Good morning. It is April 11th. It's a cloudy, humid morning in New York City with more of the same due for the rest of the day. And this is your Indignity Morning Podcast. I'm your host, Tom Scocca, taking a look at the day and the news. 

Where to begin? How about Greenland, where the BBC is reporting the commander of the United States Space Force Base has been fired for having sent an email trying to reassure the multinational staff at the base that the belligerent comments Vice President JD Vance made on his visit there in March were not reflective of the base. 

“The U.S. military's space operations command,” the BBC writes, “said Colonel Susannah Myers had been removed from her role at the Pacific Space Base due to a loss of confidence in her ability to lead.” 

Greenland is also on the front of this morning's New York Times, near the middle, above the fold, “Trump Aims to Persuade, Not Invade, Greenland / Several Agencies Draft Plans to Pry Island From Denmark.” 

“President Trump's longtime goal of claiming Greenland for America,” the Times writes, “has shifted from rhetoric to official us policy as the White House moves forward on a formal plan to acquire the Arctic island from Denmark.” The Times “writes the plans full details are unclear, but despite Mr. Trump's allusions to the possible use of force, deliberations led by the Security Council never seriously considered military options, a U.S. official said. The policy instead emphasizes persuasion over coercion and features a public relations effort aimed at convincing Greenland's population of 57,000 that they should ask to join the United States.” When you want to win people's hearts to your cause, you definitely want to kick off that effort by sending J.D. Vance to harangue them.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported yesterday that in the case of Andry José Hernández, the gay Venezuelan makeup artist who was included in the Trump administration's mass extralegal rendition of what it claimed were violent gang members to torture prison in El Salvador, was identified as a member of the Tren de Aragua gang by a prison contractor named Charles Cross Jr. who was previously fired from his position as a Milwaukee police sergeant in 2012, the Journal of Sentinel writes, “after driving his car into a family's home while intoxicated.” And before that incident, the story says, “prosecutors flagged him on a list of police who had been accused of lying, breaking the law, or acting in a way that erodes their credibility to testify in Milwaukee County.” The man's word was officially deemed too unreliable to use in court, but luckily for him, the Trump administration's program of kidnapping immigrants didn't include judicial review or any other sort of due process. 

And in that vein, in the case of Hernandez's fellow captive, Kilmar Abrego-Garcia, whom the Trump administration itself has conceded was seized and transported in error, the administration, after being unanimously ordered by the Supreme Court to facilitate Abrego-Garcia's release and return, failed to meet a deadline at 9.30 this morning for informing the lower court judge handling the case, where Rodrigo Garcia is, and what they're doing to get him back. The Justice Department had tried to file a motion complaining about the deadline and trying to push it back into next week, but had it rejected because the attorneys who signed it were not eligible to participate in the case. Stephen Miller, Trump's designated Archfiend and Policy Advisor, meanwhile, went on Twitter to falsely say that the Supreme Court rejected the lower court and made clear that a district court judge cannot exercise Article 2 foreign affairs powers. “The illegal alien terrorist,” Miller added “is in the custody and control of a sovereign foreign nation.” 

The Supreme Court's decision yesterday extended its pattern of apparently trying to do everything in its power, to spare the Trump administration from being caught in contempt of the lower court, by saying that the existing order telling the administration to facilitate and effectuate Abrego-Garcia's return, which the administration had been defying, was unclear as to what was really supposed to mean. But rather than deign to accept that protective cover, the administration now looks like it's headed toward not even plausibly trying to facilitate the return. Basically, it doesn't look like this is going to end until somebody other than the Trump administration asserts their power to physically grab a person and lock them up until they get compliance. 

Returning to the front of this morning's New York Times, the Abrego-Garcia decision is the leftmost news column at the top. “SUPREME COURT BACKS A MIGRANT WRONGLY OUSTED / RETURN ISN’T ASSURED / Justices Say U.S. Must ‘Facilitate’ Trip Back From El Salvador.” 

