President Donald Trump called out CNN on Monday for not covering progress his administration has made securing the border during an Oval Office meeting with El Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele.
The Border Patrol encountered 8,347 people on the U.S.-Mexico border in February 2025, a pace sharply down from the millions of illegal immigrants who entered during the Biden administration, according to figures released by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP). Bukele expressed surprise that the drastically reduced number of illegal crossings wasn’t covered by media outlets, prompting Trump to single out CNN’s dearth of coverage about the issue.
“Actually, what you are doing with the border is remarkable. It has dropped, what, 95%? Incredible,” Bukele said, with Trump responding, “As of this morning, 99%, 99.1%, to be exact.”
READ: Trump, Bukele Highlight Deportations Of Violent Criminals In White House Meeting
“Why are those numbers not in the media?” Bukele asked.
Trump then gestured to a CNN crew, which was part of the media pool, according to press guidance released Sunday.
“The fake news like CNN over here doesn’t want to put them out,” Trump said to laughter in the Oval Office as the cameras were rolling. “Because they don’t like putting out good numbers. I think they hate our country, actually. It’s a shame, you’re right. Isn’t that a great question? Why doesn’t the media put out numbers?” “99%, I mean, that’s crazy, right?” a crazy turn around. “That’s a crazy turnaround!”
The year-to-year drop in border apprehensions from February 2024 to February 2025 was discussed on CNN, but this was usually done during panel discussions, the Daily Caller News Foundation determined in a search of archived footage on Grabien News. However, some programs on the network did report the drop in border apprehensions in straight news reporting, but spent comparatively little time overall on it compared to other stories.
READ: President Of El Salvador Says He Won’t Return Deported Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia To U.S.
During the Oval Office meeting, Bukele told CNN host Kaitlan Collins that he would not be returning Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, an adjudicated member of MS-13, to the United States.
Upon taking office on Jan. 20, Trump issued several executive orders to address illegal immigration, including designating Mexican drug cartels, the Venezuelan prison gang Tren de Aragua (TdA) and the El Salvadoran prison gang MS-13 as foreign terrorist organizations. Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to speed up the deportation of members of TdA and MS-13 on March 15.
The Supreme Court ruled on April 7 that the Trump administration could use the Alien Enemies Act to deport TdA members in a 5-4 decision.
CNN declined to comment when the DCNF contacted the network.
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First published by the Daily Caller News Foundation.
