Read the Full Transcript of President Nayib Bukele’s Interview With TIME
Vera Bergengruen/San Salvador
August 29, 2024 8:00 AM EDT
Read our full cover story on Nayib Bukele here. You can also read the transcript of the interview in Spanish here.
El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele sat down for an interview with TIME in his office at the Casa Presidencial in San Salvador on June 25. Bukele, who won re-election in February with 84% of the vote, had just begun his second term. He discussed his government’s crackdown on the country’s notorious gangs and the emergency powers that have allowed him to suspend some civil liberties in order to incarcerate more than 81,000 suspected gang members and their associates. He also talked about how plunging homicide rates have transformed El Salvador, his efforts to rebrand the nation by adopting Bitcoin as legal tender, and why the “Bukele Model” is being adopted across the region.
Below is a transcript, lightly edited for clarity, of Bukele’s interview with TIME Senior Correspondent Vera Bergengruen.
TIME: I wanted to start with your inauguration, which was quite a spectacle. Were you surprised by the level of international attention it received and the high-level officials, especially the large delegation from the United States, who attended?
Bukele: The inauguration is an event that is always held; it is normal. It’s expected that there will be a lot of local attention from the people of the country. Obviously, there will be some international attention, no matter how small. Any inauguration in Latin America gets some press. Some people who had their own followers started to confirm. Everyone said, "Such and such will come."
Some prominent people in the United States also started to come, which I think helped make the government's delegation more robust. The government sent a very robust delegation—not just the Secretary of Homeland Security but also representatives from the Department of State, the Department of Commerce, and various other agencies. Even a bipartisan congressional and Senate delegation came.
In the end, it became more and more robust. I think one thing led to another. In the end, it attracted even more international attention. In addition, our administration, at least on this side of the world, is quite well known, especially in Latin America, much less in other latitudes or the eastern hemisphere or Europe. It is much less known there than here. In this area, it has become better known and, therefore, already received some attention. The build-up, I think, resulted in more attention than we expected—but it was positive attention.
Very long interview transcript…
https://time.com/7015636/president-nayib-bukele-interview/