WBD505 Audio Transcription
Bitcoin in El Salvador - Part 2 with Nayib Bukele
Release date: Wednesday 25th May
Note: the following is a transcription of my interview with President Nayib Bukele. I have reviewed the transcription but if you find any mistakes, please feel free to email me. You can listen to the original recording here.
The full interview with President Nayib Bukele, undertaken days after the Bitcoin Law became effective on September 7th 2021, sections of which were included in my film “Follow The Money #1 - Bitcoin in El Salvador”. In this interview, we discuss motivation, opposition and legacy.
“I don’t think it’s going to work, I’m sure it’s going to work. Because the fundamentals are there. We can have some bumps in the road like everything… but, the fundamentals are the same. And it’s going to work because the philosophy of it is right. Just give it time. It’s going to work for El Salvador, it’s going to work for Bitcoin, it’s going to work for the world.”
— Nayib Bukele
Interview Transcription
President Bukele: Hey, Peter, how are you?
Peter McCormack: Good, how are you, Mr President? Good to see you. Are you all right?
President Bukele: Yeah, fine. Good, yeah.
Peter McCormack: Yeah, big week.
President Bukele: Yeah, big week.
Peter McCormack: It went well!
President Bukele: It hasn't ended yet!
Peter McCormack: Do we want to --
President Bukele: I don't know.
Peter McCormack: We've got the tough questions, do you want the tough ones as well?
President Bukele: What did you say, tough? Really?
Peter McCormack: Well…
President Bukele: What do you mean by tough?
Peter McCormack: Tough for me to ask! So listen, when we were here two and a half, three months ago, when we were in the other room, honestly, I left and I was like, "No, they're not going to hit that deadline. That's too hard".
President Bukele: Yeah, it was a crazy deadline.
Peter McCormack: It was a crazy deadline. I spoke to people and everyone was like, "No, they're not going to do it". And you did.
President Bukele: Yeah.
Peter McCormack: I mean, I know you've had some technical challenges, which you would expect.
President Bukele: Probably, if we had more time, we'd probably have the same problems.
Peter McCormack: You would.
President Bukele: I mean, how do you know? I mean, really. We would probably have the same problems, probably more problems, or probably less problems.
Peter McCormack: Or you maybe don't maybe roll out nationwide in one go, which was brave.
President Bukele: They told me that. But it was a thing that, you know, there's a lot of ways to get from A to C; you can either go from A to C, or go from A to B and then to C. You can actually go to D and then back to C, right? There's a lot of ways to get there. So, a lot of people might second-guess what we were doing, and they were probably right, but it doesn't mean we were wrong; it just means there are several ways to do the same thing.
Peter McCormack: Well, I still think it was brave. It was a bold deadline, a lot of people were doubting it, and maybe not the perfect rollout, but it's been pretty good. We went to Starbucks today and it was flawless. We went to McDonald's, a slightly different experience.
President Bukele: Well, you know, a lot of people, they haven't really seen that these global corporations are actually accepting Bitcoin for a coffee.
Peter McCormack: That's what we were discussing.
President Bukele: And I know you can say, "Oh, McDonald's is a franchise". Sure, in the US it's a franchise too. Actually, McDonald's, they don't own McDonald's, they own restaurants; they're actually a franchise company.
Peter McCormack: Of course, yeah.
President Bukele: Well, they will say that they are also a real estate company, but that's another topic. But what I'm trying to say is that this company, they work globally, like Pizza Hut, for example, or KFC or Wendy's or Burger King, and they're all accepting Bitcoin right here. So, it's like Walmart, they're just asking for seven days to roll out, but they're going to accept Bitcoin in a couple of days. And I don't know if tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, Walmart are going to accept Bitcoin. And how many stores? Here, in El Salvador, they have like 100 stores, but how many stores do they have in the States, or in the world? And it's the same company, it's not a franchise; it's a company owned actually by a family.
But they're going to do this here, and Bitcoin transactions, they're not using our wallet, they're using another service. So, they will pay a very small fee, I will guess, but that fee will be pennies.
Peter McCormack: Maybe less.
President Bukele: Exactly. Maybe sats!
Peter McCormack: Sats, yeah!
President Bukele: A credit card fee here, I mean for a normal business, will be 6% or 7%.
Peter McCormack: Well, especially for me, if I use my card, it's got to get a pound to a dollar across the ocean, so there's always a big fee with that.
President Bukele: That's a big fee, yes. But even people here with credit cards, Salvadoran credit cards, used in a Salvadoran supermarket or in a Salvadoran restaurant, they will charge 5% to the restaurant, 5%. And I just remember when they say, "You never pay high interest rates for a loan, because that will get you broke", but you paid 5% in one second. Isn't that the highest interest rate in the world?
Peter McCormack: It kind of is.
President Bukele: Yeah, so now, these huge corporations like Walmart, Starbucks, you name it, I mean every major corporation, most major corporations are here, right. So, cars for example, there's tons of brands and they all will accept Bitcoin eventually, and when I say eventually, I'm not saying with a Bitcoin standard, or wait some years; I'm talking about weeks. So, if you go to a Sheraton or to a Marriott Hotel, they will accept Bitcoin in a couple of days.
So, all of these corporations will experience this right here, and probably they would say -- for example, Pizza Hut, one of the best Pizza Hut franchises is here in El Salvador. You can go to a restaurant and you will see the difference between a Pizza Hut here and a Pizza Hut in the States; it's a huge difference, a lot better here.
Peter McCormack: Okay!
