With the markets rebounding and egg prices cratering, the networks were deprived an opportunity to foist their recession porn upon their viewers. They had no trouble settling on a new consensus top story, though, given their hysterical coverage of the Trump administration’s decision over the weekend to deport suspected Tren de Aragua and other gangbangers to a Salvadoran supermax.
CBS’s coverage was the most unhinged of all, what with its forced tie-in to St. Patrick’s Day: a pretentious stunt that served no other purpose than to remind viewers of how much they may miss Norah O’Donnell:
CBS EVENING NEWS
3/17/25
6:30 PM
JOHN DICKERSON: On this St. Patrick's Day, as millions of Americans celebrate their Irish heritage, recent events remind us that the Irish were among the first immigrants to be targeted in deportation crackdowns.
MAURICE DuBOIS: In the mid-1800s, New York and Massachusetts enforced policies to have Irish immigrants rounded up and deported.
DICKERSON: The American Civil Liberties Union didn't exist then but if it had, it may have taken the legal position it is taking now, suing the Trump administration to stop what it considers to be the illegal deportation over the weekend of more than 200 migrants to El Salvador.
DuBOIS: The big difference now, the administration says many of those flown to Central America are considered by the government to be terrorists.
DICKERSON: The administration cited a rarely-used 18th century law to justify the deportations. Senior White House Correspondent Ed O'Keefe is following the story. Good evening, Ed.
ED O'KEEFE: Good evening, John, The White House is strongly defending its decision to fly alleged gang members out of the country by using presidential war powers dating back to Thomas Jefferson. The U.S. isn't at war with anyone right now but the president is picking a legal flight.
After pretending to know what the ACLU may have done in the 1800s, Dickerson to O’Keefe but not before planting a narrative seed: that the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 is an old statute. O’Keefe would then go on to say that the law was last used by FDR when he was placing Japanese-Americans, not just immigrants, in internment camps. The idea, of course, is to suggest that deporting suspected violent criminals who had no right to enter into the United States is morally equivalent. Rather than getting soundbite from the ACLU, O’Keefe then turns to the Cato Institute for libertarian bolstering.
Over at ABC, Rachel Scott read the memo and made the same arguments against the “Aliens Enemies Act”: that the law is “obscure” and used against Japanese-Americans. ABC’s focus was more centered on ginning up outrage over the lack of compliance with Judge Boasberg’s wild ruling ordering the deportation flights to return from international airspace, and on The White House’s arguments against. ABC’s report ended with a mention of Hunter and Ashley Biden losing their respective Secret Service details.
At NBC, a divergent approach. The report covered familiar ground but did so without trying to link these deportations to Japanese internment camps. Additionally, Kelly O’Donnell mentioned the deported Hezbollah doctor and the NBC poll showing President Trump with a 47% approval rating, and the 20-year high 44% “right track” rating.
The media’s coverage of the deportation flights effectively place them as advocates for the country retaining violent illegal immigrant gangbangers. Proving, again, their disconnect with the public they claim to serve.
Click “expand” to view the full transcripts of the aforementioned reports as aired on their respective evening newscasts on Monday, March 18th, 2025:
ABC WORLD NEWS TONIGHT
3/17/25
6:38 PM
DAVID MUIR: Now, to the developing headline at this hour. A hearing just a short time ago, a federal judge demanding the Trump administration explain why it defied the judge's order, deporting hundreds. The judge had ordered two planes already in the air to turn around. The planes landing in El Salvador anyway. The president’s border czar tonight, saying: “I don’t care what the judges think.” Here's ABC's Senior Political Correspondent Rachel Scott tonight.
RACHEL SCOTT: Tonight, questions over whether the Trump administration brazenly violated an order from a federal judge, after he told them not to deport 261 Venezuelan immigrants to El Salvador, but they did it anyway. The administration claims the men are members of criminal gangs, invoking an obscure law: The Aliens Enemies Act of 1798, which allows the government to deport people with little to no due process, and was last used to round up Japanese-Americans during World War II. And in an emergency court hearing on Saturday, federal Judge James Boasberg asked for more information and put the deportations on pause, saying, "Any plane containing these folks that is going to take off or is in the air needs to be returned to the United States. This is something that you need to make sure is complied with immediately." But by then, two planes were already in the air, and they did not turn around. Administration officials claiming those planes had already crossed into international waters. The president of El Salvador, a Trump ally, posting on X, "Oopsie, too late." On Air Force One, President Trump asked if his administration violated the judge's orders.
DONALD Trump: I don't know yet. We’ll speak to the lawyers about that.
