President Nayib Bukele: Seeking God’s Wisdom, Taking Down MS-13, and His Advice to Donald Trump

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Mr. President, thank you for having us.
Thank you, Tucker. At your Camp David, which is beautiful.
So you were inaugurated two days ago. This is a small country, and yet your inauguration was, international news was everywhere.
Why? Why do you think that is? Well, it was a shock for us too. I mean, we knew that a lot of people were coming, and I mean, that will draw some attention, of course.
We had big delegations from 110 countries.

So, of course, that will draw news

because if a chancellor comes from a country,

then he brings his media team and that.

That will create some news over there.

And if a president comes or a king comes,

that will create some news.

Even you came, so that creates some news.

Why were they coming? Well, I don't know. Different reasons, of course.
I could ask you, why did you come, right? I came because I think something remarkable is happening here. That's why.
But I'm interested in why you think people came. Yeah, different reasons.
Definitely different reasons. For example, the U.S.
government sent a big delegation. But then we had also a delegation from Congress.
Yes. That started as a Republican delegation, but then Democrats jumped in the wagon and we had a bipartisan delegation from Congress.
So, you know, it's like, so it adds up. I don't know at the end what happened, but I think that it's like how a star, you know, how stars are born.
They say that, you know, debris starts joining up and they become an asteroid. But if more debris joins up, it becomes a planet because, you know, the gravitational pull.
If more debris comes up, it becomes a planet because the you know the gravitational pull the more debris comes up it becomes a star because then the gravitational pull is too big so that's uh that's called critical mass so i don't know sometimes just you know by because you know god wants it like that or just a stroke of luck or whatever uh you get some critical mass in something you're doing and then it becomes bigger than the sum of all of its parts. So I don't know, probably got some critical mass that we didn't foresee.
My guess is that of all the countries in the hemisphere, El Salvador seemed in the toughest shape or close to the bottom in the rankings for everything. Yes, yes.
Lacking abundant natural resources, et cetera. And since the country was born.
Is that true? Yes. I mean, the country has been poor since it was born.
Yeah. Lacking everything, basically.
Lacking everything. Yes.
With a dense population, a lot of people packed in. Yes, yeah.
So how did you change it? I guess I'll cut right to it. If you can fix El Salvador, what are the lessons for the rest of us? What did you do first? Well, of course, you cannot do anything if you don't have peace.
And when I say peace, I include war, civil wars, invasion, crime. I mean, you need to have peace.
You need to be able to move freely, to have your basic rights respected, starting with the right to live, the right to move, the right to have property. So you need your basic rights to be respected.
So you need peace. That's the first thing a society will struggle to achieve.
And once you achieve peace, then you can struggle for the other things. Like, you know, infrastructure, wealth, well-being, quality of life.
But you have to start with peace. So we had to start with peace.
And in the case of El Salvador, we were literally the murder capital of the world. Yes.
And we turned it into the safest country in the Western Hemisphere. We're safer than any other country in the Western Hemisphere, which is, you know, it was, if I would have said that five years ago, they would that i was crazy right yes because this was the literally the most dangerous country in the whole world your capital is now safer than our capital yes yes yes and and the country is safer than the united states as a whole yes uh the the u.s murder rates around six murders per 100 000 inhabitants and our murder rate is two so we're safer than canada safer safer than Chile, safer than Uruguay, safer than the U.S., safer than any country in the Western Hemisphere.
There are countries in the other hemisphere that are safer than in Salvador, but not in the Western Hemisphere. So you did that in just a couple years? Yes, we did that basically in three years.
So just bottom line it for us, what's the formula? Well, I can tell you the official formula and the real formula. Okay.
So, the official formula is that we did a plan. I mean, we did a plan.
When I say official, I mean, it's a lie. It's just, you know, the official one.
We did a plan that was comprised of phases so we roll up the first phase and the next one then the next one and then gangs started attacking back so we need to we had to roll up everything at once like in a hurry so and and it it worked it worked in a couple of weeks we we the country was transformed because the gangs were not yet arrested, but they were on the run. So we had, we basically, in the roll-up of phase six, we basically pacified the country in a couple of weeks.
How do you do that?

How do you pacify a country?

Well, the phases included building up

of the police forces, the army, we doubled the army.

We literally doubled the army to fight crime,

to use the army to fight crime.

And we equipped them before, like soldiers,

we didn't have like useful know like useful guns or you know vehicles drones you know basic things that that uh an operation of that magnitude will need so yeah we we we roll up the faces and then we went after them.

Okay.

So that's the official.

That's the official.

Yeah, that's the official.

What's the real?

It's a miracle.

It's a miracle. Yeah, it's a miracle.
I love that. What do you mean? Yeah, it's a miracle.
Well, you know, when gangs started attacking us us back Basically, they they killed

87 people in three days

Which for a country of six million people it's it's crazy would be the equivalent