President Bukele: And they would say, "Okay, in these very nice restaurants that we have in El Salvador, we are accepting Bitcoin and it's working seamlessly, flawlessly, fast, cheap. A lot of people are coming in to pay with that, and secure, everything". And, what are they doing in Mexico? The owners of the Pizza Hut restaurants here are the same owners of the Mexico restaurants. They're Salvadoran, but they own the Mexican franchises too, so why wouldn't they do it in Mexico? It's the same international corporation, same owners of the franchise. Why won't they do it in Mexico? They don't even need Bitcoin to be legal tender in Mexico, they can actually just accept it; it's not illegal. And probably the same people will ask for it.
Peter McCormack: Well, I get it. Neil said to me, after the coffee, he said, "Put the camera on me. How does this feel?" and I said, "It's not what you think I'm going to say". I said, "It's not the fact I've just bought a coffee with Bitcoin, I've been doing that in Zonte for two years. It's the fact I bought a Starbucks coffee with Bitcoin. I used to come here and I could go to Zonte, I didn't have to bring dollars, because I could just use my wallet everywhere. Now, I can come to the city and I don't need to bring dollars, because I can use my wallet".
President Bukele: In a couple of weeks, you won't need to carry cash or credit cards. Actually, you won't need a real wallet.
Peter McCormack: But the thing I said is, "The biggest thing here, this is an advert to every Starbucks in the world. When you realise that you've got bitcoiners wanting to use this, they've rolled it out here in a couple of months, they can do that across the US".
President Bukele: Probably less, because you would think that they didn't start to work in 6 June when we approved the law; they probably started working in July, so they probably had less than two months to have everything seamlessly working fast, have their personnel trained. It's not easy to have their staff trained, they didn't know how to work, and the accountants, the waiters.
Peter McCormack: Well, McDonald's have built it into their screens, which surprised me, because I assumed going up to the screen, it would be, "No, go to the counter". They got it in the screens and those screens are all around the world.
President Bukele: Yeah, it's the same screens, same software, same hardware, same everything, same product, same brands. It seems like a no-brainer to me. I mean, it's going to happen. Either it's going to happen now or in the next years. It seems like a no-brainer.
Peter McCormack: Have you got any early data on usage, how many people are using Bitcoin yet?
President Bukele: No, I don't know that number. I won't, because we can only look into the Chivo app, which we have numbers about the Chivo, but you didn't pay with Chivo app, and McDonald's and Starbucks, they didn't collect your payment with Chivo app, so I don't know that. I probably know when they file their taxes, but then we have to add up all that. It will be pretty hard to add up a number, but that's just the nature of Bitcoin.
Peter McCormack: Can they pay their taxes in Bitcoin?
President Bukele: Yes, of course, yeah.
Peter McCormack: Bitcoin standard's happening here.
President Bukele: Yes. Here, you can pay your taxes, either it's government or municipal, in the airport, all of these services. Even in the border, you can pay your tourist card with Bitcoin. Actually, immigration put up a video of the first tourist that paid his tourist card with Bitcoin; two Mexicans.
Peter McCormack: Amazing!
President Bukele: Yeah, it was a couple, they came from Mexico. Actually, they came because of Bitcoin, they wanted to --
Peter McCormack: A lot of people have come because of Bitcoin.
President Bukele: But they went to the airport and they said, "Can we pay the --" and they probably were trying us out, right, "Can we pay the card with Bitcoin?" "Sure".
Peter McCormack: "We're ready to go!"
President Bukele: Yes.
Peter McCormack: There's a lot of people want you to fail; you know, because I tweeted it and you retweeted it.
President Bukele: Yes, yes, of course.
Peter McCormack: I think these people, if you're a critic, you should want it to be a success whilst critiquing why it might fail. But people actually want you to fail, not considering the consequences of what that means for other people. You feel that pressure?
President Bukele: Yes. It's very easy to see. When you see a lot of these economists were suddenly very worried about El Salvador. They're like, "El Salvador's doing this. This will harm Salvadorans". I'm like, "Really? We have been literally starving for 100 years, and you never said El Salvador should do this or that. And now suddenly, you're telling us what to do and that we shouldn't do that or we shouldn't do the other thing".
I mean, of course they're not interested in El Salvador, they're interested in us to fail; because, if you look what's at stake, if this succeeds, which I think it will, but they think they can stop it; if this succeeds, it will be one of history's biggest gamechangers in economics. And I'm not talking monetary policy, I'm talking about the full-blown global economic system.
Peter McCormack: Well, it's the first domino.
President Bukele: Well, I don't know about the first domino. You can set up analogies, but if it works, why would any other country not want to do the same thing? Imagine a country like El Salvador, which is without all the handicaps we have; suddenly, it will have -- we had 75% of people unbanked. Imagine in a year from now, that's down to 10%. We have been trying for, I don't know, like 30 years to bank our people, and it has been impossible, because they don't trust the banks, because the banks don't want to give service to them, because the services are too expensive, whatever.
If we achieve in a year what we couldn't achieve in 30 years, I mean that's just one thing. Now, if we can achieve economic growth, or even for some people to bypass inflation, which right now is crazy, right. There's so many things at stake that of course there's going to be a lot of money and a lot of effort into having us fail. And that's why, suddenly, there's all of these huge media outlets attacking a small country. Why? Really, did they care before? They're really not attacking me or the country, they're just attacking actually Bitcoin. I mean, they hate it, because they're afraid of it. So, we're being attacked as accessories.
Peter McCormack: Well, they're afraid of it making them irrelevant.
President Bukele: Of course.
Peter McCormack: And losing control.
