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5 takeaways from the week: Nearing a constitutional crisis?

By Domenico Montanaro

Published April 18, 2025 at 4:00 AM CDT

President Trump arrives for a presentation ceremony for the Commander-in-Chief Trophy to the U.S. Naval Academy in the East Room of the White House on Tuesday.

The week was dominated by news about President Trump and the continued struggle over the narrative around Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Maryland man who was illegally deported to El Salvador. But there was also continued concern around Trump's tariffs — with the Federal Reserve chair saying they're likely to lead to higher prices — and the tension between the scientific establishment and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who made some big pronouncements during his first news conference as health and human services secretary.

Here are five takeaways from week 13 in our continued look at President Trump's first 100 days in office:

1. Trump and El Salvador play a game of hot potato

President Trump met with El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele at the White House on Monday. The president's inner circle and the Salvadoran president played a faux blame game on the deported Maryland man.

The Supreme Court said the Trump administration had to "facilitate" Abrego Garcia's return after the administration admitted the legal resident was mistakenly deported. Administration officials said during the meeting that they would facilitate it if Bukele wanted to return him. But Bukele told reporters he was not inclined to act.

"The question is preposterous: how can I smuggle a terrorist into the United States?" he told reporters in the Oval Office.

Round and round it goes with no resolution. Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., flew to El Salvador in an attempt to check on the man. He was initially denied the ability to see or talk to him. Later, he posted a photo of him with Abrego Garcia. By mid week, the White House was saying definitively that Abrego Garcia would never be allowed back into the country.

2. Which brings us to … nearing a constitutional crisis?

The same federal judge, who has now bucked the Trump administration over its deportation policies multiple times, James Boasberg, this week said there was "probable cause" for contempt charges against the administration. He's giving the Trump team, which he said has shown a "willful disregard" for his orders, until Wednesday to give some real answers about why they defied his court order to turn around a plane that brought migrants to the Salvadoran prison.

Otherwise, he said, he would recommend contempt charges, and if the Trump Justice Department didn't pursue those charges, he's open to appointing an outside prosecutor to do so. The judge presiding over the specific Abrego Garcia case, Paula Xinis, said she's "gotten nothing" from the administration, which she ordered to show evidence of what it's doing to bring the man back. An appeals court unanimously denied the government's request for a stay of Xinis ordering sworn testimony from government officials about what they have or haven't done to return Abrego Garcia to the U.S.

The three-judge panel said the administration's refusal to bring the man back "should be shocking not only to judges, but to the intuitive sense of liberty that Americans far removed from courthouses still hold dear." It also accused the administration of "asserting a right to stash away residents of this country in foreign prisons without the semblance of due process that is the foundation of our constitutional order."

President Trump meets with President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador in the Oval Office of the White House on Monday.

But the administration's position is clear — it doesn't believe it should have to listen to the courts.

"No court in the United States has a right to conduct the foreign policy of the United States," Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters during that meeting in the Oval Office with Bukele. "I don't understand what the confusion is. This individual is a citizen of El Salvador. He was illegally in the United States and was returned to his country."

The Supreme Court said the administration had to "facilitate" the man's return, but it also said the courts should show "due regard for the deference owed to the Executive Branch in the conduct of foreign affairs."

So which one of those winds up weighing out? At the end of the day, a true constitutional crisis would come if the Trump administration exhausts its appeals and defies the Supreme Court, if it rules against the administration. Maybe that would come if Trump follows through on his musings about sending "homegrown" criminals, in other words, U.S. citizens, to El Salvador.

3. Often, politics is about perception

It's worth remembering that so much of politics is about messaging — not facts, not nuance. And in the case of Abrego Garcia, the Trump administration is digging in hard to say he was a bad person. Trump and his team have alleged he's a member of MS-13 and produced police reports that show police believed he was. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt went so far as to say he was "engaged in human trafficking."