60 times would be the equivalent of having 5,000 deaths in three days in 5,000 murders in the U.S. in three days.
Wow. Yeah.
So we were in a meeting, well, when it started, not when it ended, but when it started, we were in a meeting at my office, 3 a.m., 4 a.m., just watching what was happening and trying to figure out what to do because the problem with the gangs is that um they don't they don't only attack their objectives when they want to create terror they can attack anyone so they can actually kill their grandma yes and it's your victim yes because they don't care about their grandma you you care about their grandma so it's your victim is if they kill their grandma you have one one death and they have You know they achieved The terror that they want to create so they can kill anybody A woman walking by a guy and working in the street a taxi driver. No, they can kill anybody and if the if And if the state goes after them, the state has no intention of killing or harming anybody but the gang members.
So you have 70,000 objectives, which were the 70,000 gang members, but they have 6 million possible targets. So it was almost an impossible task.
It's a guerrilla war, really. Yes, but it was an impossible task because you have to go after them.
They were intertwined with the population. They were everywhere.
And they were killing randomly. So how do you stop them them so we really tried to figure out what to do and uh and i basically said well we i mean it's we we are we're looking at into an impossible impossible mission here so we pray we...
You prayed in the meeting? Yes, yes, of course. Several times, yeah.
What did you pray for? To wisdom, to win the war, to have... I thought at the time that we would have civilian casualties.
So we said, we prayed that the civilian casualties would be as low as possible. And we didn't have any civilian casualties.
And was everyone in the meeting comfortable with that? Yes, yes. All my security cabinet are believers.
They all believe in God. We're a secular country, of course, but we all believe in God, so yeah.
MS-13 is one of the major gangs. And they are satanic also.
That was my question. So very little- I'm sorry, I'm sorry.
No, no, no, but I hope you will explain it because very little has been written in the West about this. They're satanic, yes.
But actually, literally, can you explain? Well, they didn't start as a satanic organization. MS-13 started in Los Angeles, in the U.S., because Salvadorans weren't allowed to sell drugs by the Mexican gangs.
So they created a gang that was called the 18th Street Gang, because they basically wanted to sell drugs in a street that was 18th Street over there. But then the vision started to create, they started dividing themselves and started infighting.
So they created the MS-13. and then the MS-13 started outgrowing the other gangs and they started you know exporting the organization to other parts of the US and when Bill Clinton decided to deport those guys he didn't tell our government at the time I'm'm deported this criminal.
They just, you know, send them here. And they came, there were few, but unchecked.
At the same time, some laws were passed to protect minors from imprisonment. And of course, the gangs used that to recruit 15-year-olds, 16-year-olds, 17-year-olds.

So at the beginning was, you know, some youth causing harm, assaulting, you know, trying to control their territories, selling drugs, things that are bad, but, you know, probably not critical. But they grew, they grew, they grew, and they started controlling territories.
A few years later, they were actually a huge international criminal organization that they have bases in Italy, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, the U.S. Basically, a lot of major cities in the U.S.
will have strongholds. Right outside Washington, yes of course and you have in in long island and yes in l.a it's it's a it's a huge criminal international organization so um so so they grew and they started you know uh killing more people to just to get territory or to fight against rival gangs or to you know

collect debts or you know money or whatever but as the organization grew they became satanic they started doing satanic rituals i don't know exactly when that it started but it was well documented yes and we in our arrest we've even found the altars and things like that yes i've seen them And so they became a satanic organization.

And even when you, sometimes when you interview gang members that are in prison, they would say, I'm out of the gang. Of course they're in prison, but they would say, I'm not a member of the gang anymore.
And when they asked them why, I remember one, I remember the news outlet that made it this, this, but it's a very well-known news outlet that made this interview with a gang member in person. We allowed them to go into prisons and do the interviews.
And the guy that, they asked him, how many people have you killed? And he said, I don't remember. He didn't remember how many, probably 10, 20.
He didn't remember. And then they asked him, and are you, what is your position in the gang? He explained how he went up in positions, but I left the gang.
I said, why did you left the gang? And he said, well, because I was used to kill people, but I killed for territory.

I killed for, to collect money.

I killed for extortion.

But I came to the, you know, to this house

and they were about to kill a baby.

And he, the killer that had killed tens of people,

said, oh, wait, what are we doing?

Why are we going to kill that baby?

And they told him, because the beast asked for a baby. So we have to give him a baby.
So he said that he couldn't resist that. So he left the gang.
He's in prison because, you know, he's a killer. But he left the gang because he couldn't tolerate what he was seeing.
So human sacrifice was a part. Well, in the United States a couple of weeks ago, or a couple of days ago, I don't remember exactly, I saw the news that they were gonna kill a young girl, or they killed a young girl, and I don't exactly remember, because it was a satanic ritual.
It happened in the U.S. a couple of weeks ago.
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So that's almost never described in English language press as clearly as you just described it. No.
Which is weird, right? Well, you sort of wonder why. Yeah.
If there's a spiritual component that's driving it, why not just say so? Yes. But I guess my point is you saw it as that.
Yes. Yes, of course.
There's a spiritual war and there's a physical war and the physical war could be that's a that's the unofficial yes that's the unofficial version uh the spiritual if you win the spiritual war it will reflect into the physical war so our i think our i don't know what i have call it, our impressive victory was because we won the spiritual war very, very fast. Well, that leads me, I didn't expect...
Because you didn't have competition. I mean, they were satanic.
I think that made it easier. In your inaugural, and I was listening on headphones for the translation, so I just want to check this, you said, we have achieved this great victory and made this a safe country, and that's the predicate for everything that follows.
And the next thing we're going to do in this term is to work in the economy to make it better. Yeah, grow the economy, yeah.
And you said, correct me if I'm wrong, you said, I have a three-point plan, and I'm thinking, I wonder what that is. I don't know.
Start a Federal Reserve Bank and you said the first point of my plan is seek God's wisdom. Yes.
That is what you said. Yeah, I said that, yeah.
Why would that be the first point of an economic plan? Why wouldn't it be? Why should it be the first part of the plan? Well, I think it should be. Yeah.
But I can't... And most people would think that, right?

