CNN
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Standing in the echoing prison hallway, Matt Gaetz seemed impressed.

“There is a lot more discipline in this prison than we see in many prisons in the United States,” said Gaetz, then a congressman now heralded as President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for U.S. attorney general.

It was July, and Gaetz — who will oversee the Federal Bureau of Prisons if he becomes attorney general — was visiting El Salvador’s infamous Terrorism Confinement Center (Cecot), where gang leaders and murderers are imprisoned and from which they are never released.

The prison is a concrete manifestation of the harsh rule of President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador, who is often blasted by human rights groups for flouting norms but is largely credited in his country with bringing back safety to the streets.

“This is the solution” for El Salvador, Gaetz added in a video released by Bukele. “We think that the good ideas in El Salvador actually have legs and can go to other places and help other people be safe and hopeful and prosperous.”

Last month, CNN became the first major U.S. news organization to gain access to Cecot on a private tour, seeing the recently built fortress where convicts as well as some men still on trial spend 23½ hours a day in gloomy group cells and a bland, eat a meatless meal. diet and have only 30 minutes a day for exercise or Bible class.

It’s part of Bukele’s nascent transformation of El Salvador, which he has achieved by upending the system, giving law enforcement new powers under a rolling state of emergency, getting his nominees to the Supreme Court and then asking that Supreme Court to grant him to allow him to run for a previously unconstitutional second term. Bukele is well aware of the emotions he evokes – both positive and negative – and calls himself in his X biography the “coolest dictator in the world” and now “philosopher king”.

Trump has at times both praised and denounced Bukele – when he was in the White House he praised cooperation with El Salvador’s then-new leader, but he became a critic when he was out of power and focused on immigration, by saying that Bukele sent criminals to the US. US.

But Gaetz appears to be a real fan. He told Time Magazine that he considered Bukele a “kindred spirit,” and the pair greeted each other warmly as Gaetz led other members of Congress to Bukele’s office during the July visit. That trip came just a month after Gaetz, Donald Trump Jr. and others traveled to Bukele’s second inauguration.

In a rare moment of bipartisanship, Gaetz established a congressional caucus in El Salvador in July with Democratic Rep. Vicente Gonzalez from Texas.

In announcing the new group in the House of Representatives, Gaetz said: “Through the inspiration of El Salvador’s astonishing transformation, the great American rejuvenation can also become a reality, so that we can experience the triumphant return of the security and prosperity we once inspired. . in others.”

Should he face interviews and a Senate confirmation hearing for attorney general, Gaetz may be asked for his thoughts on Bukele’s approach to crime and criminal justice and how that could affect his position as attorney general . The US might even propose trying out the El Salvador model in Central and South America, where violence and instability drive many of the migrants to the relative safety and prosperity of the US, although there are likely strong forces inside and outside those countries would be opposition.

Last week, even as it lowered travel advice for El Salvador, citing a “significant reduction” in crime, the State Department also warned that Bukele’s state of emergency will allow authorities to “arrest anyone suspected of gang activity and suspend various constitutional rights.”

The Salvadoran president wasted no time in congratulating Gaetz on his selection as Trump’s AG pick, posting on X: “I knew you were destined to do great things, my friend.”