Oval Office this week. He said, we imprisoned this many people, but we liberated millions. That's part of his message.
--:-- Vera Bergengruen: I think we underestimate how appealing all of that is to a lot of Americans to a lot of right Americans or Republicans. We see them echoing a lot of this and I said this before but it really struck me in years of reporting on this on how much of what Bukele is doing is kind of a MAGA fever dream. You know, he gets rid of judges, he swaps out lawmakers he doesn't like. He's basically running a one-party state because the other party exists is just completely weakened because there isn't really a real opposition.
--:-- Vera Bergengruen: And because there's so much popularity for his measures. Well, what I thought was interesting also in your piece, you mentioned how some of his harshest critics, even some people within the Biden administration at the time, were kind of courting Bukele's favor. Help me understand why.
--:-- Vera Bergengruen: You know, there's two things. Number one, he helped the U.S. solve its own problem because by making El Salvador safer, by allowing people to go back, you know, there was less of a migration pressure. You know, Salvadorians weren't fleeing the gangs. And, you know, the U.S. saw something that was benefiting them as they were dealing with a crisis at the border. And for them, in many ways, a stable El Salvador, even if it was something that they would consider approximating a police state, was just not worth fighting in that particular way.
--:-- Vera Bergengruen: And the other thing is just that he does have a real 90 plus percent approval rating. And this isn't a Vladimir Putin sham approval rating kind of thing. It's real. You know, I've spoken to so many people who have family members in jail who still prefer to live this way because they can live, they can work, they don't have to be worried for their lives. I think it's hard to overestimate just how horrific life under the gangs was.
--:-- Vera Bergengruen: So what do you make of the way that Bukele has been handling this storyline now of Venezuelans being deported to El Salvador by the U.S., agreeing to incarcerate them in El Salvador? I mean, what is in it for Bukele? Why strike this deal with Trump?
--:-- Vera Bergengruen: I think, again, if we put ourselves in his shoes, the leader of a country of six million people, a poor country, a country that has given him more visibility than it has ever had except for wars, basically. You know, the fact that people consider this a success story and someone who had so many human rights groups and the U.S. itself, European countries going after him from human rights violations for for anti-democratic norms and having the world's most powerful country court him, give him the honor of one of the first Oval Office visits, constantly praise him.
--:-- Vera Bergengruen: And it's kind of a victory lap, but he's clearly hoping to capitalize on it. And what's in it for him, he's already gotten what he wanted. Beyond his wildest dreams, when I interviewed him last year, he could not have imagined that the U.S. would be paying him to deport people to his own prison and then praise it and retweet his videos and, you know, would show pretty harsh treatment.
--:-- Vera Bergengruen: It's almost like he feels like all of these countries are coming around to his model. And not only that, but again, I mean, there's obviously a financial benefit. He's hoping to kind of become a penal colony for the U.S.
--:-- Shamita Basu: So the Trump administration has been claiming that there's nothing that they can do to bring back the man who was wrongfully deported, as they have acknowledged, mistakenly deported, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who ended up in this prison in El Salvador and is still there. The administration says now they cannot do anything to bring him back when the Supreme Court weighed in on this earlier this week. Even they said that the government argument that the courts cannot do anything once a deportee has crossed the border is quote plainly wrong.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And now Trump is talking about expanding this relationship as you said sending U.S. citizens to be incarcerated in El Salvador. If that were to happen which, just to be clear, is illegal, what he is talking about, what are the possible options for recourse in the U.S. courts, maybe even in international courts?
--:-- Vera Bergengruen: That's a great question. I think it's a completely new world out there. I mean, even legal experts, they say it's technically unconstitutional, know, but we've never really had this happen in this particular way. The idea of deporting U.S. criminals to a foreign prison. There's a lot of questions about the long-term feasibility of this. But in terms of what recourse there is, I think we're finding not much.
--:-- Vera Bergengruen: You know, I think a lot of focus will be on the money that the United States is paying. So far, we know of $6 million for one year. But of course, that's going to be more if they sent more people. Where's that money coming from? Is it legal to pay a foreign country to imprison people in this way? That could be one a way that lawmakers have to do that. They could also maybe hold up or try to question different kinds of foreign aid to El Salvador that is not tied to the prison.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Before we let you go, a few other stories we're following. The United States will soon abandon its efforts to end the war in Ukraine if no progress is made in the next few days. That the latest from Secretary of State Marco Rubio who spoke to reporters early this morning before departing from Paris where high talks took place yesterday with European leaders.
--:-- Marco Rubio: The Ukraine war is a terrible thing but it's not our war. We didn't start it. The United States has been helping Ukraine over the last three years and we want it to end. But it's not our war.
--:-- Shamita Basu: That's a major reversal from what Trump told us when he was running for office, when he said he would end the war immediately. If I were president, I will end that war in one day. It'll take 24 hours. I know Zelensky well, I know Putin well, it would be easy. That deal would be easy.
--:-- Marco Rubio: Rubio said the talks this week between American, European and Ukrainian officials were constructive, but that Trump is losing patience.
--:-- Shamita Basu: In Gaza, Hamas says it's ready to engage in negotiations to release all remaining hostages and end the war. A senior Hamas official said in a televised speech that it will no longer agree to interim deals. Mediators have been working to revive the ceasefire, but there's been little progress.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Israel recently proposed a 45-day truce to allow for hostages to be released and to engage in talks to end the war. Hamas rejected one of the conditions that it lay down its arms. Reuters reports Israel has vowed to continue fighting until all hostages are released and Gaza is demilitarized.
--:-- Shamita Basu: In recent weeks, Israeli troops have seized more than a third of the Gaza Strip.
--:-- Shamita Basu: At Florida State University yesterday, at least two people who were not students were killed and at least six others were hospitalized after a gunman opened fire Thursday morning. Local authorities have a suspect in custody. He is the son of a sheriff's deputy. Authorities on the scene recovered a handgun that belonged to the suspect's mother, who served in the local county sheriff's department for 18 years.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The suspect was shot and wounded by police before being taken into custody. Luigi Mangione, the man charged in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, was indicted on federal murder charges Thursday. The charge carries a maximum penalty of death if convicted. The Justice Department said it will seek the death penalty. Mangione pleaded not guilty to state charges of murder and terrorism.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And finally, with the price of eggs still stubbornly high, it's a tough year to plan an Easter egg hunt on a budget. So people celebrating Easter this weekend are turning to some creative alternatives to keep traditions going. Painting potatoes is one suggestion. I'm not saying it's a good one, just that it's being floated. Marshmallows in particular are having a moment. The city of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania is very busy churning out peeps.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Did you know that every single marshmallow peep you buy comes from this place? I didn't. ABC News has a guide to how you can dye marshmallows and other alternatives to eggs that we'll link to in our show notes. You can find all these stories and more in the Apple News app. And if you're already listening in the News app right now, stick around for our weekly interview show In Conversation.
--:-- Shamita Basu: As Harvard's dispute with the Trump administration escalates, I spoke with Wesleyan University President Michael S. Roth, who's been a vocal opponent of recent threats to higher ed, about what the administration is trying to achieve and the implications for our country. I go back to the teachings of the rabbis. Beware of a government that pretends to be your friend, because if they don't use laws, they don't use principles, they can turn into your enemy very quickly.
--:-- Shamita Basu: If you're listening in the Apple News app right now, that episode is queued up to play for you next. Enjoy the weekend, and I'll be back with the news on Monday.