I just, I've never heard any leader of any country say that. Because probably they forgot to represent the people that elect them, that elect them,

yeah.

It's like you ask most of the people that elect the politicians, they'll say, yeah, that's

fine, yeah, I believe that.

But then you ask the politician, and he'll say, no, no, no, that's not. So who is he trying to pander into? I mean, it doesn't make sense, right? It's a common sense thing to seek God's wisdom.
Of course. Yeah.
It's a prerequisite for wise decision making, I would say. Yes, exactly.
So that's the first part of our plan. It makes me laugh.
Do you think that that's one of the reasons that your successes, which are just measurable, I'm not saying this for ideological reasons, but just a fact that you've transformed the country in a good way and that you're literally the most popular elected leader in the world? Again, not speculation, provable fact. You'd think that would be greeted in the hemisphere as this amazing thing, like what's going on in El Salvador? And instead, there's been this, what's going on in El Salvador? Yeah.
There's been hostility. Yes.
Do you think that's why? I'm not sure. But one of the reasons is that we don't pander to them.
So probably they don't like that. It's probably a reason.
it's like like there's

um so probably they don't like that it's it's probably a reason it's like um like there's um i'm not going to go into conspiracy theory i'm going to go into into provable facts right like you said so there's uh there's worldwide agendas right this is these are provable facts right they they have benchmarks that they need the countries to follow and they need their countries to do this is you know out there right and but sometimes if you work on those things you're probably neglecting the important things for your people the the things that your people are really asking for. I'll give you an example.
When we arrested the gang members that were killing so many people that we were the murder capital of the world, literally the most dangerous place in the whole world, more dangerous than Haiti, more dangerous than Iraq, this was literally the most dangerous country in the world. We have triple the the amount of the murder rate that Haiti has right now With all the mayhem that they have we have triple that here So what would we have to what do you have to do you have to stop that right? I Mean, it's like it's a no-brainer.
I mean, you have you don't have to admit you you you don don't even need to have a big thought process you just you have to stop that that's the first thing you have to do when we did when we did that we got huge condemnations you you name it say an organization we got a condemnation from them so and they were and they and a lot of them were human rights organizations.

And you would ask, what about the human right of a woman not to be raped?

I mean, what about the human right of kids to play or to be free or to go to the park?

And what about the human right to live?

Or the human right to walk in the street?

But no, they were worried about the human rights of the of the killers which you know they have human rights i don't say they don't they're humans but but if you have to prioritize what will you prioritize yes the human rights are the honest hard-working decent people not the not the not the human rights they do have but you won't prioritize the human rights of the honest, hardworking, decent people, not the human rights that they do have.

But you won't prioritize the human rights

of the killers and rapists and murderers.

And so we secured the country,

and we did it with no help from any other country

and with huge, huge condemnation

in everything that we were doing, everything.

I mean, we changed the attorney general. We got so much condemnation because we changed the attorney general that we need to change to prosecute the murderers.
So basically, they tried to block every step of what we were doing. And now,

the results are there.

They're tangible, measurable,

undeniable.

Now they don't know what to do.

Because a lot of other countries are saying,

a lot of other countries similar to ours,

they have similar problems,

they are saying maybe we should do that too. But they don't want that because that's not in their agenda.
But I guess that's why I came here to be totally honest is what your success says about the country that I live in or other countries in the hemisphere or in Europe where people are killed by the thousands every year. And what you've proven with very little money and no help from anyone else is it's not that hard to fix.
Therefore, all that killing must be a voluntary decision that my government and many other governments are making about their own citizens. You can make that logical.
Well, I don't know what other conclusion to reach. If El Salvador can do it, what's going on here? Yes, you can make that logical.
Well, I don't know what other conclusion to reach.

If El Salvador can do it, what's going on here?

Yes, you can make that logical conclusion.

I think that's probably what they are afraid of.

Because, I mean, we don't have weapons of mass destruction, right?

No.

So why are they afraid?

Why would they take so much time and make condemnations to El Salvador, right?

It doesn't make any sense.

You didn't send a man to the moon. Exactly.
So I think they're afraid of the example because a lot of people might say, hey, we want that too. If they can do it with no money, with very few resources and with a huge problem, because I heard some people say, oh, El Salvador could do it because the problem was not that big.
We're literally the murder capital of the world. How big can it, how big or can it get, right? We were literally the most dangerous place in the world.
Three times more dangerous than Haiti right now. So, I mean, what bigger can it, how bigger can the problem get? And at the same time, we had little, very few resources, and we were able to do it with no civilian casualties.
After we started the war on gangs, we had no civilian casualties. And we lost aid between police officers and soldiers.
And we basically eradicated all crime. So...
And we arrested 70, 70 000 gang members which the number is not a number that just came up that's the official number that all the organizations said we had of gang members and and and you can i mean you can watch the world bank reports etc they said well sabler has around 70 000 gang members collaborators. So we spared the collaborators, basically, and we only got the gang members.
Why? Because most of the collaborators were just, you know, family members or, you know, the woman that sold tortillas and she had to tell, oh, the police is coming because if not, she would probably have been killed by the gang. So most of the collaborators were not really criminals, but just people living in a society that was controlled by gangs.
The government was really, The real government was the gangs. So most of the collaborators were not really criminals, but just people living in a society that was controlled by gangs.
The government was really, the real government was the gangs. Just like in Haiti, you have a fake government and you have the real government.
The government in Haiti is the gangs. It was like that.
You had a formal government, of course, with offices and everything, but you have the real government in the territory, which were the gangs. So, I mean, and I know you want to stick to the facts, but I mean, at some point you do have to, I mean, this is a really important question.
Why would a government that has the means to end violent crime, not all, there's always going to be crime, people breaking laws, but violent crime, people murdering and raping each other is a voluntary decision that a government makes. Why would a government choose to have that? I don't know.
I don't know. I can make up theories, but I really don't.
But do you have a gut instinct about it? I think it's a combination of factors like everything. Yes.
They might be evil people that are doing it on purpose, of course, and probably planning stuff. I don't know.
Yes. Possible.
Yeah, yeah possibly at the same time there's a lot of people that they just being fed these ideologies and they think they're doing the right thing yeah like allowing allowing shoplifting for example that's the most stupid thing you can think of but they do it oh you don't allow shoplifting here no of course not so but you would think how why would anybody think allowing shoplifting lifting would be a good idea i don't know why why i mean that's this is stupidest thing to think right or giving away drugs i said this yes or giving away drugs let's give away drugs right it's like it's like very stupid things and you would you would guess that some