President Bukele: Yeah. I mean, actually, if you look a little bit forward, the market value of Bitcoin in dollars, it's actually low, very, very small for its real potential.
Peter McCormack: That's why we hodl!
President Bukele: Exactly, because it's very, very small. You could say, "Oh no, it's almost $1 trillion!" but that's really small if you understand the concept. If that grows, it will grow at the expense of war, and at the expense of the US dollar, the expense of huge banks, the international monetary system. So, you have these gigantic enemies now that before, I mean they didn't care about us. They were not our friends, but not our enemies. And they're willing us to fail, but I really don't think it will happen. I mean, they will try. They will try to scare people, they will try to give us a bad rep internationally, they will try to bring this down in our approval ratings locally.
Peter McCormack: How do you measure success yourself? It's quite a tricky thing, because you can measure success on the number of people who have become banked, which is quite an easy thing to measure.
President Bukele: It will be a variable, right? I mean, it's not the variable, but it's a very important one.
Peter McCormack: You've got productivity, investment --
President Bukele: Economic growth, GDP.
Peter McCormack: Economic growth.
President Bukele: Economic growth, yeah. Let's see next year.
Peter McCormack: You see, one of tricky things is, which will lead to another question I've got later on, but it's that if you track Bitcoin's history, there's a potential of going up and them coming back down. And during that period it goes down, that's when people will come at you most, I think; that's when you'll face your biggest challenges.
President Bukele: You think?
Peter McCormack: Yeah. I actually prefer the bear markets, by the way, having worked through one. That's when the real work gets done. But we saw it the other day. I mean, you were buying Bitcoin and the price drops what we consider a small amount, Peter Schiff is like this, and Hanke's like --
President Bukele: Yeah, but they're probably very smart people. I'm not saying they're -- but they're not being honest.
Peter McCormack: We know that.
President Bukele: I know you know, and probably the people that watch your show know it. But let's just -- I'll give you a very small answer, "Oh, they lost $2 million". Really? When? I mean, we have the same coins that we had before. I mean, really, we lost what? You're just calculating a market and an appreciation value against another currency that's just -- it can be that right now, it will be different later.
But let's take that aside for a second. Even big media companies are saying that we're going to save, and this is not me, this is big media companies, are saying that we're going to save $400 million in remittances.
Peter McCormack: Well, that's just one --
President Bukele: No, we talk about a lot of things, right. We talk about coffee, we talk about Starbucks, McDonald's; we talk about jobs, investment, tourism; we didn't talk about remittances. So, we talk about a lot of things, we talk about economic inclusion, banking of the informal sector; we talk about loans for small businesses, we talk about a lot of things. We didn't talk about remittances. Now, these big media companies, they are saying that, "El Salvador will save $400 million a year, every year, $400 million".
Peter McCormack: No, but I thought they were saying just in Western Union, one company alone?
President Bukele: Well, I don't know. I think it's probably Western Union, I don't know, or three of them.
Peter McCormack: But it could be more.
President Bukele: It could be more, yes. Let's stay with that number, because I could stay another number, but let's stay with their number. They say that El Salvadorans will save, every year, $400 million. So, do you think if the government loses $2 million to make their citizens -- I mean, we're not losing $2 million. Let's say we lost $2 million, which is a lie, you know it, we haven't lost anything; but let's say these economists are right and we lost $2 million and we hadn't sold anything, but let's say they're right.
Okay, they also said, "El Salvadorans are going to save $400 million every year", I mean not these guys, but the media conglomerates. So, we haven't lost anything. But let's say we lost $2 million to make our people safe. $400 million every year. So, in ten years, it will be $4 billion, just with their numbers.
Peter McCormack: What is your GDP at the moment; I know I should know?
President Bukele: $24 billion, $25 billion.
Peter McCormack: So, that's 20% over ten years of your GDP; that's pretty big numbers. And that's not counting everything else.
President Bukele: Well, it's actually more, because we're talking about one variable, which is remittances. But then you have a lot of other variables. Even with the variable of remittances, which is one of all the other variables, we can actually make more for our people than $400 million. Why? Because, there is the ease factor.
Let's say you live in the US, you are a Salvadoran working there, you work two jobs to live over there and send some money back home. And to all of them, they will charge $400 million a year in fees to send their money. So, if you want to send, let's say, $50, you may have to pay $5. So, you're probably not going to send $50, because it's too expensive to send, and you have to go to these places and give your money, send it, pay a high fee. So, you're probably not going to send $50. And you probably have to go on Monday, and here they will have to go and collect the money personally. Probably you can put it electronically over there, but they have to go personally to collect.
But now, you have your phone, so a kid can tell his dad, "Dad, I'm going to the movies with my girlfriend. Can you please send me $20?"
Peter McCormack: My son did it to me today!
President Bukele: So, it's easier. I mean, if that happens with the normal system, his dad will just say, "No, of course not. I'm not going to put a remittance of $20 and pay fees, pay $6 for a $20 remittance and then send it to you, and then you go to the Western Union shop and take the $14 out". But if it's so easy sending a WhatsApp message, why wouldn't he send $20?
So, it's probable, it's possible, it's very likely that Salvadorans are not only going to save $400 million a year, but the ease and the speed of the transactions and the 24/7 and everything, and having his kid being able -- I mean, he can go and cash it out in an ATM. But he can also go to the movie theatre and just pay for the tickets. So, that will make, I think, his dad probably to send him $20 that he wouldn't have sent otherwise.
So, we can't measure that right now, but we definitely will measure it at the end of the year. So, I'm sure we're going to see some other variables that we haven't thought of before, but we're going to see them eventually happening, and probably a couple of surprises.
