The Emergency Is Here

The Ezra Klein Show

New York Times Opinion

Society & Culture, Government, News

4.6 • 11K Ratings

🗓️ 17 April 2025

⏱️ 72 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The president of the United States is disappearing people to a Salvadoran prison for terrorists: a prison built for disappearance, a prison where there is no education or remediation or recreation, a prison where the only way out, according to El Salvador’s justice minister, is in a coffin. The president says he wants to send “homegrown” Americans there next. This is the emergency. Like it or not, it’s here. Asha Rangappa is a former F.B.I. special agent and now an assistant dean and senior lecturer at the Yale Jackson School of Global Affairs, as well as a member of the board of editors for Just Security and the author of The Freedom Academy on Substack. Mentioned: “Abrego Garcia and MS-13: What Do We Know?” by Roger Parloff Book Recommendations: The Burning by Tim Madigan Breaking Twitter by Ben Mezrich Erasing History by Jason Stanley Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected]. You can find the transcript and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.html This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Elias Isquith. Fact-checking by Rollin Hu, Jack McCordick, Kristin Lin and Kate Sinclair. Mixing by Isaac Jones and Aman Sahota. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Annie Galvin, Marina King and Jan Kobal. Original music by Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. And special thanks to Aaron Reichlin-Melnick.

Transcript

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0:00.0	From New York Times opinion, this is the Ezra Klein Show. The emergency is here.
0:33.5	The crisis is now.
0:35.4	It's not six months away.
0:49.6	It's not another Supreme Court ruling from happening. It is happening now. Maybe not to you, not yet, but to others, to real people whose names we know, whose stories we know.
0:58.2	The president of the United States is disappearing people to an El Salvadoran prison for terrorists.
1:01.0	A prison known by its initial Seacot.
1:03.8	A prison built for disappearance.
1:10.5	A prison where there is no education or mediation or recreation. Because it is a prison that does not intend to release
1:14.4	its inhabitants back out into the world. It is a prison where the only way out, in the words of
1:20.7	El Salvador's justice minister, is in a coffin. On Monday, President Trump said in the Oval Office, in front of the eye of the cameras,
1:31.8	sitting next to El Salvador's president, that he would like to do this to U.S. citizens as well.
1:36.8	If it's a homegrown criminal, I have no problem.
1:41.8	Now, we're studying the laws right now.
1:44.7	Pam is studying.
1:45.9	If we can do that, that's good.
1:47.2	And I'm talking about violent people.
1:48.7	I'm talking about really bad people.
1:50.7	Really bad people.
1:51.8	Every bit as bad as the one's coming in.
1:54.7	He told El Salvador's president, President Buchale,
1:58.7	that he would need to build five more of these prisons because America has so many people
2:02.5	Trump wants to send to them.
	...

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