of the people doing and i mean enacting these policies are not necessarily evil they're just you know they've been fed this idea they think they're doing the right thing it's like i'll give you an example uh i think a month ago or something like that yeah like a month uh the spanish police arrested a Spanish police arrested a gang member that had fled El Salvador. So the gang member escaped, he flew, he went to Spain, and with an international operation between the police, our police and the Spanish police in Interpol, they were able to arrest the guy.
So in those cases, you need to do an extradition because it's an automatic international operation. So they just got the guy, process him and send him.
Yes. Send him to the original police for the file of the claim.
So the Spanish police was very proud of the arrest. So they put it up in Twitter.
So they said, we just arrested this gang. So I quoted the tweet and I said, great, send him, we'll take care of him, right? So that was used in his court hearing in Spain as a proof that he wouldn't get a fair trial here.

So he was protected by Spanish laws, and he stayed there in Spain. Maybe they don't have enough gang members in Spain.
Exactly. So, I mean, I don't care if they want to keep him.
It's a mouth that we don't have to feed. Have fun.
It's a mouth that we don't have to feed, right? But, so they can keep him. But the thing is that you would think why would why would this spanish government want a gang an extra gang member yes and it's not necessarily out of evil it's just that you know the laws the system the the things that are being fed to the to the judge to the prosecutor so they think that you know that my tweet was too mean and, you know, this gang member, his rights would be, you know, not respected.
He wouldn't get a fair trial in the sub-large, so he had to stay in Spain to be protected, you know. I mean, they know he's a killer.
They actually arrested him because of that. It was an international operation and everything.
They know he probably murdered dozens of people, but they feel the need to protect them. So what's sad about that is that that's a sign that your defense mechanism no longer works.
Yes. And that your society is dying.
Yes. And Spain is, in my opinion, a wonderful system.
Western civilization is reaching a point into it will start failing. I think that's obvious to those of us with great sadness, to those of us who live here.
Unless things are done, of course, you can always do stuff to see. So, okay, two part question.
Why do you think that's happening? Because it is recognizably happening in real time before us. And what can be done at this point to reverse it? Well, you know, everything erodes and degrades.
I mean, that's just a loss of nature. Yes.
I mean, we do. That's why we die.
We age and we die. Yes.
You can slow it, right? You can stay fit, die. Yeah.
You're eventually going to age and die. Yes.
You cannot avoid that. Same happens with anything infrastructure you know i had a

an argument with my at the beginning of the government i had an argument with a with my ministry of public works my minister of public works because there was a um there was this neighborhood that was built in an area that you shouldn't build things so there it was a a mountain almost, the soil was basically flour. So it was, you know, the mountain was falling and the houses were falling with the mountain.
So to save the people, the Ministry of Public Works started building a huge wall, you know, to stop the houses from falling, right? So they were building this huge wall you know to to to stop the houses from falling right so they they were building this huge wall and of course i can't micromanage everything so when i saw the wall being built i called my minister i said what are you doing i mean you won't stop the mountain and i said you should build let's build houses for for the people somewhere else it's it would be cheaper and you know he said no no the the wall will be what would be fine we have you know engineers from you know international corporation and everything it will be fine so they finished the wall they inaugurated thing it didn't fall don't worry don't the the way for that the way for that plot twist but i was i was still angry because i thought that it was a huge waste of money and and a lot of risk that if in the future the wall falls yes it'll be on us because we built it right of course so i i started pressuring him why do you build that well what do you build a well if the wall falls in the future it would be an hour it would be our fault and i thought he grew tired of me as depression he said well everything that is made by humans needs maintenance i mean of course if we just leave the wall there fall in 10 20 30 years but if we give maintenance to the wall the wall won't fall right so so that that is talking to me, not because of the wall itself, but because everything is like that. Yes.
In a relationship. Yes, that's right.
At home. I mean, everything.
I mean, your haircut. You need, if you want to maintain it, you need to spend time and resources and effort in maintaining it.
So, Western civilization, because, you know, civilization goes like this. Yes.
So, Western civilization reached the peak. I cannot point exactly where the peak is.
It's like timing the market, right? Yes. I'm going to buy in the bottom, and I'm going to sell at the top.
Nobody can do it, right? And so I don't know exactly where it was the peak,