The right-hand lead columns get a double-wide headline, “Trade Clash With China Rattles Exporters in U.S.” On the right, “How Wall St. Tumult Pushed Trump to a U-Turn on Tariffs,” on the left, “Farmers are bracing for loss of a major market for crops”. That lead-lead column is a narrative account of the stories people are telling about exactly how it came to be that immediately upon launching his trade war, Donald Trump revised his publicly announced battle plan after market investors all freaked out. “The economic turmoil,” the Times writes, “particularly a rapid rise in government bond yields caused Mr. Trump to blink on Wednesday afternoon and pause his reciprocal tariffs for most countries for the next 90 days, according to four people with direct knowledge of the president's decision.” Here the scare quotes around the word “reciprocal” are trying and failing to do the work of covering the fact that the president nonetheless imposed minimum 10 % blanket tariffs on international trade. “Reciprocal” here is being used essentially as a brand name for the even higher, potentially AI-generated collection of tariff figures Trump had announced for specific countries, territories, and or uninhabited islands. “Behind the scenes,” the Times writes, “senior members of Mr. Trump's team had feared a financial panic that could spiral out of control and potentially devastate the economy. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and others on the president's team, including Vice President J.D. Vance, had been pushing for a more structured approach to the trade conflict that would focus on isolating China as the worst actor, while still sending a broader message that Mr. Trump was serious about cracking down on trade imbalances.” Ah yes, of course JD Vance was there quietly advocating for the more prudent strategy that ultimately won out. Weirdly though, his name never reappears anywhere else in the story. 

Down at the bottom of the page, the Times checks in with Kamala Harris. “Harris Weighs Return to Politics In a Field Remade by Her Defeat.” It's a whole lot of reporting, with four bylines on it, to get not much of a story. “Interviews with more than three dozen of Ms. Harris' advisors, former aides, allies, and friends,” the Times writes, “reveal a politician known as much as anything for her caution, standing at perhaps her most fateful crossroads yet.” She's either going to do something or she's not going to do something. She's going to run for governor of California, or else for president, but not both, according to the Times. She has, the Times writes, “met with David Shore, a democratic pollster who conducted a broad analysis of the 2024 election, spoken with the billionaire Chris Larson to discuss artificial intelligence and met with media figures, including the New York Times columnist, Ezra Klein, who argues that Democrats should embrace an ‘abundance agenda.’”

Well, that's a really discouraging ghoul fest. And, the story also returns to the previously told tale of how Doug Emhoff, her husband, privately and then publicly sternly lodged his objections to his law firm, Willkie Farr & Gallagher, cutting a deal with Donald Trump to give the administration $100 million in pro bono work. “I believe we must continually ask ourselves whether accommodation strengthens or weakens the very foundations that we are sworn to protect,” he reportedly said. A little bit above that in the story the Times supplied the helpful context that his partnership at Willkie Farr & Gallagher is “paying around six million dollars, according to three people informed about those conversations.” It's easy to say talk is cheap, but here all you can really say about the value of talk is that it must not exceed five million nine hundred ninety nine thousand nine hundred ninety nine dollars 

And on page A19 a Helicopter crashed into the Hudson River yesterday killing six people, a family of five tourists and the helicopter pilot. The Times quotes witnesses as saying they saw rotor blades flying off as the helicopter plunged straight down on its way back from buzzing the Statue of Liberty and the George Washington Bridge. The crash was, the Times writes, “the third fatal one for New York's helicopter tour industry in the last two decades. In 2009, a sightseeing helicopter carrying Italian tourists collided with a private plane over the Hudson River, killing nine. In 2018, an open-door tourist helicopter crashed into the East River, killing five passengers. Only the pilot escaped.” 

That is the news. Thank you for listening. The Indignity Morning Podcast is edited by Joe MacLeod. The theme song is composed and performed by Mack Scocca-Ho. 

You, the listeners, keep us going through your paid subscriptions to Indignity and your tips. Continue sending those along if you are able. And if nothing unexpected gets in the way, we will talk again on Monday.