"They won't admit it": GOP Sen. Kennedy says Abrego Garcia deportation was a "screw-up"

Even in the decade of alternative facts, some truths are irrefutable. 

Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., had to stare down one during a visit to "Meet the Press" on Sunday, admitting to host Kristen Welker that Maryland man Kilmar Abrego Garcia was deported to El Salvador in error. 

The administration of President Donald Trump initially admitted that the 29-year-old father had been sent to the notorious Central American prison CECOT due to an "administrative error." They've since walked back that characterization, digging in their heels in ongoing court cases and throwing up their hands when ordered to facilitate Abrego Garcia's return. 

On Sunday, Kennedy was direct.

"This was a screw-up in my opinion, the administration won't admit it, but this was a screw-up," he said. 

While his statements were a break from the wider GOP, don't go welcoming the senator to the resistance just yet. Kennedy spent the rest of the interview extending sympathy to the Trump administration and refusing to admit that such a grave error might signal further sloppy work from the Department of Homeland Security.

"I don't see any pattern here. I mean, you know, someday pigs may fly, but I doubt it," he shared. "I understand why the administration is bowed up and said we won't admit it's a mistake because if they do they'll have their throats torn out. But it was a screw-up."

Watch the interview via NBC News.