but we can all agree that we're in the decline. Yes.
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www.merchantspaymentscoalition.com So that is happening because we're not maintaining, we're not giving the correct maintenance to the civilization. Why, what made the West the leader in the world at the time we're living right now? What caused that happen a lot of things like you know um importing the scientific process started you know developing science yes focusing you know putting a lot of money into art into science into trying to build the best things and then you know that's fastest and as best and as great as possible and you know importing wisdom and technology and trying to develop new technology and trying to you know but suddenly uh when you get wealthy happens with families too yes it does then people probably get spoiled or they get you know i want more

things i want i want that i want this you have to provide me that and you know politicians the

problem i mean democracy is great right we the us has proven that democracy can work

but the problem with democracy because everything has you know pros and cons

the problem with democracy is that politicians have a great incentive to offer, to give away the treasury. Yes.
So if I say, no, I'm going to keep the treasury, because we might need it for an emergency or something, nobody would like that. People would like, oh, I'm going to give away the treasury.
So they would vote for him. Then another politician, you know what? I'm going to give the treasury plus another treasury.
So we're going to go into that, right? Everybody will say, great, let's receive more money from the treasury. And when I say treasury, I mean, you know, anything.
Building stuff, you know, giving free stuff, sending checks to people. COVID relief.
Yeah, exactly. Getting stimulus, whatever.
So the politicians have the incentives of just giving away the treasury and entering huge amounts of debt. And that doesn't only destroy the structure of the government, but it also destroys the structure of society.
Because if you give, for example, money, if you don't work, I'll give you money. Or if you can shoplift $1,000 a day and still get some money from the government for food, you know, housing, why would you work? In that store, we shoplift it and probably get in trouble, right? So the incentives are wrong, but it's not only because, you know, there's, maybe they are, but I'm not going to go into conspiracy theories, but it's not only because there are evil politicians or evil people planning everything which might be the case but i won't go into that but just because things you know the incentives are wrong yes so even a even a normal not evil politician has the incentive to give away the treasury because he needs the votes i mean he needs to be elected that's what he needs right he needs the vote it's the nature of the system yes it's the nature of the system so the problem is that democracy works nobody can say it doesn't because it worked in the united states right but if you don't maintain if you don't give maintenance to the system it will fall like the wall if you don't give maintenance to it.
Because the same system will degrade itself. So what you're having right now is a huge erosion of Western civilization.
So we have governments pandering to their basis, to their ideology because they mobilized the vote or whatever, looking at what would happen in the election, what we can do to get more votes in the election. I don't want to get into US politics because it's not my, but...
So we have this huge voter group.

Let's give them something to get their vote.

Let's give them, I don't know, $100,000 each.

It makes sense, right? To get their votes.

But it doesn't make sense for a country.

I mean, why would you give $100,000 to each member of a voting group?

Right? It should be illegal.

But it's not because who makes the loss, right? It's the government.

Thank you. I mean, why would you give $100,000 to each member of a voting group? Right? It should be illegal.
But it's not because who makes the loss, right? It's the government. So the system is eroding.
And if maintenance, if the maintenance team doesn't go in and fix all the things that have been degrading the last 50, 70 years, it will, of course, it will eventually fall. So if the West doesn't continue to maintain its systems, which you have said, I think correctly, have worked really well for a couple hundred years, they will degrade just like anything else made by human hands.
If you don't maintain it, it will fall like your house. The question is, does anyone in the West, do its leaders have the will to fix the system that is clearly failing?

Do you think that will happen?

And if it doesn't, what is the message about democracy to the rest of the world?

Well, you know, the fun thing about anything, about any concept like democracy, is that it works until it doesn't, right? Right, that's right. It happened with monarchies, it happened with anything, right? They say things like, oh, you know, we have to separate religion from state.
It worked. It really worked.
But it also worked religion with the state at their time. Yes, very well.
Yes, very well, until it didn't. So the thing is that things work until they don't, right? So the problem is not democracy.
I mean, it's not the concept of democracy. The concept of democracy is great.
I mean, imagine the power of the people. Why would the people have the power to decide their own things? It's like the most, I mean, I really like the concept.
And it's not not a theoretical concept like communism right it works i mean democracy has been proven to work george washington could have been a king if he wanted to yes he'd been king george the first right yes but he decided well not he but you know the founding fathers decided that the u.s united States would be a democracy, right? And it worked. Nobody can say it didn't.
It worked. So the fact that democracy appears to not be working, I don't think it's because the concept doesn't work, like church separated from a state or church conjoined with the state.
Yes. It's just that things work until they don't so the problem i think is not the concept of democracy itself but the the state of the democracy of democracies in the world right now have we reached the end of the democratic i don't know but it's maybe the beginning of the end this if not if a huge maintenance team doesn't come and fix things it's like i this this is not about geopolitics or anything.
I'm not going to even mention the countries. But I saw, somebody showed me the 600 meter railway that was built in California.
And it cost like, I know, $15 billion or something like that to build the 600meter piece of railway that they were building. It's a lot per meter.
Yes. So, I mean, you cannot go on.
I mean, it's like obvious. It's like somebody eats too much, right? I mean, you can be a little fat, right? It's fine.
But then if somebody's morbidly fat, it's the time, somebody will come and say,

okay, I mean, you have to stop, right?

Because your heart can't take it anymore, right?

You have to stop.

Or somebody that drinks, I don't drink,

but if somebody drinks, doctor might say,

you know, your liver, your liver can't take that anymore.

