Tucker traveled to El Salvador to interview President Nayib Bukele after his historic landslide reelection victory.

Bukele has accomplished the impossible during his first term by eliminating violent crime, reducing emigration, and invigorating the local economy.

President Nayib Bukele saved El Salvador. He may have the blueprint for saving the world.

Bukele’s Formula to Save El Salvador:

Nayib Bukele [00:04:21] The US 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 Uruguay. Safer than the U.S, safer than any country in the Western Hemisphere. There are countries in the in the other hemisphere that are safer than El Salvador. But not in that, not in the Western Hemisphere.

Tucker [00:04:40] So you did that in just a couple of years?

Nayib Bukele [00:04:43] Yes, we did that in basically in three years.

Tucker [00:04:47] So just bottom line it for us. What’s the formula?

Nayib Bukele [00:04:52] Well I can tell you the official formula and the real formula. So the official formula is that we did a plan. I mean, we need a plan. It’s not that. When I say official, I mean, it’s a lie. It’s just, the official one we did, a plan that was comprised of phases. So we rolled up the first phase, then 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 in a hurry. So and it worked. It worked in a couple of weeks. We, the country was transformed because the gangs were, were not yet arrested, but they were on the run. So we had we basically and the roll up of phase six, we basically, pacified the country in a couple of weeks.

Tucker [00:05:47] How do you do that? How do you pacify a country?

Nayib Bukele [00:05:49] Well, with the phases, including the 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, like useful guns or, you know, vehicles, drones, you know, basic things that an operation of that magnitude would need. So, yeah we roll up the phases and then we went after them.

Tucker [00:06:29] Okay. So that’s the official that’s the official.

Nayib Bukele [00:06:31] Yes that’s the official.

Tucker [00:06:32] What’s the real answer?

Nayib Bukele [00:06:34] It’s a miracle.

Tucker [00:06:36] It’s a miracle. I love that. What do you mean?

Nayib Bukele [00:06:39] Yeah. It’s a miracle. You know, when, 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. Would be the equivalent, 60 times would be the equivalent of having 5,000 deaths, 5,000 murders in the US in three days. Yeah. So we were in the meeting and well, when it started not when it ended, but when it started. We were in the meeting in 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.

Tucker [00:07:41] Yes.

Nayib Bukele [00:07:42] And it’s your victim.

Tucker [00:07:44] Yes.

Nayib Bukele [00:07:44] Because they don’t care about their grandma. You care about their grandma. So it’s your victim. As 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 any anybody. A woman walking by a guy and working in the street, a taxi driver, they can kill anybody. And if the if the state goes after them, the state has no intention of, killing or harming anybody but the gang members. So you have 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.

Tucker [00:08:34] It’s a guerrilla war really.

Nayib Bukele [00:08:35] Yes, it is, 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 it? So we really we try to figure out what to do and I, they basically said, well it’s we’re looking at into an impossible impossible mission here. So we pray. And we and we.

Tucker [00:09:12] You prayed in the meeting?

Nayib Bukele [00:09:13] Yes. Yes of course, several times yeah.

Tucker [00:09:16] What did you pray for?

Nayib Bukele [00:09:18] To wisdom. To win the war. I thought at the time that we would have civilian casualties. So we said we pray that the casualties will be as low as possible. And we didn’t have any civilian casualties.

Tucker [00:09:36] And was everyone in the meeting comfortable with that?

Nayib Bukele [00:09:39] Yes, yes, every all my security cabinet are believers. They’ve all believe in God. We’re a secular country, of course, but we all believe in God.

Tucker [00:09:51] MS13 is one of the major gangs.

Nayib Bukele [00:09:52] And they are satanic also.