‘An MS-13 Gangbanger’: CNN Panel Erupts Into Shouting Match As GOP Panelists Defend Deportation Of El Salvadoran

CNN panelists erupted into a shouting match Wednesday as two conservatives defended the high-profile deportation of an MS-13 gang member to El Salvador.

Democrat Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen, with the support of other Democrats, traveled to El Salvador to facilitate the release of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, an El Salvadoran criminal who illegally entered the U.S. in 2011. Former MSNBC host Tiffany Cross, former Republican Lieutenant Gov. Abel Maldonado and political consultant Shermichael Singleton justified the gang member’s deportation on “NewsNight with Abby Phillip,” sparking a heated debate between them and former MSNBC host Tiffany Cross.

“The point is that Van Hollen won’t talk to the woman here who lost her daughter in Maryland, but he will go down to El Salvador to try to bring an MS-13 gangbanger back to America? Really?” Maldonado said. “I think the Democratic Party is completely lost. Completely lost and losing it.”

“It is disturbing that you are sitting here defending the lack of due process to have the government disappear people to El Salvador,” Cross said.

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Maldonado said while President Donald Trump’s administration acknowledged that the deportation was a clerical error, Garcia was rightfully returned to El Salvador and should remain there due to this affiliation with MS-13.

“They knew it was a mistake. This is an MS-13 gangbanger in El Salvador,” Maldonado argued.

“Two courts, a federal court and the Supreme Court has ordered this administration to bring him back. How do you think history … but my point is, for [Maldonado] and [Singleton] who are defending this, how do you think history will remember you when we look back at this time?” Cross said.

Singleton and Maldonado both ridiculed the Democrat Party for defending Garcia against the Trump administration, indicating this is a bad look for them politically. Cross argued it is immoral to send Garcia to El Salvador since the nation has deprived its citizens of due process.

Van Hollen’s trip to El Salvador was unsuccessful as the government denied him entry into the Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT), where Garcia is currently being held.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) released documents Wednesday to display evidence that Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia was part of MS-13 and to outline his past criminal activities. Officers found Garcia loitering in a Home Depot parking lot on March 28, 2019, while wearing “a Chicago Bulls hat and a hoodie with rolls of money covering the eyes, ears and mouth of the presidents on the separate denominations,” which represents the member is in “good standing with the MS-13,” according to the document.

Garcia was further suspected of being engaged in human trafficking by a Tennessee Highway Patrol officer who arrested him in December 2022, the Tennessee Star first reported. After the police department contacted the FBI about the people being transported in the car, former President Joe Biden’s FBI requested that Garcia and the passengers all be released.

Court filings also found that Garcia’s wife sought a domestic violence restraining order against him in 2021, claiming he “punched, scratched and ripped off her shirt.”