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

Episode Date: June 6, 2024

Nayib Bukele is the 43rd President of El Salvador. He was re-elected in February 2024 with 85% of the vote. (00:00) President Bukele on his Inauguration (16:55) Number One Priority: Seeking God's Wisdom (25:14) Why Can't Biden and Other Western Leaders End Crime? (58:50) Legal Attacks on President Trump Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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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, you know, 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.

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 that started as a Republican delegation, but then the Democrats jumped in the wagon and we had a bipartisan delegation from Congress. So, you know, it's like, so it's tough. I don't know at the end what happened, but I think that it's like, it's like uh so it's up i i don't know at the end what happened but i think that it's like it's like how a star you know how stars are born they say that you know debris it starts joining up and it and if they be they become an asteroid but if more debris joins up it becomes

a planet because the you know the gravitational pull the more debris comes up it becomes a planet because, you know, the gravitational pull. The more the debris comes up, it becomes a star because then the gravitational pull is too big. So that's called critical mass. So I don't know. Sometimes just, you know, because, you know, God wants it like that or just by stroke of luck or whatever, 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. 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. With a dense population, a lot of people packed in. 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, right? 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 all the other things, like infrastructure,

wealth, well-being, quality of life. But you have to start with peace. 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, if I would have said that five years ago, they would have said that I was crazy, right?

Yes. Because this was literally the most dangerous country in the whole world. Your capital is now safer than our capital in Washington. Yes, yes. A lot safer. And the country is safer than the United States as a whole. Yes. The U.S. murder rate is around six murders per 100,000 inhabitants, and our murder rate is two.

So we're safer than Canada, safer than Chile, safer than the Euro-wide, safer than the US, safer than any country in the Western hemisphere. There are countries in the other hemisphere that are safer than El Salvador, but not in the Western hemisphere. So you did that in just a couple of years? Yes, we did that in 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 it's not that when I say official and I mean it's a lie it's just you know the official one. We did a plan that it was comprised of phases so we roll up the first phase, then the next one, then the next one. And then gangs started attacking back. So we had to roll up everything at once, like in a hurry. And it worked. It worked. In a couple of weeks, the country was transformed because the gangs were not yet arrested, but they were on the run.

So 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, you know, useful guns or vehicles, drones,

basic things that an operation of that magnitude would need. So, yeah, we rolled up the faces, and then we went after them. Okay, so that's the official. Yeah, 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. You know, when gangs started attacking us back, basically, they killed 87 people in three days, which for a country of 6 million people, it's crazy. It would be the equivalent of having 5,000 deaths,

5,000 murders in the U.S. in three days. Wow. Yeah. So000 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, you know, what was happening and trying to figure out what to do because the problem with the gangs is that 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 care about their grandma,

so it's your victim. If they kill their grandma, you have 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 working in the street, a taxi driver, you know, they can kill anybody. 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 that? So we really tried to figure out what to do. And I basically

said, well, I mean, we're looking into an impossible mission here. So we prayed. And 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.

Almost every security cabinet are believers. They all believe in God. We're a secular country, of course, but we all believe in God. MS-13 is one of the major gangs. And they are satanic also. That was my question. 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 US, 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 mission 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 exporting the organization to other parts of the U.S. And when Bill Clinton decided to deport those guys, he didn't tell our government at the time, I'm deporting these criminals. They just, you know, send them here.

And they came. They 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 at the beginning was some youth causing harm, assaulting, trying to control their territories, selling drugs, things that are bad, but 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 US. Basically a lot of major cities in the US will have strongholds of-

Right outside Washington, DC. Yes, of course. You have in Long Island and L.A. It's a huge criminal international organization. So they grew and they started, you know, killing more people 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 started, but it was well documented. Yes. And we, in our arrest, we've even found the authors 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 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, 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,

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 leave the gang he said well because I was used to kill I was used to kill people

but I killed for territory I killed for to collect money I killed for territory, I killed to collect money, I killed for extortion, but I came 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 gonna kill that baby?

And they told him, because the beast asked for a baby, so we have to give him the 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 going to kill a young girl or they killed a young girl. I don't exactly remember because it was a satanic ritual.

