El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele is not backing down — and he’s certainly not bowing to Senate Democrats.
In what looks like another tone-deaf flex from the D.C. elite, Senators Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) and Tim Kaine (D-VA) introduced legislation to slap sanctions on Bukele and senior Salvadoran officials for alleged “gross violations of internationally recognized human rights.”
The move is a direct shot at Bukele’s widely supported anti-gang crackdown, launched under a state of exception in 2022. The legislation aims to punish those involved in the crackdown, including anyone accused of leveraging U.S. taxpayer dollars to violate the “constitutional rights of U.S. residents.” The penalties include visa bans, asset freezes, and funding restrictions—a full-court press from Washington’s globalist class.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA the Dems are just salty… https://t.co/O6CLtZuV46
— Nayib Bukele (@nayibbukele) July 8, 2025
It also includes a mandate for Secretary of State Marco Rubio to report on Bukele’s use of cryptocurrency—accusing his government of possibly using Bitcoin to dodge sanctions and enrich insiders. In other words, Washington wants to control how a sovereign country runs its economy, secures its streets, and invests in financial innovation.
Bukele’s response? A shrug — and a jab. He mocked the move, calling it nothing more than “salty” Democrats upset that he won’t play by their rules. He’s not wrong. The proposed sanctions came just days after Van Hollen’s tone-deaf trip to El Salvador, where he advocated for Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran national accused of being affiliated with MS-13 and human smuggling. Yes, you read that right — the same party pushing to sanction Bukele is lobbying on behalf of an accused gang affiliate.
BREAKING: US government to deport MS-13 gang member and alleged wife-beater, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, to a third-party country upon his release from Tennessee jail.
Will Senator Chris Van Hollen go have margaritas with him again when he’s deported? pic.twitter.com/kRAb8sYDnz
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) June 26, 2025
Abrego Garcia was deported from El Salvador and has since returned to the U.S. to face human trafficking charges, pleading not guilty in June. Democrats appear more interested in defending his “rights” than in acknowledging the thousands of Salvadoran families finally living free of gang terror thanks to Bukele’s crackdown.
And just to make things clearer, Bukele released a video last week disproving allegations made by Abrego Garcia that he was beaten or tortured while in custody. Yet Democrats seem more inclined to believe a criminal defendant than the leader of a country pulling itself out of decades of lawless violence.
Apparently, anything a criminal claims is accepted as truth by the mainstream media and the crumbling Western judiciary.
But the man wasn’t tortured, nor did he lose weight. In fact, photos show he gained weight while in detention. There’s plenty of footage from different days,… pic.twitter.com/PzvLcCNzrK
— Nayib Bukele (@nayibbukele) July 3, 2025
What’s really going on here is simple: Bukele has embarrassed the global elites. He’s made real progress using real force to bring order to a country plagued by gang rule — and he did it without checking with Washington first. That’s his real crime in their eyes.
Democrats in the Senate are trying to punish a foreign leader for doing what they refuse to do here at home: enforce the law, secure the streets, and protect his people. Meanwhile, American cities rot under soft-on-crime policies, and MS-13 runs loose in sanctuary states.
