Thread by @VigilantFox

El Salvador’s President Issues the Ultimate Challenge to Trump

He dropped a line so good, President Trump asked if he could steal it.

🧵 THREAD

📍Before we dive in, make sure to bookmark the post above. You’ll want to remember this moment in history.

Now, on to the clips…

It started with a visit to the White House.

El Salvador’s President, Nayib Bukele, wasn’t there for handshakes and headlines—he came with a message.

Looking President Trump dead in the eye, he issued this challenge:

“You have 350 million people to liberate.”

This wasn’t tough talk. It was backed by results.

“We turned the murder capital of the world—that’s what the journalists called it—into the safest country in the western hemisphere,” Bukele said.

Critics have attacked his mass arrests, but Bukele flipped the script:

“Sometimes they say we imprisoned thousands. I like to say we liberated millions.”

Trump couldn’t help but smile:

“That’s very good! Who gave him that line? Do you think I can use that?”

Bukele didn’t stop there. He got to the core of the crisis:

“To liberate 350 million people, you have to imprison some. That’s the way it works, right? You can’t just free the criminals and think crime’s going to go down magically. You have to imprison them—so you can liberate 350 million Americans asking for the end of crime and the end of terrorism.”

No spin. No fluff. Just facts.

And America is finally ready to listen.

Then Trump spelled out the scale of Biden’s betrayal at the border.

Face to face with Bukele, he didn’t mince words:

“We had a terrible thing happen,” Trump began.

“We had an administration that allowed people to come in freely into our country from not only South America, but from all over the world—many from the Congo, in Africa, Asia, all over the world, Europe, rough parts of Europe.”

Then came the bombshell:

“They came from prisons and they came from mental institutions, and they came from gangs—the gangs of Venezuela and other places—and hundreds of thousands and even millions of them came.”

The total? Shocking.

“21 million people all together. But many of the people that came, just a tremendous percentage of them were criminals—and in some cases, violent criminals.”

And the consequences?

“We had 11,088 known murderers, half of them murdered more than one person.”

Trump made it clear who’s responsible:

“This was allowed by a man who—what he did to our country is just unbelievable.”
But he’s not giving up.

“So we’re straightening it out. We’re getting them out. But what they did—and what that party did—to our country: open borders, anybody could come in.”

He saw it coming from day one.

“As soon as I heard that, I said, every prison is going to be emptied out into our country. That’s what happened.”

This was the moment the media didn’t expect.

Trump and Bukele joined forces to torch the mainstream media’s silence on the border success—and CNN caught the heat.

Bukele opened the exchange:

“Actually, what you’re doing with the border is remarkable. It has dropped, what, 95%? It’s incredible.”

Trump jumped in to set the record straight:

“As of this morning, 99%, 99.1%, to be exact.”

Then Bukele asked the obvious question:

“Why are those numbers not in the media?”

Trump didn’t hold back:

“Well, they get out, but the fake news, you know, like CNN, CNN over here doesn’t want to put them out because they don’t like—they don’t like putting out good numbers—because I think they hate our country. Actually.”

He looked right at the press:

“But it’s a shame. You’re right. Isn’t that a great question? Why doesn’t the media, why don’t they put out numbers?”

Bukele closed it with a final blow:

“Yeah! 99%? I mean, it’s crazy, right? It’s a crazy turnaround!”

Even the Director of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem, stepped in to confirm it:

“You know, it's just been absolutely phenomenal what a great leader can do.”

She credited Bukele’s partnership and the return of law and order:

“Clear direction. Our laws matter. We should only have people in our country that love us.”

And she made the mission clear:

“Now we just need to get the criminals and murderers and rapists and dangerous gang members and terrorist organizations out of our country.”

Then, directly to Bukele:

“Mr. President Bukele, we thank you very much for your partnership... It has been wonderful for us to be able to have somewhere to send the worst of the worst and someone to partner with.”

That’s when CNN tried to push back—with a question about Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a known MS-13 gangbanger who was deported by the Trump administration.

They claimed it was a “mistake.”

🔥 Trump handed it over to Stephen Miller—and Miller dismantled the narrative.

“There's an illegal alien from El Salvador. So with respect to you, he's a citizen of El Salvador. So it's very arrogant, even for American media to suggest that we would even tell El Salvador how to handle their own citizens.”

He laid out the legal facts:

“Two immigration courts found that he was a member of MS-13. When President Trump declared MS-13 to be a foreign terrorist organization, that meant that he was no longer eligible under federal law... He had a deportation order that was valid.”

Then came the jaw-dropping legal twist:

“A district court judge tried to tell the administration they had to kidnap a citizen of El Salvador and fly him back here.”

But the Supreme Court slapped that down:

“The Supreme Court said the district court order was unlawful... unanimously stating clearly that neither Secretary of State nor the president could be compelled by anybody to forcibly retrieve a citizen of El Salvador... a member of MS-13.”

Trump turned to Miller:

“What was the ruling the Supreme Court, Steve? Was it nine to nothing?”

Miller confirmed:

“Yes, it was a 9-0, in our favor.”

Then he delivered the knockout punch:

“That is the president of El Salvador. Your questions about, per the court, can only be directed to him.”

So CNN’s Kaitlan Collins did just that.

She turned to Bukele and asked:

“Do you plan to return him?”

Bukele didn’t miss a beat.

“Well, I suppose you're not suggesting that I smuggle a terrorist into the United States, right? How can I smuggle? How can I return him to the United States? Like I smuggle him into the United States? Or what do I do? Of course I'm not going to do it.”

He called it like it is:

“The question is preposterous. How can I smuggle a terrorist to the United States? I don't have the power to return him to the United States.”

Then came the career-ending haymaker by the Salvadoran president:

“I mean, we're not very fond of releasing terrorists into our country. We just turned the murder capital of the world into the safest country of the western hemisphere, and you want us to go back into releasing criminals so we can go back to being the murder capital of the world? That's—that's not going to happen.”

And just like that, it was settled. The media narrative was officially shattered.

Thanks for reading. If you appreciate this kind of reporting, follow me for more stories you won’t find anywhere else.

—> @VigilantFox

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