It happened in the U.S. a couple of weeks ago. You may have come to the obvious conclusion that the real debate is not between Republican and Democrat or socialist and capitalist, right, left. The real battle is between people who are lying on purpose and people who are trying to tell you the truth. It's between good and evil. It's between honesty and falsehood. And we hope we are on the former side. That's why we created this network,

the Tucker Carlson Network. And we invite you to subscribe to it. You go to tuckercarCarlson.com slash podcast. Our entire archive is there. A lot of behind the scenes footage of what actually happens in this barn when only an iPhone is running. TuckerCarlson.com slash podcast. You will not regret it. 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 the unofficial version. If you win the spiritual war, it will reflect into the physical war. So I think our... I don't know what I would 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 on 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 the first point of my plan is seek God's wisdom yes that is what you said

yeah I said that yeah why why would that be the first point of an economic why wouldn't it be what should be the first part of the well I think it should be yeah but I can't most people will 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. 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? So 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 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, there's, I'm not going to go into conspiracy theory. I'm going to go into provable facts, right? Like you said. So there's worldwide agendas, right? These are provable facts, right? They have benchmarks that they need the countries to follow and they need the countries to do. This is out there, right? But sometimes if you work on those things, you're probably neglecting the important things for your people, 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 much 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 tripled the murder rate that Haiti has right now. With all the mayhem that they have, we have tripled that here. So what do you have to do? You have to stop that, right? I mean, it's a no-brainer. I mean, you don't even need to have a big thought process. You just have to stop that.

That's the first thing you have to do. When we did that, we got huge condemnations. You name it. Say an organization, we got a condemnation from them. So, and they were, and a lot of them were human rights organizations. And you would ask, what about the human right for women 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? Right? And, but no, they were worried about the human rights of the killers, which they have human rights. I don't say they don't, they're humans. But if you have to prioritize, what will you 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. 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, it's that the results are there that it's you know they're tangible measurable undeniable now they they don't know what to do because a lot of other countries are saying maybe 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 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, the Salvador could do it because the problem was not that big. I'm like, we're literally the murder capital of the world. How big can it, how bigger 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 eight between police officers and soldiers. And we basically eradicated all crime. And we arrested 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 you can watch the World Bank reports, et cetera. They said, El Salvador has around 70,000 gang members and 500,000 collaborators. So we spared the collaborators, basically, and we only got the gang members. Why? Because most of the collaborators were just family members, or the woman that sell 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 real government was the gangs, just like in Haiti. You have a fake government, 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. Yes. Is a voluntary decision that a government makes. Why would a government choose to have that?

I don't know. I don't, I don't know. I don't know. I can make up theories, but I really don't know. 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, 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. Yes. Like allowing shoplifting, for example. That's the most stupid thing you can think of, but they do it. Oh, you don't know how shoplifting here? No, of course not. So, but you would think how, why would anybody think allowing shoplifting would be a good idea?

I don't know. Why? I mean, that's the stupidest thing to think, right? Or giving away drugs. I said this in my interview. Or giving away drugs. Let's give away drugs. It's like very stupid things.

And you would guess that some of the people enacting 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. I think a month ago or something like that, yeah, like a month, the 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 get the guy, process him, and send him to the original police where they filed 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 member. So I quoted the tweet and I said, great, send him, we'll take care of him. 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, right? But, so they can keep him. But the thing is that you would think, why would the Spanish government want an extra gang member? Yes. And it's not necessarily out of evil. It's just that, you know, the laws, the system, the things that are being fed 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 were not respected. He wouldn't get a fair trial in El Salvador, so he had to stay in Spain to be protected. 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 civilization. Western civilization is reaching a point into it. 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.

I mean, you're eventually going to age and die. Yes. You cannot avoid that. Same happens with anything, infrastructure. You know, I had an argument with my, at the beginning of the government, I had an argument with my ministry of public works, my minister of public works, because there was this neighborhood that was built in an area that you shouldn't build things there. It was 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, 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, let's build houses for the people somewhere else, it would be cheaper. He said, no, no, the wall will be fine. We have engineers from international corporations and everything. It will be fine. So they finished the wall. They inaugurated the thing. It didn't fall.

Don't worry. Don't wait for that plot twist. But I was still angry because I thought that it was a huge waste of money and a lot of risk. That if in the future the wall falls, it will be on us because we built it. Of course. So I started pressuring him. Why do you build that wall? What do you build that wall?

