According to MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell, a Democratic senator managed to outwit Donald Trump by engaging in a meeting with an alleged MS-13 member while enjoying what seemed to be margaritas.

The liberal television personality, who previously worked on the show West Wing, shared his thoughts on the unconventional gathering between Senator Chris Van Hollen and Kilmar Abrego Garcia as it unfolded. The meeting was made public by the senator’s office late on a Thursday through a photo-op.

Photographs from the encounter depict Abrego Garcia and the Senator from Maryland having a discussion in San Salvador over the drinks, with two glasses containing cherries and salted rims placed in front of them. Hollen described the meeting as a ‘simple humanitarian request’ aimed at checking if Abrego Garcia was faring well.

The latter was deported from the US last month, after entering the US illegally in 2011. A judge went on to block his return to El Salvador in 2019, based on the fact that MS-13 members were after him.

The court, however, ruled he could be deported elsewhere, and the Trump administration has since admitted the suspected gang member – who lived in Maryland with a wife and young son – was deported to El Salvador in error. 

A federal appeals court has since demanded Trump facilitate Abrego Garcia’s return to the US. Democrats and anti-deportation activists claim his deportation was unjust.

O’Donnell, on The Last Word, made clear he feels the same – talking up the fact that in the midst of this heated legal standoff, Hollen met with the man at its center.

In doing so, the anchor repeatedly billed Abrego Garcia as ‘a US citizen’, all while talking up Hollen’s supposed ‘accomplishment’. Hollen gained access to Abrego Garcia after two days in the country, after first being turned away by officials.

‘The breaking news of the night is that Maryland Senator Chris Can Hollen has managed to visit the Maryland resident Kilmer Abrego Garcia, being held in prison in El Salvador,’ O’Donnell began on his eponymous broadcast. 

‘In what the Trump Administration admits was a mistake,’

O’Donnell went on to note the president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele’s, own reaction to the meetup – one that had made light of criticisms of conditions Abrego Garcia has been kept in.

‘Now sipping margaritas with Sen. Van Hollen in the tropical paradise of El Salvador!’ he had wrote – causing a self-righteous O’Donnell to label the politician as a ‘wise guy’ for what he framed as cozying up to a foreign president.

‘The president of El Salvador thinks tonight is a time to be mocking this, this prisoner, that he’s holding there – and mocking this process,’ he said,  

‘But his words are going to be used in court now in this case, as are Donald Trump’s.

‘And they are going to be helpful to Mister Abrego Garcia,’ he asserted.

‘Because what the president of El Salvador has demonstrated today is just how easy it is to get this person out of El Salvador, just how easy it is to control his movements.’

President Bukele continues to maintain he does not possess the political power to return Garcia to the US. 

‘This will all be part of the case,’ O’Donnell continued, delivering his rant with contempt. 

‘[What] the Trump team has done to [Garcia] – they snatched him out of his car with his autistic five year old child watching from the back seat, and then [they] sent him to a deliberately cruel and unusual prison in El Salvador, where he may remain. 

‘Tonight, a federal appeals court panel unanimously ruled against the Trump administration in the case,’ he added of the ruling aired earlier in the day

‘The [US] government is 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.

‘The government asserts that [Garcia] is a terrorist and a member of MS-13,’ he went on.

‘Perhaps, but perhaps not. 

‘Regardless, he is still entitled to due process,’ he continued, before painting Hollen as a political hero whose sitdown with the suspected criminal got Garcia a step closer to freedom. 

‘It seems to me the courts are going to be very interested in what the senator was able to accomplish – versus what they would expect the president to be able to accomplish here,’ said

‘I want to keep those pictures of Senator Van Hollen on the screen, because it is so inspiring to see what he achieved and seeing seeing what  his intervention means here.’

Any such accomplishment remains to be seen, and the government has conceded that Garcia was mistakenly deported. 

He is still an illegal immigrant, though has not been charged with any crime. 

Hollen’s visit, meanwhile, represented a broader Democratic bid to bring attention to the case surrounding Garcia and his detention, as a means to challenge the Trump administration’s aggressive approach to illegal immigration.

When asked at the White House Thursday whether he would consider bringing Garcia back to the US, Trump said, ‘I’m not involved.

‘You’ll have to speak to the lawyers, the DOJ,’ he said, as Democrats – much to the ridicule of conservatives – continue to fight for the safe return of a suspected criminal.