On the other side, Abrego Garcia has legal status in the U.S.; his wife is an American citizen and has pleaded for his return; stories have noted that he is the father to a son on the autism spectrum; that he has no criminal record and that his family sent him to the United States in the first place as a teenager because a gang in El Salvador (not MS-13) was trying to coerce him to join.

In fact, an immigration court in 2019 found that he could face death or danger by being sent back to El Salvador. Xinis, the judge overseeing his case, called the evidence that he's a gang member flimsy.

"Evidence' against Abrego Garcia consisted of nothing more than his Chicago Bulls hat and hoodie, and a vague, uncorroborated allegation from a confidential informant claiming he belonged to MS-13's 'Western' clique in New York — a place he has never lived," she said in a ruling.

4. The Fed is expecting higher prices — and faces a dilemma

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell departs after speaking at an Economic Club of Chicago event on Wednesday in Chicago.

The head of the Federal Reserve, Jerome Powell, said this week that Trump's tariffs were larger than expected and that they're "highly likely" to lead to higher inflation.

Translation: higher prices.

That prompted Trump to lash out against Powell on Thursday, saying the Fed chairman's "termination cannot come fast enough." Powell, backed by Supreme Court precedent, insists he cannot be fired by the president over policy disagreements.

Still, higher prices are something Americans have been expecting, polling shows.

Powell also said the tariffs could present a tension point for the Fed between keeping inflation low and keeping unemployment low.

So, for now, he said, the Fed will wait and watch. With how quickly Trump has been changing his mind, or, as he says, being "flexible," it could be waiting and watching for a while.

5. Answers in search of science

For years, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has cast doubt on the safety of vaccines and given credence to the contention that they might cause autism. That's despite research thoroughly debunking the idea (and links to other, non-vaccine-related factors such as a father's age). And despite decades of research and the difficulty in finding definitive answers, he's now promising, as director of Health and Human Services under Trump, to unearth the true cause of autism by September — a timeline many experts find dubious.

He's also contradicting his own Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which said this week that part of the increase in the number of children found to have autism is likely because of increased diagnoses and better diagnostic tools.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. speaks during a news conference at the Department of Health and Human Services on Wednesday in Washington, D.C. Kennedy held a news conference to discuss autism in the U.S.

"One of the things I think we need to move away from today is this ideology that this diagnosis, rather the relentless increases, are simply artifacts of better diagnoses, better recognition," Kennedy said. He also said: "Doctors and therapists in the past weren't stupid; they weren't missing all these cases. The epidemic is real. External factors, environmental exposures, that's where we're going to find the answer."

There's an irony in RFK Jr. claiming that "ideology" is contributing to the CDC's conclusions when he is saying definitively that "environmental exposures" is "where we're going to find the answer" and appointed someone who promoted the discredited vaccine link to autism to lead HHS' effort to identify a cause.

Could there be environmental causes (other than vaccines)? That's Kennedy's theory. But science is about dispassionately letting evidence dictate answers, not letting preconceived answers dictate science.

Here's a day-by-day look at what happened in the past week:

Friday, April 11

Trump gets a physical.
RFK Jr. writes an op-ed in the New York Post arguing for budget cuts and firings at the agencies under HHS.
University of Michigan consumer sentiment measure dips to its second lowest level since it began in 1952.
Judge rules that Trump administration "failed to comply" with court order and now has to give daily updates on status of efforts to get Maryland man back.
Judge finds Columbia student Mahmoud Khalil can be deported.
Five more law firms to provide $600 million in pro bono work, Trump says, including two of the biggest.
Trump adviser Stephen Miller on social media calls Kilmar Abrego Garcia an "illegal alien terrorist."
Politico reports that the State Department is telling employees to report on each other for anti-Christian bias.
Elon Musk calls potential cuts to NASA "troubling."
The Trump administration moves forward with cutting Maine's K-12 funding over transgender kids in girls' school sports.
The administration gets a win in court about whether immigration raids can be carried out at houses of worship. A judge found a lack of standing for those who brought the case.
The White House replaces a portrait of former President Obama with pop art of Trump with his fist in the air after the assassination attempt on him.