Look at your liver, how it is right now.

Or the lungs for smoke or whatever when you see things like that 600 meters of railway 15 billion dollars 10 years there's no other possible diagnosis I mean you have to stop that fast now fast now. Because if not, I mean, the decline is inevitable.
It's inevitable. I mean, it's already there.
It's not like, you know, I'm telling you, I foresee. No, no, I mean, it's there.
I mean, it's $15 billion to make a 600-meter piece of rail that's not even working in 10 years. The Empire State was built in a year one year they built the empire state that's where things were working right i don't know how were things back then i don't know but they built the empire state in one year what happened with the world trade center freedom tower that was changed the name that later to world trade center How long did it take? Forever.
Yeah. And it was, you know, the whole country united to build it.
There was no budgetary. I mean, I know it was private, but it was no, if it needed budgetary, it was not a problem of budget or investors willing to pour money on it or engineers.
I mean, why would it take over a decade to build something that was so significant for the whole country i mean you could build the tallest building in the world you didn't you could have built the tallest building in the world and said okay we're coming back bigger and stronger we're going to build you know you yeah we got a hit but now we're going to build back better and strong build back better and stronger. And build it, you know, two-mile-high skyscraper.
I'm not a fan of two-mile-high skyscrapers, but, you know, you could have done that. I mean, you have the money, you have the resources, you have the engineers, you have the market.
Because if I built a, you know, a mile skyscraper, I can't fill with offices because I don't have enough market to fill with residences and offices or whatever. You do have the market in New York to build offices and you want hotel rooms.
I mean, it would fill like this. But you didn't.
You took over a decade to build a very unimpressive building. So, and that was 23 years ago yes now you're building 600 meter railways with 15 billion dollars

so how long did it take to build to rebuild the baltimore bridge

should take a year how long would it take here here yeah a year two years

Thank you. the Baltimore Bridge.
It should take a year. How long would it take here? Here? Yeah.
A year. Two years.
And we're a small, poor country. I mean, we're one of the poorest nations in the world, right? I know.
That's why this is so shameful and interesting. Yeah.
I mean, the U.S. has some...
They have still unlimited amounts of resources because you can just print money, right?

That's another topic, but you can just print, whatever, how much it's worth? I mean, you want to do it, but we want to build it made of gold. I mean, you can do anything, right? You just, how much is it? Do it.
So that sounds like a systemic failure. It doesn't sound like.
It's a systemic failure. Yeah.
So what you're describing maybe can't be, you know, maybe that's something that you like have to level and rebuild or something. Maybe that's beyond maintenance.
I don't know. What is the answer to that? I don't know, but you need leadership.
But I'll tell you something. If you see the mess that we were living here.
Yes. It's a bigger mess than what you have over there.
Yeah. So.
Oh, yeah. I mean, so, well, just the fact that a third of our population fled the country.
I know. And went to the United States.
I know. Gives you an example that the mess we were living here, and that we still have in other areas, not safety, we're the safest country in the Western Hemisphere, but we have problems in other areas, like the economy, for example.
Yeah. But our problems were bigger than your problems in relative sizes.
So you said that... So if you can fix a mess like this in the US with a limited amount of wealth, with scientists, innovation, like no other country in the world.
Still, the innovation is coming from the US. It's more than any other country still, right? Even not because of the government, but still it has the best innovators ai for sure i mean anything so you still have the best innovators you still have the biggest companies you still have the biggest the world reserve currency the biggest biggest wealth, the biggest GDP, the availability to hire talent from anywhere.
You can bring whatever talent you need to fix any gaps. You can pick any, you get it.
You get what you want want you still can get what you want you can't get attacked because you're you're too far away you're too far away from anyone that wants to attack you because mexico or canada are not going to attack the us so your enemies are too far away and you still have the biggest army um maybe some forces so biggest energy reserves yes and yeah and and the us like like russia they were built as superpowers so it's not like uh for example if you see the economy the economy in spain it's very good it's a robust economy it big g7 yeah but they are like uh uh how do you call

how you say in english turon nugget they sell nugget right yeah or they sell iberic ham yeah

so it's very good expensive but you don't actually need that. Right.
Luxury goods. Luxury goods.
So if you sanction Spain, you'll break their economy. But if you sanction Russia, you can't break Russia.
Because they are built as a superpower. Yes.
So they have wheat, they have energy, they have natural gas, oil.

Because they were built like that.

Industrial capacity.

Industrial capacity, factories, workers.

So the U.S. is like that too.

It was built as a superpower.

So you have wheat, you have corn,

you have workers, you have blue-collar workers,

you have trained, skilled factory workers,

you have colleges, you have universities,

you have a school system,

you have infrastructure, you have cities, you have a school system, you have infrastructure,

