A segment on the 08/11/25 edition of MSNBC’s The Rachel Maddow Show (TRMS) delved into the Trump administration’s “tough on crime” facade. The gist of the segment was that while President Trump and his administration go to great lengths to project a “tough on crime” stance, they have been super lenient with some very serious criminals the president favors. In other words, there are glaring double standards with the said tough on crime policy.
One of the shocking examples host Maddow pointed to was a triple murder convict—yeah you read that right—a triple murder convict serving a 30 year sentence, that the Trump administration recently released from a Venezuelan prison and flew into the United States. Reasonable people can agree that this is not the kind of person a “tough on crime” administration would be bringing into the country.
He apparently committed the murders at a law office in Madrid, Spain, realized the Spanish authorities were onto him, fled to Germany, and then ran from Germany to Venezuela. Venezuela has a no-extradition policy, so they didn’t send him back to Spain, but agreed to prosecute him for the Madrid murders in Venezuela. It was there that he was convicted and received a 30 year sentence.
He is currently running the streets of some American city as a free man. It will be interesting to hear the rationale the “tough on crime” Trump administration gives for not only freeing such a heinous criminal, but also setting him loose in an American city.
Maddow also brought up the other unavoidable elephant in the room—convicted child Sec trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell who it appears, is gearing up for a presidential pardon after being transferred to a cushy fed camp in Texas. Maxwell is also serving a 30 year sentence.
Bottom line, the Trump administration has to decide whether it wants to be tough on crime towards everybody, or just those the president disfavors. As it currently stands, the latter appears to be the case, and it’s not a good look.