Saturday

Smartphones and computers to be exempted from Trump's tariffs.
The Washington Post reports that senior Social Security Administration officials were overridden, as Trump officials demanded immigrants be marked as dead. One senior official who objected was marched out, the paper reported.
State Department representative says Abrego Garcia is "alive and secure" at El Salvador prison, according to a court filing.
Russia hits Ukrainian town, killing more than 30 people and wounding at least 84, the worst attack since 2023.
Trump shows up at a UFC event in Miami and sits cageside with his grandkids.

Sunday

Letter from the White House physician says Trump is in "excellent physical health." It says Trump is 224 pounds, 20 pounds lighter than his recorded weight in June 2020. It also notes he had a colonoscopy in July 2024, revealing diverticulosis and a polyp (this was not disclosed during the campaign). His LDL "bad cholestorol" was lower and he now takes ezetunibe, which he wasn't recorded as taking in 2020. The letter concludes: "President Trump's days include participation in multiple meetings, public appearances, press availability, and frequent victories in golf events."
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick sows more confusion on tariffs. Lutnick says on ABC that electronics exemptions are temporary. But there is division in the White House about the comments, according to a Fox Business correspondent.
Trump says on social media that "NOBODY is getting 'off the hook' for the unfair Trade Balances" and that electronics are moving to a different "bucket." He added: "We are taking a look at Semiconductors and the WHOLE ELECTRONICS SUPPLY CHAIN in the upcoming National Security Tariff Investigations."
Trump says on Air Force One: "We wanted to uncomplicate it from a lot of other companies, because we want to make our chips and semiconductors and other things in our country." He would not say whether things like smartphones would be exempted permanently: "You have to show a certain flexibility. Nobody should be so rigid."

Monday

There's a hearing about the international Tufts student who was taken off the streets. The Washington Post reports that days before she was detained by immigration authorities, the State Department found no evidence linking her to anti-semitism or terrorism.
Salvadoran President Bukele says during a meeting with Trump in the Oval Office that he will not return Abrego Garcia. "How can I return him to the United States?" he says. "I smuggle him into the United States? Of course I'm not going to do it."
Trump again blames Ukraine for Russia's invasion. "Listen, when you start a war," Trump says, "you gotta know you can win a war. You don't start a war against somebody that's 20 times your size and then hope that people give you some missiles."
Trump opens the door to U.S. citizens being sent to an El Salvador prison. "The homegrowns are next, the homegrowns," Trump says to Bukele. "You've got to build about five more places."
Secretary of State Marco Rubio says the Trump administration does not have to listen to the courts to get Abrego Garcia back, because "no court in the United States has a right to conduct the foreign policy of the United States. I don't understand what the confusion is. This individual is a citizen of El Salvador. He was illegally in the United States and was returned to his country."
Trump meets with Ohio State football national champs.
Harvard rejects Trump's demands tying federal funding to eliminating DEI programs. "No government — regardless of which party is in power — should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue," Harvard President Alan Garber wrote in a letter to students and staff. Some $9 billion is at stake. By the evening, the administration froze $2 billion in funding.
The Washington Post reports that a Trump plan could cut as much as half the State Department's budget.
USA Today reports that the Trump administration is considering a budget that would eliminate Head Start altogether as well as the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program, which helps provide heat and air conditioning for low-income households.
The White House is asking Congress to rescind money for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the New York Times reports.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., bought stock just before Trump announced his tariffs pause, disclosures show, per USA Today, the New York Times and others. Democrats are calling for an investigation.
Trump says he's "looking at" possible exemptions for 25% auto tariffs. "I'm looking at something to help some of the car companies with it," Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. "And they need a little bit of time because they're going to make them here, but they need a little bit of time. So I'm talking about things like that."