you have cities, tourism, the Mississippi River. I mean, you have everything.
You have ships, you have warehouses, agriculture, fertile lands. What you didn't have before you got, right you took from you know you know, Mexico or whatever.
So the U.S. was built to be a superpower, right? Acquire land, acquire fertile lands, acquire...
I mean, Texas was part of Mexico, but it's part of the U.S. and you have all the oil there.
So, I mean, and then you have California. I mean, the U.S.
is built as a superpower. So the U.S.
has everything to go on for a thousand years. It's not like it's doomed to fail.
But apparently the leaders, or most of them, you have probably very good leaders, but most of the leaders, they are not seeing. Either they are evil, or this is not, you know, conspiracy theory, it's just the options you have.
Either they're evil and they want to destroy the U.S. because of some evil reason or they're puppets and they are being handled by people that need the U.S.
to be destroyed for some reason. Or they're incompetent and they're just doing wrong stuff because they're not capable of doing the right stuff.
Or, sorry I said three, but the incentives, right? I mean, changing a country and changing a lot of things that are badly done probably will anger some people, right? Some groups, some lobbies, some interests. I mean, if you say, okay, we're gonna stop the railway that's costing us $15 billion per 600 meter, a lot of companies will be angry, a lot of, I don't know, mayors.
I mean, you have a system that needs to be handled. And that needs leadership, and it needs a clear mandate that is probably a little hard to get in the U.S.
because of the opposite views and the bipartisanship. But you need to do it.
Well, ultimately, as you well know, since you've succeeded in it so thumpingly, the instrument for all of that is the ballot, is the election itself. Like how many votes do you

get? That's your mandate. But I think there is a sense among a lot of non-conspiracy minded voters

in the United States that that part of the system is itself corrupt. Yes.
And that it is actually

hard to affect change through voting because it's rigged. I've got to say almost everyone on our

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So with that in mind, do you think Trump, he's ahead in the polls, do you think he can get elected? Well, yes, yes, he can get elected. I'll give you an example.
We, in 2019, the system was totally rigged. I mean, they canceled our party.
I mean, we were running with a party, and they canceled it. I mean, they annulled our party.
So I stayed, I was party-less. So we went to a small party and said, you don't have any candidates, you're very small.
Do you want to win the election? So we got that party registration and they canceled that party. And they canceled that party in the last day that you can file the candidacies.
So we got a medium-sized party at 11 p.m. and we were able to file our candidacy.
So it was not like it was easy or the system wasn't rigged, it was just so fair that we put up our proposals and the people just voted. It was very hard to win.

And then when we won, we even didn't have simultaneous parliamentary elections.

We actually went to the executive branch, totally opposed to the legislative branch and the judicial branch.

So they controlled the Supreme Court and they controlled 90% of the legislative branch and the judicial branch so they control the supreme court and they

control 90 of the legislative body so i had to veto everything and they override my vetoes and they enacted they approved over 70 laws that i veto yes and everything that we do supreme course unconstitutional, unconstitutional. Yeah.
So we went to the people and said, you know, we cannot work like this. We need a majority in Congress.
We need a huge majority in Congress because we not only need to approve laws, we need to get all these people out. And the only way to get it out democratically and respecting the rules of the system is that we get a huge immense majority in congress right because congress can fire anybody even the president yes so people gave us the huge majority and was hard because they controlled they still control the electoral tribunal as of today that's why our election was recognized by all the countries in the world because they know the electoral tribunal is controlled by the opposition still it's the only thing that control is the only thing and we have we have we have a little like that so you know that validates and legitimizes everything else so they but the thing is that in 2021 when we went to when we went to congressional elections we carried a super majority that they say they said it was impossible because the system was designed so you cannot get a supermajority.
But we got it. We got more than that.
And then with that supermajority, there is an article in the Constitution that allows the supermajority in Congress to fire the Supreme Court justices. So our party fired the Supreme Court justices

when they got the majority.

They fired the attorney general,

which I couldn't, I mean, the states,

the president appoints the attorney general.

Here is Congress.

Congress elects attorney general.

Congress fires the attorney general.

But you need two thirds of Congress

to fire an attorney general.

So we got 75% of Congress. But you stayed within the rules the whole time.
We have never not respected a single rule. That's also a narrative that they want to put.
They cannot point out a single thing that was done by not respecting the rules that were written by them. Because the rules are written by people.
It's not like, oh, these rules were, you know, these rules are not given by God. These rules were written by people.
But still, we respected all the rules that were written by them. And, yeah, we got a...
I just saw an interview that the president of Costa Rica gave in Costa Rica. because he came also, like many other world leaders, he came to the inauguration.
So they asked him over there in Costa Rica, and they said, but do you think that Bukele is doing things that are not within the constitutional limits that he has? And this interview is the same rules today earlier and president of Costa Rica said well in a in a soccer game Or in football game you have the rules and you have the score right and The rules are made So the score, you know, will be like that. But sometimes you get a super score in one side, right? So are you angry at the rules or are you angry at the score? Because the president of El Salvador, the only thing he can be criticized for is to getting a huge score in his favor with the rules of the game that they lay out for him.
So, yes. But it was enormously disruptive to the people who ran the country before you, obviously.
Of course. Obviously, yeah.
Did you ever worry they would try and put you in jail? Well, they did. Even when I was president.
I mean, even already in the presidency, they tried to impeach me. There's an article in the Constitution that says Congress can actually fire the president if he's not fit to lead.
So they say that I wasn't fit to lead, and and they tried to impeach me because of that.

But there was such a, I mean, the people were like, they feared that the people would rise up against them or something. It's a fair concern given your majority.
Exactly. What advice would you give to another former democratically elected leader seeking office who is facing jail time? Anyone.
I mean, if there was a way to stop the candidacy, then he's probably in trouble. But if there's no way to stop him from competing in the election, all the things that they do to him will just give him more votes.
That seems to be happening. Yes.
I mean, either you stop the candidacy or you let him be. But just, you know, hitting him with, you're making the greatest campaign ever.
I mean.

Do you think they know that?

