After Hours: El Salvador's Remarkable ‘Tough on Crime' Transformation
Full Measure After Hours
Sharyl Attkisson
5 • 1.4K Ratings
🗓️ 4 September 2025
⏱️ 24 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
How El Salvador’s president transformed the “Murder Capital of the World” into the safest country in the Western hemisphere— and became the most popular leader on the planet.
Order Sharyl’s new bestselling book: “Follow the $cience.” Subscribe to my two podcasts: “The Sharyl Attkisson Podcast” and “Full Measure After Hours.” Leave a review, subscribe and share with your friends! Support independent journalism by visiting the new Sharyl Attkisson store.
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hi everybody. Cheryl Ackison here. Welcome to another edition of Full Measure After Hours. |
| 0:10.6 | Today, a report from El Salvador on how the most popular president in the world, when measured by domestic approval, got a grip on crime in the murder capital of the world |
| 0:22.2 | and what we might learn from it. For about a decade on my TV program full measure, |
| 0:30.9 | I've been covering the global populist movement marked by the election of leaders who are |
| 0:36.1 | disdained by the political establishment on both the left |
| 0:39.3 | and the right. Nowhere perhaps has this movement had a more dramatic impact than in the small |
| 0:45.2 | Central American nation of El Salvador with the election of President Nayyb Buckele, then the youngest |
| 0:52.4 | elected president in the Western Hemisphere. |
| 0:55.9 | Bucali has led his country through a really stunning transformation under his popular |
| 1:00.4 | tough-on-crime policies, and other nations are definitely taking note. |
| 1:05.8 | As it happens, shortly after I returned from El Salvador, investigating their tough-on-crime approach and the results, |
| 1:13.0 | President Trump did something that felt very similar when he took control of Washington, D.C. |
| 1:18.3 | and put National Guard troops on the street. And like the example of Washington, El Salvador also |
| 1:24.8 | saw dramatic results, as you will hear. |
| 1:28.1 | This is my cover story on Full Measure as we debut our season 11, Sunday, September 7th, as I report from El Salvador. |
| 1:37.9 | And in today's podcast, you're going to hear my interview with El Salvador's defense minister, |
| 1:43.3 | the head of the military, Renee Marino-Munroy. |
| 1:46.8 | First, a little bit of important background. El Salvador historically has been plagued by |
| 1:52.3 | civil war, followed by brutal gang control by MS-13 and other gangs for decades. In 2019, |
| 2:04.1 | Salvadorans took the step to reclaim their country by electing 37-year-old Nyabukali as president. He took the lead in a movement that arrested |
| 2:11.3 | 87,000 suspected gang members and other criminals. Now, this is a country about the size of Massachusetts, |
| 2:19.5 | arresting 87,000 people. And as part of this, soldiers deployed alongside police, and still they |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Sharyl Attkisson, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Sharyl Attkisson and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.