If the wall falls in the future, it would be our fault. And I thought he grew tired of me. He was, and he said, well, everything that is made by humans needs maintenance. I mean, of course, if we just leave the wall there, it'll fall in 10, 20, 30 years. But if we give maintenance to the wall, the wall won't fall, right? So that is stuck on me, not because of the wall itself, but because everything is like that. Yes.

In a relationship. Yes, that's right. At a plant, at home. I mean, everything. I mean, your haircut. 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 that, right? And so I don't know exactly where was the peak, but we can all agree that we're in the decline. Yes.

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Take control of your life. Protect your family. Be prepared. Go to AmmoSquared.com to learn more. 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 to happen?

A lot of things, like, you know, importing the scientific process, started developing science, focusing, putting a lot of money into art, into science, into trying to build the best things and the fastest and as best and as great as possible. And importing wisdom and technology and trying to develop new technology and trying to, you know.

But suddenly, 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 that. I want this. You have to provide me that. And you know, politicians, the problem, I mean, democracy is great, right?

The U.S. has proven that democracy can work. But the problem with democracy, because everything has 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 gonna keep the treasury, because we might need it for an emergency or something, nobody would like that. People would be like, oh, I'm gonna give away the treasury. So they would vote for him. Then another politician would go, you know what? I'm gonna give the treasury plus another treasury.

So we're going to go into debt, right? Everybody would say, great, let's receive more money from the treasury. And when I say treasury, I mean anything. Building stuff, 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 destroys the structure of the government, but it also destroys the structure of society. Because if you give, for example, money, okay, if you don't work, I'll give you money, right? 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 that will be shoplifted

and probably get in trouble, right? So the incentives are wrong, but it's not only because there's, maybe they are, but I'm not gonna go into conspiracy theories, but it's not only because they were 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 to 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 mobilize 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 U.S. politics because it's not my, but. So we had this, 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? It should be illegal, but it's not because who makes the laws? It's the government. So the system is eroding, and if the maintenance team doesn't go in and fix all the things that have been degrading the last 50, 70 years, 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, 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 only 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. He could have been King George I, right? But he decided, well, not he, but the founding fathers decided that the US and 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 a church conjoined with the state. It's just that things work until they don't. So the problem, I think, is not the concept

of democracy itself, but the state of the democracy, of democracies in the world right now. Have we reached the end of the democratic period? I don't know, but it's maybe the beginning of the end, if not, if a huge maintenance team doesn't come and fix things. It's like, 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 don't know, $15 billion or

something like that to build a 600-meter 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, 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, 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 meter of railway,

$15 billion, 10 years. There's no other possible diagnosis. I mean, you have to stop that path 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, 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 railroad that's not even working in 10 years. The Empire State was built in a year, one year. They built the Empire State. Things were working, right? I don't know how were things back then. But they built the Empire State in Things were working, right? I don't know how were things back then, but they built the Empire State in one year. What happened with the World Trade Center Freedom Tower that was changed name later to World Trade Center? How long did it take? Forever.

Yeah. And it was 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... Yeah, we got ahead, but now we're going to build back better and stronger, build back better and stronger, right, or whatever, and build it two mile high skyscraper. I'm not a fan of two mile high skyscrapers, but 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 mile skyscraper, I can't fill with offices because I don't have enough of 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 feel 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. So how long did it take to rebuild 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 US has some, they have still unlimited amounts of resources because you can just bring money, right? That's another topic, but you can just bring whatever, how much it's worth. I mean, would you want to do it, but we want to build it made of gold. I mean, you can do anything, right? 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, 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, uh, well you need leadership, but I, 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 that, you know, not safety. We're the safest country in the Western Hemisphere. But we have problems in other areas, like the economy, for example. Yeah. So, but our problems were bigger than your problems in relative sizes. So you said that you... So you can, if you can, I mean, if you can fix a mess like this with, in the US with a limited amount of wealth with

you know 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 you know it still it has the best innovators

AI for sure I mean anything so you still have 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 world reserve currency, the 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, you still

can get what you want. You can't get attacked because 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, the biggest armed forces. Biggest energy reserves. Yes. And the U.S., like Russia, they were built as superpowers. So it's not like, for example, if you see the economy in Spain, it's very good. It's a robust economy. It's big. G7.