Some of them, yeah. I think some of them do.
But of course, the ones that don't or they think that, you know, that's their problem with endogamous groups, right? Because they all, you know, yeah, it's so great. Yeah, let's do it.
And, you know, they're making a huge mistake. Huge mistake.
Huge mistake. If you're a country like El Salvador, really any other country in the hemisphere, including Canada, your eyes are on the United States because it's the dominant power.
Yes. Obviously.
But it puts you in a weird position if you're being criticized from the United States. So there's a congressman from Massachusetts, a pro-communist congressman called Jim McGovern, literally pro-communist, not an attack, just an observation, who attacked you the other day for daring to move a painting of Oscar Romero as a Catholic priest who was murdered here more than 40 years ago in your airport, I think.
Yeah. What did you make of that? It seemed like a pretty minute criticism, pretty small.
And we actually moved it to a nicer place in front. It's not like, you know, we moved it from a very nice place and we put it in some warehouse or whatever, someplace that nobody would see.
that nobody would see. But what if you did? It's your country now.
Of course, of course. But you can make the case as an art connoisseur that he didn't like, you know, the place we put the painting.
But the fact that he protested or he expressed his concern, his deep concern on Twitter and not, you know, call. If he would have called here and said and said hey do you move the painting they were thought no no it's right here mr congressman uh so of course he can even he can even come and see it for himself but of course he was doing an attack right so but it backfired because uh first the the painting was right in front yeah, just to move the camera, it was on the other side.
So it was, you know, he misfired. But also the fact that a U.S.
congressman is trying to micromanage where art is being displaced,

is being displayed in another country. Just, you know, gives you an example of how out of touch they are.
Feels like colonialism to me a little bit. Yes, yes.
And it comes from the Democratic Party, which you would guess. The anti-colonial party.
Yes but you know at the end it's like you know sometimes sometimes

the guy that's

called racist

is not really

the racist

right

the guy that is called

you know

the you know

colonialist

is not really

the colonialist

right

sometimes

it's weird

how narratives

work sometimes

are you getting

a lot of Americans

moving here

yes

yes

I mean

probably in numbers

it won't be

significant to you

but yes

we

you can see it. I mean, you can see it everywhere.
And we're also getting something that's very meaningful to us is that we're getting a lot of our diaspora, a lot of our immigrants, the people that emigrate al Zabler because of the war or because of the gangs or because of the economical issues that have always happened here, a lot of them are coming back. And there's a study made that the IOM and USAID, sorry, I'll send you the link.
Yes. There's a study made by the IOM and the USAID that says that 62% of Salvadorans living in the United States want to come back to live here.
Amazing. 62%.
And 18% are already making plans to come. That's over half a million Salvadorans coming back.
So that's super significant because, I mean, we expelled them from their homes, right? Because of crime, because of a war,

because of lack of opportunities.

And the fact that they're coming back

is the biggest proof that we're doing things the right way.

We have a long way to go,

but we're doing things the right way.

So after...

So we have a lot of Americans,

American-born Americans coming,

but we have also a lot of Salvadoran Americans with American citizenships coming here. Do you have the space? Well, it has created a housing bubble because, you know, we don't produce as much houses that are being bought right now.
But that would create a temporary problem, which is the housing bubble. But then, which is not actually a bubble, it's just, you know, the offer and...
Yes, the offer and yes finding its own level yeah so now of course construction companies know that they the amount of houses they will build it will they will they will they will sell them so construction has become 20 of our gdp and it's growing so this is going to be a huge construction boom and they have the client so it's not built in a bubble or speculation. But it feels like a bubble, but it's built in people coming back home.
Has any other head of state called you for advice on how to improve this country? Yes, yes, yes. Yeah, several.
Some of them have said it in public, of course. And we have meetings, mostly security issues.
We're talking with a lot of latin american leaders they have come they have sent their security ministers to meet here with our security ministers they have uh send people to see our jail jail system because sometimes people see our jail system and they try to compare to the united states jail system and say oh look they mean they don't have gyms they don't have netflix you know but but you compare the Salvador's jail system with the U.S. jail system.
You should compare Salvador's jail system with Latin American jail systems. So if you go and see most of Latin American countries, the jails are run by the gangs.
Yes, as they were here. I remember that.
Yes, they run. They had parties, prostitutes, strippers.
It was autonomous here.

I mean, you had to get their permission to go in.

Yes, you had to get the permission to go in.

They only had permission to get in food, medicine,

but they controlled the jails, not only in the South,

but they do it in most of the Latin American countries.

So gangsters or narcos, they will control the jails, right?

It's their operation.

They even go out and back and get back, yes. So we totally control that.
And we have 100% control in our jail system. So Latin American countries look to our jail system to see if they can fix their own.
So we do a lot of cooperation in security issues, jails, army, training.

Do you know of-

Even more powerful in bigger countries, of course, in that environment.

Have you ever, you know a lot of heads of state because you are one, have you ever met a head of

state who when faced with a serious problem, a threat to his own country, would, in the middle of a cabinet meeting, pause and say a prayer? I don't recall, but yeah, probably. Do you know anyone who would do that, do you think? Yes, probably, probably.
I don't recall right now, but I cannot. No, but that's just so far from the mindset of any leader I've ever interviewed.
Anyone who would admit, I'm not sure what to do, let's ask God. Yeah, probably not that common, but yeah.
I would guess some leaders do it. How long do you plan to stay president? Yeah, five years.
Five years. That's as much as the Constitution allows me to.

Thank you for talking to us.

Thank you, Tucker.

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