REPORTER: Are you planning any more deportation…
Trump: I can tell you this, these were bad people. That was a bad group of -- as I say, hombres.
SCOTT: Today the president's border czar saying,quote: “I don't care what the judges think.”
TOM HOMAN: We’re not stopping, I don’t care what the judges think, I don’t care what the left thinks, we’re coming.
SCOTT: The White House press secretary raising questions about whether the judge's orders carry weight, because it was delivered from the bench and not put in writing.
KAROLINE LEAVITT: There's actually questions about whether a verbal order carries the same weight as a legal order- as a written order.
SCOTT: But when I asked the architect of the president's immigration policy, Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, whether they would comply with a verbal order from the judge, he questioned whether judges had the authority to rule over the president's policies at all.
SCOTT: Is it the administration’s understanding that you would comply with a verbal order?
STEPHEN MILLER: No district court judge, who- who presides over just some small, like, little geography of the whole country, could possibly presume to have the authority to direct the expulsion of terrorists from our soil, who, by the way, are also here illegally. Thank you, everybody.
SCOTT: And David, the administration was back in court tonight in front of that same judge, he demanded to know why the administration defied his order. When they tried to make the distinction between that verbal order and the written order, the judge calling that a quote, “a heck of a stretch.” And there’s breaking news here from The White House. Just moments ago, President Trump announced that he is ending Secret Service protection for former President Joe Biden's two adult children, Hunter and Ashley Biden. David, it is not unusual for the adult children of former presidents to receive Secret Service protection for several months after presidents leave office, David.
MUIR: Rachel Scott, live at The White House tonight. Rachel, thank you.
CBS EVENING NEWS
3/17/25
6:30 PM
JOHN DICKERSON: On this St. Patrick's Day, as millions of Americans celebrate their Irish heritage, recent events remind us that the Irish were among the first immigrants to be targeted in deportation crackdowns.
MAURICE DuBOIS: In the mid-1800s, New York and Massachusetts enforced policies to have Irish immigrants rounded up and deported.
DICKERSON: The American Civil Liberties Union didn't exist then but if it had, it may have taken the legal position it is taking now, suing the Trump administration to stop what it considers to be the illegal deportation over the weekend of more than 200 migrants to El Salvador.
DuBOIS: The big difference now, the administration says many of those flown to Central America are considered by the government to be terrorists.
DICKERSON: The administration cited a rarely-used 18th century law to justify the deportations. Senior White House Correspondent Ed O'Keefe is following the story. Good evening, Ed.
ED O'KEEFE: Good evening, John, The White House is strongly defending its decision to fly alleged gang members out of the country by using presidential war powers dating back to Thomas Jefferson. The U.S. isn't at war with anyone right now but the president is picking a legal flight.
This deportation flight landed early Sunday in El Salvador. The cameras were ready. Footage slickly produced by the Salvadoran government shows they were whisked away to one of the most notorious prisons in the world. CBS News visited last month, finding 80-100 crammed into a cell. Officially it can hold up to 40,000 prisoners, but at the time was only half full. The Trump administration has vowed to help fill it, paying El Salvador $6 million to take three plane loads on Sunday.
DONALD Trump: These are bad people.
O'KEEFE: Most were removed under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, last invoked by Franklin D. Roosevelt to detain Japanese immigrants in internment camps during World War II. Today, The White House stood by the president's moves.
So you’re saying definitively, you can- that the administration can prove everyone that was put on those flights to El Salvador was either a member of Tren de Aragua, MS-13 or some other entity?
KAROLINE LEAVITT: Yeah, we've already provided the breakdown, in the effort of transparency, about the 261 illegal aliens who were deported.
O'KEEFE: The White House says most were members of Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan gang. Others, from the transnational MS-13 gang, including two ringleaders.
What criteria other than, say, tattoos, or maybe being in the wrong place at the wrong time, are they using to determine that someone is actually a member of one of these organizations?
LEAVITT: Intelligence and the men and women on the ground in the interior of our country, who are finally being allowed to do their jobs.
O'KEEFE: The president's use of the law sparked a weekend legal fight where minutes mattered. After The White House revealed that it invoked the Act on Saturday, the planes took off. Shortly after, a judge ordered the planes to turn around, but they never did, and a third flight would depart a few minutes later. David Bier tracks immigration policy for the libertarian Cato Institute.
Why should any American care about these flights that went, and the way those people were sent away?
DAVID BIER: We have no idea whether these people were in the country legally or illegally, whether they were in a gang or not.