Peter McCormack: You're buying Bitcoin as the government though; what's the strategy with that? Some people's strategy is to buy, is to hold, let it appreciate in value and leverage that. Could your government be the same?
President Bukele: No, because we actually distribute Bitcoin to our people. So, we will probably buy a lot more and will take advantage of the dips of course, but we will probably buy a lot more. And that's why, when they say, "Oh, they lost $2 million", they don't know. Either they know nothing about it, or they're just pretending they know nothing about it, but of course we haven't lost anything. But we're going to buy a lot more, because we need to distribute to each download.
Then you have other things that you will want to distribute with the same system, in Bitcoin. And, we actually buy Bitcoin from the population too; because, when they convert to USD, we give them fiat money for their Bitcoin we just probably gave them yesterday. So, it's a dynamic thing, but also it includes giving to our people, buying it back, giving it back, selling it to our people. So, it's a more dynamic thing than just an investor that just buys and holds. For us, it's asset currency, it's a very, very dynamic thing.
Peter McCormack: So, it's not a separate treasury though as an investment for the country?
President Bukele: Well, yes, I mean the trust fund, it has also an investment part of it, of course. But it's not only that, it has a lot of dynamics into it. It's not just like an investor, they would just buy an asset and hold it. It's like if you used gold coins, for example, in the past; gold was, or still is a value asset. But the same, at the time, it was a currency. Before, in Rome, they would pay with gold, silver and copper coins. But it would still be also an asset and also a coin.
So, it's the same with us. It's an asset, of course, but it's also a currency, so it's got to move. But it's also an investment of course. And a lot of people are saving also, it's incredible. We really thought there would be huge lines at the ATMs, huge lines, just because, "I want to cash out".
Peter McCormack: "Give me my $30", yeah.
President Bukele: Yes, but actually, it's like 20 times less than what we had expected. We're talking about the first days with glitches in the app and everything, with bugs, and the people are preferring it. With 90% of the businesses still not accepting it, because they have to roll out their things and we have to give them some time, people are actually, not the majority, but 40% of the people are using the ATMs to buy Bitcoin and put it in their wallets. So, it's very interesting.
I mean, of course, I wouldn't like the bugs and the glitches in the app that we're fixing every day, and every day it's a better experience; and probably when you put this up, it's going to be –
Peter McCormack: Perfect, maybe?
President Bukele: Perfect, less than perfect, but as close to perfect as humans can do. But I just really, for me, with 90% of the businesses still not accepting Bitcoin, an app with bugs and glitches, with the uncertainty and the lack of knowledge of Bitcoin, and having such a low cashing-out percentage, that would make you think that this is going to work a lot better than what we thought.
So, we'll mention another variable that the people that are rooting for us to fail are either not measuring, or they're just not talking about it. But it's working a lot better than what we thought. I'm not talking about the app, I'm talking about it's working a lot better, because the people are very interested in this new thing. If you go downtown, for example, you will see a man that's very old and low income asking, "How does this work?" He's really interested in the technology.
Peter McCormack: Well, I saw that in Zonte, I've seen it.
President Bukele: Well, in Zonte, you have a more mature community, right.
Peter McCormack: But still, there's new people there who still hadn't touched Bitcoin and on the 7th, they collected Bitcoin for their first time, and they're still asking. The peer-to-peer knowledge itself is super-important.
President Bukele: Yes, of course, because they will ask people they trust, so they have built trust in their lives, their relationships, family, friendships, working relationships; and now, that person that they have built this relationship with is telling them, "You should use this, it's very good". I mean, look, there's a lot of communication, a lot of education, and it has to be done. But at the end, if you have a good, solid product that you know is going to work, push it.
Peter McCormack: You put a lot on the line with this.
President Bukele: What have I put on the line?
Peter McCormack: Very high approval rating.
President Bukele: Yeah. You like investing?
Peter McCormack: I like investing in Bitcoin.
President Bukele: Yeah, so you can invest political capital in Bitcoin, can't you?
Peter McCormack: Yeah, look, I think it will work.
President Bukele: Yeah, of course it will work.
Peter McCormack: But I don't know if the measures will be there in a year or -- in ten years' time, I think it works.
President Bukele: I'll give you an example. The opposition parties, they have been saying, "They're going to take away your dollars", for example; or, "They're going to force you to use Bitcoin, even if you don't want to", and they actually used that discourse for the last three months, right, since we had the Bitcoin Law. So, when 7 September arrived, nobody took away your dollars, nobody forced you to download or use anything.
Then 8 September came, 9 September, and you didn't need ten years for people to realise that this is voluntary, nobody's taking your dollars away from you; if you want paper money, you can have it. The benefits of having, for example, if you have a business, more clients, a bank account which you didn't have before, loans, because we're going to loan money to microbusinesses, microloans, with very low interest rates.
I mean, once we start mining and we start building schools that says, "This school was built with Bitcoin", then the community will see our school. How much time do we need for that? One year. It's not going to be ten. It's going to be ten for a real valuation and other countries probably, big ones, accepting it; yeah, it's probably going to take time. But there's a lot of benefits that are going to come, well they came on Tuesday; there are a lot of benefits that are going to come in a week, where there's more usage. There's a lot of benefits that are going to come in three months, and there's a lot of benefits that are coming in a year.
So, I don't think we have to wait ten years for the benefits of it. I actually think that people are already seeing the benefits. And not only the benefits, but they are also seeing all the things that they told them --
Peter McCormack: Are wrong.
