President Trump on Friday slammed Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) for meeting in El Salvador with a Maryland man who the White House acknowledged it wrongly deported there, calling him a "fool."

"Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland looked like a fool yesterday standing in El Salvador begging for attention from the Fake News Media, or anyone," he wrote on Truth Social on Friday. "GRANDSTANDER!!!"

Van Hollen traveled to El Salvador Thursday and met with Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who is being held in a notorious mega-prison in the country after he was deported last month.

“I said my main goal of this trip was to meet with Kilmar. Tonight I had that chance,” Van Hollen wrote in a Thursday post on X.

“I have called his wife, Jennifer, to pass along his message of love. I look forward to providing a full update upon my return,” he added in the caption for his picture with Abrego Garcia in civilian clothes. 

This case has become a national flashpoint as the Trump administration ratchets up its deportation efforts and its crackdown on immigration. Administration officials have embraced the fight, viewing it as good politics on an issue Trump performs well on with voters.

White House deputy press secretary Kush Desai also blasted the Maryland Democrat for the visit.

"Chris Van Hollen has firmly established Democrats as the party whose top priority is the welfare of an illegal alien MS-13 terrorist," Desai posted Thursday on social platform X. "It is truly disgusting."

"President Trump will continue to stand on the side of law-abiding Americans," he added.

Abrego Garcia is a 29-year-old Salvadoran national who fled that country as a teenager to escape gang violence and was living in Maryland. He was protected from deportation by an immigration judge in 2019, a fact courts this year have underscored in calling on the administration to facilitate his return to the U.S.

The White House has said it is up to El Salvador whether to send him back, and the president there has said he will not. The back-and-forth comes after the Supreme Court ruled earlier this month that the U.S. must facilitate his return.

Despite the court order, Trump officials have consistently attacked Abrego Garcia’s character in the face of questions about whether they ignored due process and court orders in quickly deporting him, insisting he is a member of MS-13 despite denials from his family and a conflicting court record.