The Biggest Scandal of the Second Trump Term Isn’t “Signalgate”

None of the students who have had their visas revoked have had anything resembling due process. None of them have been accused of crimes. Instead, they are being punished for speech that’s rightly outraged over Israel’s slaughter in Gaza. Yes, Ozturk’s case and others like it will eventually all play out in the courts. But people are being swept off the streets right now, every day, and being detained without legitimate cause. The administration is fast-forwarding to its desired conclusion and daring the courts to stop it, while also choosing which court orders to obey and which to defy. Even if the judiciary were somehow able to stop all of this, the chilling effect remains—which, after all, is the point.

When Rubio was nominated for his current role, there was a mild sense of surprise. The senator was seen as a moderating force, an establishment Republican expected to be more committed to foreign policy norms—and, for that matter, the rule of law—than the president’s other nominees. And this belief (or hope) was projected on him in the early days of the administration. As Trump and Vice President JD Vance berated Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in the Oval Office last month, Rubio seemed to shrink into the furniture. Body language doctors on social media and cable news overlaid the image with the Curb Your Enthusiasm theme. Here, at least, was someone who saw what was happening around him for what it really was.

The situation looks rather different now. As my colleague Greg Sargent wrote recently, Rubio is perhaps Trump’s biggest enabler. And his feverish pursuit of legal immigrants and students, over speech he and his boss object to, is the administration’s most appalling act thus far. I shudder to imagine how much worse it will get.