Hello! It’s me, Sean, Bari’s assistant. If you’re wondering why Nellie is sharing this byline with me, don’t. I’m here. That’s all that matters. Nellie solemnly told me last week that I was “ready” to lead TGIF, and that “my time had come” to share the heavy mantle. But all I heard was: “I have a birthday dinner and want to leave early.” Which, fair enough. You only turn 37 26 once, I guess. As for me? I’ve trained for this my entire life. Be kind in the comments. To the news!
→ The hottest campaign stop is this Salvadoran supermax: House Republican Riley Moore went to the super maximum security prison in El Salvador to take some photos in front of the inmates. “I just toured the CECOT prison in El Salvador,” he writes, with pictures of him giving a thumbs-up, shirtless inmates standing at attention behind him. Moore gave a double thumbs-up in front of the men, densely packed in their cold metal bunk. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem took the same tour recently, posting a fun video in front of caged, tatted men.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the aisle, Senator Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) tried to visit that very same prison in El Salvador this week. He was calling for the release of a mistakenly deported Maryland man, but was denied access. It seems as though Cory Booker is planning a similar trip.
The El Salvador supermax prison is becoming the new Ohio Diner. It’s the new Iowa State Fair. It’s the new Jeffrey Epstein jet: It’s where every political leader needs to visit, the place to see and be seen if you’re ambitious and in politics today. Journalists will be hanging out at the prison to get everyman voices from the El Salvador supermax. Lobbyists will be standing by the metal detectors, pollsters in the outdoor gym yard. A gorgeous steakhouse will open up in the nearby shantytown (I actually have no idea what’s nearby the supermax, but I assume it’s a shantytown). And at the rate we’re going, soon TGIF will be written from inside one of the cells.
Back in the States, D.C.’s top party guest is El Salvador’s president Nayib Bukele, who came for an official White House visit this week. He and Trumpo discussed—what else?—that supermax prison! They agreed that there was nothing to be done about the mistakenly deported Maryland man, now in Salvadoran custody. Two leaders of two great countries simply cannot find that one random wrongly deported man, and everyone should move along (I’m assuming that means he’s dead, right?).
After Bukele left the White House, he thirstily tweeted, “I miss you already, President T.” Trump returned the favor, learning to say MAGA in Spanish: “¡America grande, otra vez!”
→ Homegrown criminals: Trump, who literally cannot take his mind off that Salvadoran prison, was asked if he is considering deporting criminals who are American citizens. He said he would love to. “I call them homegrown criminals, the ones that grew up and something went wrong, and they hit people over the head with a baseball bat and push people into subways just before the train gets there, like you see happening sometimes. We are looking into it and we want to do it. I would love to do that.” I like the addition of homegrown to criminals. It makes it feel a little fancier. A little more bespoke. These aren’t big-box store criminals. They’re locally grown!
This country is about to get real polite. No more spitting gum on the street. No more smash and grabs—or else it’s straight to the supermax. My question is, if we ship away all our homegrown criminals, what happens to corrections officers? Prison jobs are jobs too! These are important American innovations, and Trump wants to offshore them.
→ J.D. Vance takes to X to fight with. . . every FP contributor? J.D. Vance loves to fight on X/Twitter. And more than anything, he loves to fight with Free Press contributors! Especially the cohort of Free Press moderate liberals (modlibs). Those mushy libs, and we love them just the same, who critique progressives but still won’t embrace their court-ordered Alex Jones listening sessions. Most of these Free Press writers were posting some version of “We need due process, and we need to be cautious lest we deport legal residents,” including one Jesse Singal.
Vice President J.D. Vance responded to Jesse’s post on the matter with: “I hate this smug, self-assured bullshit.” To Zaid Jilani, J.D. wrote: “Biden overwhelmed the system with illegal migration. Is your proposed solution to give a jury trial to all 20 million illegal aliens (more if you count those already here)?” Then to Leighton Woodhouse, the Veep lashed out: “I’m sick of abstract bullshit arguments. What your proposal does, whether you know it or not, is ratify the presence of millions of illegals [sic] aliens in our country. I reject that.”
So if you want to get in a brawl with the Vice President of the United States, come on down and write for us. And our message to J.D.: If you ever want a change of occupation, we could use you to negotiate writer contracts with these people. We need you on the phone with podcast talent agents calling everyone an overpaid idiot.