President Bukele: Yes, they were lies.
Peter McCormack: Is there some PTSD from the transition of the colón to the --
President Bukele: Yes, there is a lot of that, because that was very, very forceful, and it was very, very damaging for the common folk, because what Salvadorans will always say is that, "We earn money in colón so we pay in dollars", and it was totally mandatory and there was no option. And, even if you paid with your colóns, they would take them away and give you dollars. And that wasn't even in the law, it was just with banks and supermarkets and pharmacies, and they were dead because they were ordered by the government to do it, not because it was in the law, but just because they would do it.
So, there's a lot of post-traumatic stress disorder associated with that. But you know, it's a different government now and these are different times and the population thinks differently. So, there's a lot of that, but all the FUD is going to erode very quickly, at least here locally.
Peter McCormack: But I don't think they're really against Bitcoin, I think they're against you. I think if you'd have banned Bitcoin, they perhaps would have been protesting for you to make Bitcoin --
President Bukele: Oh, you're talking about the opposition?
Peter McCormack: Yeah, the opposition.
President Bukele: Yeah, of course, they're just against everything we do. But actually, they're very easy to -- they haven't been successful with us, never. So, I'm more afraid of the international attacks, because that type of adversary we have never had. I mean, we've never fought the international banking system.
Peter McCormack: And you feel like you're fighting that now?
President Bukele: Well, yes, because you can see in all these huge media outlets, they never cared about El Salvador before. And now, they are like, ever other news they put out is about El Salvador. And it's not the news that we're afraid of, but what's behind them. I mean, the news itself…
Peter McCormack: Look, I'm a bitcoiner, we've lived with this FUD news for every cycle.
President Bukele: Yes, but you're talking about a trillion-dollar valuation right now, a market that is going to grow probably hundredfold. So, I can see that being $100 trillion, or a lot more actually. So, you're fighting fire with fire. But for them, it's like taking candy away from a baby. We're a very, very small country, so I'm more afraid of them. I mean, local opposition, like you say, but if you see the demonstrations, they can never reach 500 people. For them, it's their cap.
Peter McCormack: But they will say, because I went there and had them yell at me.
President Bukele: Yeah, and they were like, how much?
Peter McCormack: The first one, maybe 300, the second one, maybe 500. I wasn't at the third one, the pictures look slightly more. Some of them will say the numbers are low because people are scared to come out. That's what some of the people said to us.
President Bukele: Yeah, but do you think that any of that's true? Have you seen how the police react to the protests here?
Peter McCormack: They don't do -- well, they weren't really there.
President Bukele: Exactly. I have been President for two years and three months. You know, we've never dispersed a protest. We haven't used one can of tear gas in my whole presidency, because I was always like, "Please stay away from the protests, let them protest". If they paint everything, we're going to paint later; let them paint and whatever.
Peter McCormack: So, you support the idea of a protest; you want to see it, you want to understand the opposition?
President Bukele: Well, I don't want them to protest against me --
Peter McCormack: But you accept it?
President Bukele: -- but I really support their right to do it, yes. Of course, I don't like it, but that's the whole point. I mean, if I like the protests, of course I will support them. But the whole point is they are able to protest whatever they want, wherever they want, say whatever they want; and they say pretty mean things, right.
Peter McCormack: I know.
President Bukele: But they have the right to say this, this is the whole point of it. I mean, I would want to have that right if I wasn't in government.
Peter McCormack: I think perhaps the arrest of Mario Gómez is what triggered some people; that's what made some people fearful.
President Bukele: Yeah, I really knew his name after the arrest and after he was released actually. I mean, if you really go into -- he's not a famous person here. I mean, if you ask normal, common folks in the street, if you ask 100 people, how many people do you think know him, out of 100? I'm talking about the street, not even the protests.
Peter McCormack: I wouldn't even know.
President Bukele: It's probably 0%. I mean, if we ask 100, probably none of them will know who he is.
Peter McCormack: But everyone in the opposition will know him.
President Bukele: But you're talking about 500 people.
Peter McCormack: I think there's more. I mean not everyone goes --
President Bukele: I'll say, yeah, probably it's 10% of the country. I won't think 10% of the country knows him, because you only have to ask yourself what opposition means. I mean, not voting for the President, that may be bigger. I mean, not voting for the President's party that's in, there's probably a bigger chunk. Last elections, 29% of the population didn't vote for our party, so it's 29%. I would say, "Well, I wasn't running", so they were just voting for the candidates that presented. And 71% of the population did vote for them. So, I know the numbers are bigger.
But one thing is that you don't like what the government does, or you just don't support the government or the President. That doesn't mean you're an activist. You have to know this person. I will bet anything that not 29% or 10% or 5% or even 1% of the population knows who the guy is. So, it's no use, there's no use. I mean, we've never done a political arrest; I wouldn't do it. I mean, getting a person that is not famous to making a martyr, why would you do that? It doesn't make any sense.
Peter McCormack: What do you want your legacy to be? Do you think about your legacy?
President Bukele: Yes, all the time.
Peter McCormack: Because, it feels like, I mean I've read about the previous presidents, because you told me the last four you told me about --
President Bukele: The last six.
Peter McCormack: Well, I did the last four. I think it was the last four you mentioned to me last time.
President Bukele: Well, because the other two got away with it.
Peter McCormack: That's two are in Nicaragua now?
President Bukele: Two are Nicaraguan citizens now.
Peter McCormack: And one's in jail, one's dead. I was looking at the numbers. I mean, Antonia Saca, what was it, $300 million of funds?
