As Media Matters President Angelo Carusone told MSNBC host Nicolle Wallace Thursday, there are cracks in the right-wing media, which now dominates the media landscape, “especially on this Garcia case.” That, plus the contempt threats from the courts over the Trump administration’s refusal to return Abrego Garcia, are clearly beginning to spook the White House.
The first sign of wobbling was El Salvador President Nayib Bukele’s abrupt reversal in allowing Sen. Chris Van Hollen and Abrego Garcia’s family lawyer to visit with Kilmar Abrego Garcia. You can bet the Trump administration either told Bukele to change course or, at the very least, approved it.
Abrego Garcia appeared in street clothes, an obvious attempt to make him look unscathed. Bukele tried to give the impression his prisoner was ensconced in some kind of cushy surroundings. He tweeted that Abrego Garcia had “miraculously risen from the ‘death camps’ & ‘torture’, now sipping margaritas with Sen. Chris Van Hollen in the tropical paradise of El Salvador!?” Bukele then added, “Now that he’s been confirmed healthy, he gets the honor of staying in El Salvador’s custody.”
Underneath the very thin layer of bravado was an unmistakeable defensiveness.
Then there was this similarly childish display from the White House:
It’s nauseating and disturbing but it also signals defensiveness. I believe it confirms what Carusone said, before we knew about Van Hollen’s meeting, that there is hope on the horizon.
Joe Rogan is one of those cracks. He is “not just separating from Trump a little bit” but “actively pushing for an alternative approach here and criticizing the administration for what they’re doing,” Carusone said.
That is “the opportunity that we should nurture,” Carusone continued, because due process and “innocent until proven guilty” are still American values that hold us all together. “And I think that is reflected right now in that broader right-wing media space.”
Carusone acknowledged that there is a die-hard MAGA cohort that likes the authoritarianism. But there’s another cohort of Trump voters who don’t. “And that may help create a little bit of a topple for some of those other political forces, or at least some cover, to reduce the fear that Murkowski had referenced because I do think that fear is obviously widespread.”
Rogan and others represent “an opportunity and [are] helping reinforce and buttress the courts on this matter and maybe some others,” Carusone added.
The pressure is working. We need to keep it up.