Tuesday

Former President Biden gives his first speech since leaving office. "In fewer than 100 days, this new administration has done so much damage and so much destruction," he said. "It's kind of breath-taking."
CDC vaccine advisers meet for the first time under RFK Jr.
Man accused of attempting to assassinate Trump in Florida appears in court.
The Trump administration moves to speed asylum cases.
Judge chides Trump administration for doing "nothing" to get Maryland man back.
NPR reports that the Army has moved to target books perceived to be dealing with DEI and "gender ideology" for removal from libraries.
The Kennedy Center is to be permanently lit red, white and blue, according to WTOP.
A protester is tased at a Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene town hall.
An aide to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is out on leave and ushered out of the Pentagon for suspicion of leaking.
Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, faces a raucous town hall.
RFK Jr. publicly contradicts the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention about the rise in autism cases and pushes environmental causes as a reason for the rise.
Trump signs an executive order intended to lower prescription drug prices.
The New York Times reports that the Trump administration picked a Hunter Biden whistleblower who cooperated with House Republicans' investigation of him as the next head of the IRS.
Trump threatens to revoke Harvard's tax-exempt status.

Wednesday

Hong Kong halts packages to U.S. because of tariffs.
Trump says he will join trade talks with Japanese officials in Washington. Before the meeting, he posted on social media: "Hopefully something can be worked out which is good (GREAT!) for Japan and the USA!" After it, he said: "A Great Honor to have just met with the Japanese Delegation on Trade. Big Progress!"
Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md. was denied the ability to see Abrego Garcia during a trip to El Salvador. He said that the country's vice president told him the reason was "that the Trump administration is paying El Salvador, the government of El Salvador, to keep him at CECOT," the acronym for the name of the prison.
USA Today reports on closed toilets and biologists cleaning some of them in some National Parks as a result of Trump's budget cuts.
Attorney General Pam Bondi announces legal action against Maine for transgender sports policy. "We believe they are failing to protect women, and it's not only an issue in sports. It is a public safety issue," Bondi said.
Federal judge James Boasberg launches contempt proceedings against the Trump administration for violating his order to not deport Venezuelan migrants. He said there is "probable cause" that the government showed a "willful disregard" for the judge's order. He gave the government a week to "cure" the problem, potentially by allowing the migrants to appeal from the Salvadoran prison. He also noted that if the Justice Department declines to cooperate, he could potentially appoint an outside prosecutor.
The White House says it will appeal. "The President is 100% committed to ensuring that terrorists and criminal illegal migrants are no longer a threat to Americans and their communities across the country," White House Communications Director Steven Cheung says.
Retail spending jumps, as people try to get ahead of Trump's tariffs.
Polio is on the rise in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Global health officials are concerned that with USAID cuts, there could be spikes elsewhere.
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell warns that Trump's tariffs are "highly likely" to raise inflation in the short term as the level of tariffs have been higher than anticipated. That could put the Fed in a difficult position, caught between trying to control unemployment and inflation.
U.S. Customs says it has collected about $250 million a day from Trump's latest tariffs, well below the $2 billion a day Trump has claimed, CNBC reports.
Rubio shuts down a State Department office that tracked mis- and disinformation from adversaries overseas. A former official who helped run a precursor office said, per the New York Times: "This amounts to a form of unilateral disarmament in the information warfare Russia and China are conducting all over the world" and that "no efforts were made inside the United States — only international." Despite that, Rubio claims the office "spent millions of dollars to actively silence and censor the voices of Americans they were supposed to be serving." Political appointee Darren Beattie, who had previously been fired in the first Trump administration as a White House speechwriter because of a speech he gave before white nationalists, organized the firings, the Times reports.
Trump's pick for U.S. attorney in D.C., Ed Martin, appeared on Russian state TV more than 150 times, the Washington Post finds.
The Washington Post finds that a second aid to Hegseth was fired.
California sues over Trump tariffs. "Eighty years of economic dominance in just a matter of weeks being unwound by this kind of recklessness," California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom said. "We are very mindful of the anxiety that this has imposed on all of you and very mindful of our role and responsibility at this moment not to be bystanders and to try to shape this debate and shape this conversation."
The World Trade Organization says North American exports are expected to drop almost 13% this year. "The outlook for global trade has deteriorated sharply due to a surge in tariffs and trade policy uncertainty," it said in a report, per CNBC.
A government memo obtained by CBS News shows that it's not just "the worst" who can be sent to a prison at Guantanamo Bay.
Rubio and Trump international envoy Steve Witkoff head to Paris to meet with European and Ukrainian officials pleading Ukraine's case in its war with Russia.
Trump is planning an overhaul of the Endangered Species Act by redefining the word "harm."
Axios reports that Trump himself blocked Elon Musk from attending a top secret Pentagon briefing because of a potential conflict of interest. "What the f— is Elon doing there?" Trump said, according to Axios. "Make sure he doesn't go."
The AP reports that the Trump administration is doing away with the free tax-filing system the IRS set up during the Biden administration.
The White House said again that Abrego Garcia would never be let back into the U.S. and brought a woman to a White House briefing whose daughter was killed by an MS-13 gang member. "Let me reiterate: Kilmar Abrego Garcia is an illegal alien, MS-13 gang member and foreign terrorist who was deported back to his home country," White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt told reporters. Abrego Garcia had no criminal record, and the Trump administration had previously acknowledged his removal was due to an "administrative error."
Reuters reports that DOGE is using a Musk AI chatbot tool to track anti-Trump sentiment among federal workers and that the group is using Signal to communicate, raising questions about records retention.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem sent a letter to Harvard, obtained by the New York Times, threatening to block the institution from enrolling international students.
CNN reports that the IRS is taking steps to revoke Harvard's tax-exempt status, as Trump threatened the day before.
The Washington Post reports that DOGE is looking to use Medicare data as part of their effort to crackdown on immigrants without permanent legal status in the U.S.
The AP said in a court filing that the administration is continuing to deny it access despite a court order, the New York Times reports. The Trump administration is appealing.
The Trump administration issued an order to halt construction on a New York wind energy project that would power 500,000 homes, AP reports.