President Bukele: He was accused of $300 million, probably more. But I mean, he actually confessed about the $300 million.
Peter McCormack: So, it could be more.
President Bukele: It could be $1,000 million. I mean, not him, but him and his associates.
Peter McCormack: And what was it, your campaign was, "There's enough money if we don't steal it"?
President Bukele: Yeah.
Peter McCormack: So, you have a chance of building an unreal legacy of El Salvador, and I feel invested in this country. I've been three times this year and five times overall, I love the country, I'm looking to buy a property here. I love this country, right, and I feel invested in this and you have a chance to build a legacy of one of the greatest, if not the greatest El Salvadoran President, because you could fundamentally shift the country's economics. But do you think about stuff like that?
President Bukele: Yes, all the time, all the time, yeah. I don't collect my salary. It's actually very low, so I wouldn't collect it anyway. Why would I do this if it wasn't for the legacy, to change this country and to change the lives of millions of people? You can say, "It's a small country", yeah, but there are 10 million Salvadorans; 3 million living abroad and 7 million living here. I don't know, that could be a low number if you compare it to the 7 billion people in the world; but for me, 10 million people is a lot of people.
Peter McCormack: Well, they're your people.
President Bukele: Well, that's the most important thing, but also 10 million, it's a huge number for me. It could be small for another person, but for me 10 million is huge. It's the biggest number of people I have impacted in my life. Never before, I could have done something that would impact 10 million lives, and now we do. And actually, it's the first time that El Salvador is doing policy that actually impacts the 3 million that live abroad.
Peter McCormack: Yeah.
President Bukele: They have never received one thing from this government. And actually, thanks to them, we had actually survived economically, all of this over the last three decades, almost four. So, for the first time, the country is doing something that will greatly benefit them, at least according to the big media outlets, at least $400 million a year in savings; not my words, their words, $400 million in savings a year. So, they will save $4 billion in the next ten years.
I really think we're doing very, very positive things, and I don't think my -- even these media outlets that I would consider to be not nice with us, they got this poll out, that they say that 80% of the people were --
Peter McCormack: I know, I saw it.
President Bukele: Yeah. But at the same time, the same poll, they say, "The President's approval rating is intact", because they asked in the same poll. If you believe their numbers, I don't necessarily believe what they say, but even if you do, they said, "The President's approval rating is intact", and they said that 85% of the population approve me; I think it's more, but they say 85% now with their numbers. I'm pretty comfortable with 85% approval rating, and that's according to them a couple of days ago.
At the same time, supposedly, the project was polling very negatively, but I don't think it's negative. I actually think it's the way that the questions are being redacted; because, what if I say, "Hey, I'll take all of your money and I'll give you back [Spanish word]?" You want that?
Peter McCormack: No.
President Bukele: Why?
Peter McCormack: Because I don't know, I don't understand it.
President Bukele: If the government is going to force you to, do you agree with that?
Peter McCormack: No.
President Bukele: Why? Do you think that it's a good policy to give you that instead of taking away your money?
Peter McCormack: Well, it comes back to the PTSD.
President Bukele: Yeah, but this is worse than PTSD, because I understand the possible PTSD, but if we're saying euros, people will probably know, they may understand.
Peter McCormack: But people don't like change.
President Bukele: Not necessarily.
Peter McCormack: Some people don't.
President Bukele: No, people like change. The problem is that when you phrase the questions like that… I mean, you go to people that don't know what Bitcoin is, and they tell them, "Do you want the government to take away all of your money and give you Bitcoin instead?" and they say, "What's Bitcoin?" "It's something that's virtual, actually you cannot touch it". "I can't touch it?" "No, you can't touch it. Do you want that?" "No". "So, you're against government policy to force you to get this virtual, inexistent currency and take away all of your money, right?" "Yes". "Okay, so you're against the government".
Peter McCormack: I'm not sure the questions were framed like that.
President Bukele: Well, they are, if you read them. I mean, I'm trying to make it funnier, but they actually were like that, because you're asking somebody that doesn't know anything about Bitcoin, never in his life has he actually used a bank account or a credit card or a debit card, or anything that's not physically touchable. And then you're asking if he is in favour of using something that he doesn't know.
But when you go to the Plaza and you see the Chivo spots and you see this type of profile of a person that would say no, like a very old man with low income that never had a bank account, and you see them at a Chivo spot asking for -- not only him, but a lot of people asking for information, is he really against it, or just doesn't know about it? He wants to know more about it, but he needs more information about it, or needs to get more used to it.
There's another thing, and I bet you have heard of this. They have said one time and again that we are going to force people to use it.
Peter McCormack: We covered this the first time, I know this. I know they're not forced to, they can have it converted to the dollar.
President Bukele: Not only converted. Normal people, they -- I mean, do you think McDonald's will -- what the opposition uses internationally and locally is Article 7 of the Bitcoin Law. Of course, they're ignoring Article 8 and 12; we talked about this last time.
Peter McCormack: Yeah, we did, yeah.
President Bukele: So, we actually need Article 7, because if we didn't have Article 7, McDonald's would not have accepted it.
Peter McCormack: Well, that's the point, yeah.
President Bukele: Normal people, they are within Article 8 and 12. I mean, we're not forcing anybody, not even McDonald's. But if you don't include that provision in the Law, you would have the banks, all the big banks and all the big corporations running the show. So, you actually need one thing that will tell them, "Yeah, you have to get onboard this". They're a big corporation, not small folk or a small business, or a normal person or worker. I'm talking about 20 corporations, "Oh, poor corporations, they're being forced…"
I mean, come on, really? They are worth hundreds of billions of dollars, they have all the money in the world. They actually pay governments to do what they want. I'm not talking about El Salvador, I'm talking about the United States.
