MAGA Rep. Mike Collins (R-GA.) tried to mock Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen (MD) over his visit to El Salvador but ended up trolling a Republican senator instead.
Van Hollen went to El Salvador last week to meet with Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran citizen who was living in Maryland until last month when he was deported to a notorious mega-prison in El Salvador despite a 2019 court order barring his deportation to that country.
Though the Trump administration has described his deportation as a mistake and the U.S. Supreme Court has called on the administration to facilitate his return, the administration has said he will not be returning to the U.S.
Several Republicans criticized Van Hollen for the trip, including Collins who posted a photo of a digitally vandalized office plaque belonging to the Democratic lawmaker appearing to show his constituency as “El Salvador.”
“Hey @ChrisVanHollen, I went ahead and changed your office plaque for you,” Collins (R-Ga.) wrote Friday on X alongside a photo.
But, that was not Van Hollen’s office and not his plaque, The Daily Beast reports.
Even though Van Hollen’s name is on the plaque, the Maryland Democrat Senate office is not SH-110, it is SH-730, according to the Senate website. SH-110, the plaque Collins vandalized is actually the office of MAGA senator Rick Scott from Florida.
Republicans also tried to mock Van Hollen’s trip by boosting El Salvador President Nayib Bukele, a Trump ally, claims that the senator and the wrongly deported man had been “sipping margaritas” as they met on Thursday evening.
That claim also fell apart.
According to the New York Times, Bukele staged the scene.
During their meeting, “a Bukele aide placed the two glasses with cherries and salted rims on the table in front of Mr. Van Hollen and Mr. Abrego Garcia in the middle of their meeting in an attempt to stage the photo,” The Times reported citing people familiar with the situation.
Van Hollen also confirmed that someone from the Salvadoran government placed the drinks before them before taking the photographs and that neither he nor Abrego Garcia had touched drinks.
He pointed out that the rims of both glasses were covered in salt or sugar and they were undisturbed which shows that they never took a drink from the glasses.