O'KEEFE: The bigger part of this, perhaps, is that it's part of the ongoing fight over what exactly an American president can do. Is that fair?
BIER: Once we get to the point in the country where the president gets to say "I can arrest anyone, I don't have to prove anything, I don't have to go to courts, I don't have to follow the laws as they are written,” then that's anarchy.
DuBOIS: So, Ed, how much does The White House want this to be a public fight?
O'KEEFE: Oh, President Trump’s been talking about using this law ever since he launched his second White House campaign, so it's no surprise to his supporters. But this is exactly the political legal fight they want. First of all, polling continues to show a majority of Americans support what he's doing on immigration, they believe this sustains that. And legally, they believe ultimately a conservative Supreme Court is going to rule in their favor.
DICKERSON: And…what does the judge say at this point about this, Ed?
O'KEEFE: So there was a hearing today, there's going to be another one on Friday. He's asking the administration for more details about who exactly was on those three flights, why were they sent without following his orders, and how many more people might be still in the United States that could conceivably be sent to El Salvador, or at least deported by using the Alien Enemies Act. He admonished them for ignoring his rulings on Saturday night. The ACLU, which is suing in this case, says they are going to ask the judge to order flights to bring back those immigrants, believing that El Salvador is basically working as a private prison on behalf of the United States. Guys.
DICKERSON: Ed O’Keefe for us at The White House. Thank you, Ed.
NBC NIGHTLY NEWS
3/17/25
6:31 PM
LESTER HOLT: Good evening and welcome. The Trump administration's widening crackdown on illegal immigration taking on new dimensions tonight, including challenging the authority of courts to dictate such matters and arming the president with new tools. In Washington this afternoon, a hearing concerning the administration's decision over the weekend to use the Enemy Aliens Act to deport from the U.S. hundreds of individuals said to be affiliated with Venezuelan and El Salvadoran gangs without due process. Today’s hearing to determine whether the government violated a court's directive to order deportation flights to return to the U.S., those flights instead flown to El Salvador. The White House saying they paid $6 million to detain them there. President Trump saying the gang's presence in the U.S. amounts to an invasion. It's the latest flashpoint over the president’s aggressive moves to carry out mass and targeted deportations. Kelly O'Donnell has details.
KELLY O'DONNELL: Tonight, a federal court seeking answers from the Trump administration as The White House mounts a vigorous defense of its mass deportation of undocumented migrants it says were charged with violent crimes, pushing back against a federal judge.
STEPHEN MILLER: I would think without question, the most unlawful order that any district court judge has issued in our lifetimes.
O'DONNELL: Posting a cinematic, music-backed video of the operation, The White House touted the removal Saturday night of nearly 300 migrants. Officials said investigators determined these are violent members of Tren de Aragua and MS-13 gangs, classified as foreign terrorists. The White House said the U.S. government paid El Salvador $6 million to detain the deportees.
TOM HOMAN: We’re not stopping. I don't care what the judges think, I don’t care what the left thinks, we're coming.
O'DONNELL: At issue, whether the Trump administration complied with a federal judge's order to temporarily delay deportations, including whether any flights took off after the order was issued. The White House says it complied.
KAROLINE LEAVITT: All of the planes that were subject to the written order, the judge's written order, took off before the order was entered.
O'DONNELL: President Trump invoked a 1798 law, the Alien Enemies Act, which does not require due process in wartime. However, the U.S. is not at war with Venezuela or El Salvador. Mr. Trump defended his approach.
TRUMP: That’s an invasion. They invaded our country. So this is an- in that sense, this is war.
O'DONNELL: In a separate deportation case, a Brown University professor of medicine with a valid visa was detained, then sent back to Lebanon. The Department of Homeland Security posted, that Rasha Alawieh had admitted she attended a funeral for the leader of Hezbollah, considered a terrorist organization by the U.S., and said she supported him. Her removal called “common sense security.” Her attorney could not be reached. These actions come as new NBC News polling shows 44% say the country is on the right track, the highest number in 20 years. So 54% find the U.S. headed in the wrong direction. The president's 47% approval rating is his highest across both terms while a majority, 45%, disapprove.
HOLT: And Kelly, we mentioned at the top of the broadcast that court hearing was under way, it has just ended and I understand the judge had some pretty tough words for the Trump administration.
O'DONNELL: That's right Lester, the administration said it could not answer when deportation flights happened, which would have affected compliance, claiming they could not answer due to national security. The judge called that “one heck of a stretch,” and said his authority was valid even if the planes were outside of U.S. airspace. Lester.
HOLT: All right. Kelly, thanks.