Peter McCormack: Okay, I know.
President Bukele: And this is not only I have invented. I mean, in the States, it's legal to pay; here, it's illegal. They do it, but it's illegal at least. But in the States, it's legal; you can actually pay the politicians. It's called lobbying.
Peter McCormack: I know.
President Bukele: And you can actually hire them after; they actually give million-dollar jobs to politicians when they retire in their lobbying firm that they were lobbying with for 20 years. So, it's institutionalised corruption and it's legal. These corporations, they run the show. Not here. They run the show in the world.
But now with social media, it's not only Bitcoin, it's social media, it's hyper-communication. That's why Bitcoin exists. So, with all of this hyper-communication now of these people with a voice, now everybody has a voice. Probably more people will watch your podcast than --
Peter McCormack: Oh, this one will beat the last one!
President Bukele: Probably. Probably more people watch your podcast than NBC, and I'm not joking. I was in this show, what's the name? What's the name of this show that's very famous in the States?
Peter McCormack: Tucker Carlson?
President Bukele: No, he has some ratings. No, 60 Minutes.
Peter McCormack: Oh, yeah, I saw it.
President Bukele: I was on 60 Minutes, full show, full 60 minutes. And I was very honoured to be on 60 Minutes. And we did this show, this show went out, nobody called me or texted me, "Hey you did well"; nobody! I didn't receive a tweet.
Peter McCormack: What about after my one?
President Bukele: Oh, a lot of them, thousands. And after 60 Minutes, nobody. So, I was like, "Did someone watch this show, the 60 Minutes show?" It's like, these magazine media, they're fine and they have their right to do it. I'm not criticising because I'm against them, it's just they're not as relevant as they were, and not because of me or because of you; it's because that's reality, it's the new reality. I mean, TikTok, we have more views than all the three major networks in the United States.
Peter McCormack: Hence what you did at the UN?
President Bukele: Yeah, and it was different at that time. Now, it will change even more.
Peter McCormack: Yeah. Well, I wrestled with this Article 7, and I came to the conclusion that --
President Bukele: You cannot put this into work without it.
Peter McCormack: Well, it's like a kickstart.
President Bukele: Well, not only a kickstart. I mean, huge banks, multi-billion-dollar banks here, the main five banks, they're worth way more than $1 billion, they will say, "Yeah, we're not going to take it". And the corporations, the supermarkets, the pharmacies, the gas stations, the chain restaurants, they have 100 stores, "No, we don't, we won't use it"; the department stores, "No, we won't take it".
Let's say a family gets their $30 in Bitcoin. They are five, so they split the $150 and they want to buy a kitchen. So, they go to the department store and say, "Okay, we're going to buy a kitchen". The department store says, "No, we won't take it". So, they don't know what Bitcoin is, how does it work. So, in the first time they would pay, their Bitcoins are worth nothing for them, because they go to the store and they won't take it.
So, you have to create an environment in which their Bitcoin, it's accepted as a method of payment with the big corporations. And, the small guy, he can do whatever he wants. And actually, the smallest guy is the one who goes to buy the kitchen. So actually, we're protecting the freedom of the small guy, the little guy, because he has freedom to choose if he wants to pay in dollars or in Bitcoin.
Now, did the huge corporations have freedom? Of course, yes. I don't understand why, when the corporations are running the show, nobody says anything. It's like, "Okay, it's fine, they can crush the little guy, whatever, they can do whatever they want". And when we protect the liberties and the right to choose of the little guy and we make the corporations to respect that, suddenly that's bad. And we actually have in the same, how many articles were there, 16? It was very small, so you can actually read the full law in five minutes or less.
Then, next to Article 7 is Article 8, and a little below is Article 12. I mean, you just have to read the next articles and that's it.
Peter McCormack: Will there come a time when you start to enforce Article 7, and how would you enforce that?
President Bukele: We're not enforcing it.
Peter McCormack: No, but will there come a time when maybe you will? So, my experience was, we went everywhere. We went to, I can't remember the steak restaurant in a mall, and we said, "Are you ready?" and they said, "We're ready. We're ready for the law Tuesday, we've got the Chivo app". We've seen Starbucks and McDonald's, we went down to the market and nobody was ready.
But does there come a time where there may be a couple of places in the mall, does there come a time when you enforce it?
President Bukele: We haven't enforced it.
Peter McCormack: I know not yet, but…?
President Bukele: No. We just have the capability of enforcing any of the big corporations or a big bank, that's just --
Peter McCormack: So, it's there because of those guys?
President Bukele: Of course.
Peter McCormack: Because my feeling was it was a little bit carrot and stick. It's stick for the big corporations, carrot for the small businesses like, "Here's the incentive, here's the Chivo app, here's $30, go out and learn it".
President Bukele: Yeah, that's it. We're not enforcing it, not even now. I mean, why would we enforce it? Why would we enforce it in a year?
Peter McCormack: Well, I've just got to ask the questions that people ask me, or the people are fearful of, and I've got to put them to you.
President Bukele: Fear is the first letter of FUD!
Peter McCormack: Back to your legacy. Big question, I can't actually believe -- I mean, I'm not a political guy, I'm going to be discussing politics with you now and I'm not going to debate you on it, but I met a lot of people and it has been a big reaction to the Supreme Court ruling. But last time I met you I said, "One term just doesn't seem long enough for this job".
President Bukele: Yeah, I haven't given any opinion about it.
