El Salvador's 'Dictator' President Demanded More Proof Than Republicans

Elected Republicans can now proudly say they are less inclined to uphold the law than El Salvador's dictator president, who demanded proof of actual convictions and actual evidence of gang membership.

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Hours after Trump made a stunning fool of himself — and I do mean stunning, even with the context of Trump’s history of saying really ignorant things — trying to school ABC News’ Terry Moran about a photograph of Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s hand which he did not understand had been photoshopped above his actual tattoos to read “MS-13” as in the interpretation of his tattoos by the Trump administration, we are learning that even El Salvador’s president has more appreciation for the law than our own president.

El Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, who self-styled himself “the world’s coolest dictator,” had only agreed to take “convicted criminals” and demanded proof of convictions and evidence of gang membership, which the Trump White House scrambled to provide, according to a new report from the New York Times.

Uncredited meme, if you know who made this please let us know so we can credit them.

After the Trump administration sent over 200 migrants to CECOT, which has been described as a death camp type prison in El Salvador, Bukele made an appearance at the White House where he seemed to agree with everything President Trump and his entourage of eagerly lawless flying monkeys said.

But behind closed doors, even this man, this “dictator” (El Salvador is not officially a dictatorship, but has experienced profound democratic backsliding and regression of human rights under Bukele), had been demanding more of the Trump administration than Republican “lawmakers.”

That is to say, he demanded actual evidence and proof of the Trump administration’s accusations.

The Times’ bombshell reports that Bukele had agreed to house “only what he called ‘convicted criminals’ in the prison. However, many of the Venezuelan men labeled gang members and terrorists by the U.S. government had not been tried in court.”

Bukele did NOT want any noncriminal migrants sent to El Salvador.

A pause while we once again must note that being accused of a crime is not the same thing as being convicted of one, and as the president to have ever been convicted of 34 felonies, Donald Trump should understand this process better than most.

But instead, Trump behaves as if due process is for him, but not for anyone he doesn’t like — that is to say, Trump behaves like a petty dictator in waiting.

Indeed, Bukele even wanted assurances that “each of those locked up in the prison was members of Tren de Aragua, the transnational gang with roots in Venezuela.”

And by assurances, he would likely want something more than tattoos that were being interpreted in a certain way. A senior White House official had to tell the Trump team that this request was actually urgent, “kicking off a scramble to get the Salvadorans whatever evidence they could.”

The New York Times says Bukele’s demands for more information have not been previously reported, and this deepens “questions about whether the Trump administration sufficiently assessed who it dispatched to a foreign prison.”

That is, perhaps, the understatement of the year.