Yeah. But they are like, how do you call, how do you say in English, turron, 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 will 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 a natural gas, oil. Yes. Because they were built like that. Industrial capacity. Industrial capacity, factories, you know, 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, 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 Mexico or whatever.

So the U.S. was built to be a superpower, right? Acquire land, acquire fertile lands. I mean, Texas was part to be a superpower, right? Acquire land, acquire fertile lands, acquire... I mean, Texas was part of Mexico, but it's part of the US and you have all the oil there. And then you have California. I mean, the US is built as a superpower. So the US 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, a conspiracy theory, it's just, you know, the options you have. Either they're evil, and they want to destroy the U. the US because of some evil reason, or they're puppets and they are being handled by people that need the US 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 going to stop the railway that's costing us $15 billion per 600 meters, a lot of companies will be angry, a lot of mayors.

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 US 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. 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. Your identity is constantly under attack.

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We in 2019, the system was totally rigged. I mean, they canceled our party. I mean, we were running with the 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 just, you know, we put up our proposals and the people just voted. It was very hard to win. And then when we won, we, since 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 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 approved over 70 laws that I veto. Yes. And everything that we do, Supreme Court, is unconstitutional, unconstitutional, unconstitutional. Yeah. So we went to the people and said, no, 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 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 if 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 it 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 controls that.

It's the only thing. And we have liberal ed. So that validates and legitimizes everything else. But the thing is that in 2021, 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 super majority.

But we got it, we got it, we've got more than that. And then we, with that super majority, 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 selects the 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... 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 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 like doing things that are not within the constitutional limits that he has? And there's this interview today, earlier, and President of Costa Rica said, well, in a soccer game or in a 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 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 being already in the presidency, they tried to impeach me. They say I wasn't... 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 they were, 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 like,

you know, 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, just if there was. 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 hitting him with, you're making the greatest campaign ever. 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 the problem with endogamous groups, right? Because they all, you know, yeah, so great.

Yeah, let's do it. And, you know, they're making a huge mistake. Huge, huge mistake. Huge, huge mistake. If you're a country like El Salvador or really any other country in the hemisphere, including Canada, your eyes are on the United States because it's the dominant power, 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, 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 we moved it from a very nice place

and we put it in some warehouse or whatever, some place that nobody wants to see. But what if you did? It's your country now. Oh, of course, of course. What? But you can make the case as an art connoisseur that he didn't like the place we put the painting.

But the fact that he protested or he expressed his deep concern on Twitter and not, you know, call. If he would have called here and said, hey, do you move the painting? They would have said, no, no, it's right here, Mr. Congressman. So, of course, he can even come and see it for himself. But, of course, he was doing an attack, right? So, but it backfired because first the painting was right in front. So yeah, just to move the camera, it was, you know, he misfired, but also the fact that a U.S. congressman is trying to micromanage where art 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, yeah. But at the end, it's like sometimes the guy that's called racist is not really the racist.

The guy that is called the colonialist is not really the colonialist. Sometimes it's weird how narratives work sometimes. So the guy that is called the colonialist is not really the colonialist. 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, 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 El Sabler because of the war, 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 by 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, I mean, 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. 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 citizenship coming here. Do you have the space?

Well, it has created a housing bubble because 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 the offer and- Yes, finding its own level, yeah. So now, of course, construction companies know

that the amount of houses they will build, 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 clients, 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, 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 sent people to see our jail system. Because sometimes people see our jail system and they try to compare it to the United our jail system. Because sometimes people see our jail system and they try to compare it to the United States jail system. They say, oh, look, they don't have gyms.

They don't have Netflix. But you shouldn't compare El Salvador's jail system with the U.S. jail system. You should compare El 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. As they were here, I remember that.

Yes, they were under, they had parties, prostitutes, strippers. It was autonomous here. I mean, you had to get their permission to go in. Yes, you have 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 suburbs, they do it in most of the Latin American countries. So gangsters or narcos, they will control the jails, not only in the suburbs, they do it in most of the Latin American countries. So gangsters or narcos, they will control the jails, right? Their operation, they even go out and back and get back.

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. Even more powerful in bigger countries,

of course, in Latin America. 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, 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 say. 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. Thanks for listening to Tucker Carlson Show. If you enjoyed it, you can go to TuckerCarlson.com to see everything that we have made.

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