Thursday

Italy's Giorgia Meloni meets with Trump at the White House.
Trump signs more executive orders.
Israel had planned to strike Iranian nuclear facilities, but it needed the U.S.'s help, and the U.S. was leery, the New York Times reports.
Politico reports that Robert Hur is representing Harvard in its fight against the Trump administration. Hur was the special prosecutor who came under fire from Democrats for his report on Biden's handling of classified material and his descriptions of Biden's mental fitness.
The case of the AP being denied a seat in the White House because of its continued labeling of the "Gulf of Mexico" is back in court.
The Supreme Court schedules oral arguments for May 15 on Trump's executive order to ban birthright citizenship despite the guarantees of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution.
Trump says in a social media post that he's not happy with the job Powell is doing at the Fed, that he "is always TOO LATE AND WRONG." Trump says he wants him to lower rates "now" and that "Powell's termination cannot come fast enough!" Asked about the remarks at the White House, Trump reiterated that Powell acts "too slowly," that he's let him know and contends that if he wants him out, then he'll be out of there real "fast."
A three-judge appeals court panel said the Trump administration's refusal to try and bring Abrego Garcia back "should be shocking" to all Americans who care about an "intuitive sense of liberty."
Elon Musk has installed top deputies at the Government Services Administration, which helps manage a lot of what the government spends money on, the AP reports. Agency employees discovered a transceiver for Musk's Starlink satellite network on the roof of GSA headquarters, according to the AP, raising concerns about the protection of public data.
The New York Times reports that a Treasury official last month wrote to the IRS about My Pillow's Mike Lindell to see if "a high-profile friend of the President" was "inappropriately targeted." The IRS did not act on it and referred it to the inspector general because of concerns "that President Trump hoped to use the tax collector to protect his friends and allies from normal scrutiny."