Peter McCormack: Well, how about a world exclusive?
President Bukele: No, I'm not going to do that.
Peter McCormack: So, will you talk about this?
President Bukele: Yeah, probably later.
Peter McCormack: I mean, that's quite a big question I had written down here!
President Bukele: Well, you can read it to me!
Peter McCormack: I almost want to ask you, just because I can't believe I'm here; I'm just a Bitcoin podcaster from Bedford. But it's really the question that a lot of people are asking, is that are you a dictator? That's the thing that people listening --
President Bukele: What do you think?
Peter McCormack: Well…
President Bukele: What's the ingredients?
Peter McCormack: "A ruler with total power over a country, typically one who has obtained control by force". Do you know what I think? I think, I genuinely think, I said it to you last time, I don't think one term's enough to do this job, especially with the Bitcoin, and I went away thinking it isn't. I think it's a minimum two-term job, and I think you know that, and I think what you're thinking is --
President Bukele: I won't answer that, but you can answer for me!
Peter McCormack: I mean, I think you're going to run again and I think, as long as everything goes okay, you will retain your presidency, because I think you know this is a ten-year job, minimum. That's what I think.
President Bukele: But what do you think about the dictatorship? Do you think there's any logic to it, that we're doing anything by force; that we've obtained power by force; are we imposing it on everybody else?
Peter McCormack: I think it's a subjective term that some people can describe as you are, and some people can describe as you aren't. I think it's something you use retroactively.
President Bukele: I think people shouldn't use it so lightly.
Peter McCormack: Oh, no, I agree.
President Bukele: Because then, if everything is a dictatorship, then nothing is a dictatorship. I mean, the problem with that is, I was just reading today that President Biden is saying that his patience is up and he's going to do some things to make people vaccinate, for example, and if you say, "Okay, so that's a dictatorship". And then, probably that's something that you won't like, I don't agree with it, but is that -- I mean, it makes the United States a dictatorship?
The problem is, if everything is a dictatorship, then nothing is a dictatorship. So then, when you have a real dictatorship that you need to fight, then what's the difference between a dictatorship and if everything's a dictatorship. It's when they give medals to everybody. It's like they have a race and ten people participate and they give medals to everybody, because you know, so nobody won actually, which is fine; you can give medals to everybody. The problem is then that a medal's worth nothing. It's like with fiat money, it's the same concept.
So, it's the same; if everything's a dictatorship, if everything you don't like is a dictatorship, because you don't like something, then nothing is a dictatorship and I just think that, I mean there are real dictatorships in the world that are very harmful to their people, they're crushing their people, and it's not El Salvador.
Peter McCormack: I don't think yet. I think there's a slight difference --
President Bukele: Well, if you're just speculating to the future, then every country in the world is a potential dictator.
Peter McCormack: I think I need to explain. So, Biden's decision, I think is terrible, and what I would say is that he's acting authoritarian with that. And, do I think you're a dictator? No, it's something you apply retrospectively once it's happened. I guess what I'm saying is, I wanted to ask you the question, not so much, "Are you going to run again?" it's like, what is the plan here, what is the long-term plan? Is it to do a specific job, or is it one of those things where it's like, "You know what, I love the job, I want to stay in it"?
President Bukele: I'm not going to answer, but I can tell you, it's not my plan to just stay in the job. I don't want to do that all my life, it's just too much. I mean, it's good, I like it, I love it for now. But it's not my plan.
Peter McCormack: I read it was wanting to clean house.
President Bukele: Life is actually very short.
Peter McCormack: I know, man.
President Bukele: It's actually very short and once you realise that, it's probably one of the few things that makes me sad about life is that it's too short. So, I won't spend everything here, I'm just going to do -- and my wife's not going to let me either! So, yeah, out of the question. I'm not answering your question, I'm just philosophically talking about staying huge periods of time in a job; I won't do it.
Peter McCormack: I know, and look --
President Bukele: Not in this job and not in any job. I mean, if I was working in a company, I'd probably quit every five years or every four years. I won't stay there. You shouldn't stay in the same job for too much time; it takes away the impulse of starting something.
Peter McCormack: But there is an opportunity across wider Latin America to help other countries, to take a bigger role there.
President Bukele: Yeah, probably.
Peter McCormack: That could be busy.
President Bukele: Yeah, definitely.
Peter McCormack: But you talked about cleaning house and I understand that, and I've spoken to other people.
President Bukele: You know, I'll answer any question that's not that --
Peter McCormack: Can I tell you why I want to ask this question?
President Bukele: Yeah.
Peter McCormack: I've spent time here in El Salvador, a lot of my listeners haven't, and they don't understand what it's like here. They will read the headlines, the FUD, and they will make judgements. The one question I wanted more in this area is, what does "clean house" mean? I mean, we talked about previous presidents.
President Bukele: Yes. This guy you just mentioned, he confessed about the $300 million corruption. $300 million in a poor country like ours. And the other guy, he fled and he has Nicaraguan citizenship now, because the dictatorship in Nicaragua actually gave him the citizenship.
Peter McCormack: Yeah, I know!
President Bukele: Now there, they kill you because of your political inclinations. That's a dictatorship. Now, he's accused of stealing $351 million. I mean, that's actually what the Attorney General has in proof. He probably stole more, you know. They have proof of $351 million. And the next one, he's also in Nicaragua, $144 million. And that's only the presidents. Then you have ministers and secretaries, deputies, judges.
Today, they arrested former director of the jails, because he diverted, I don't know, I don't remember the exact figure, but several million dollars to the account of the former Minister of Security; this was today. You could say, "Oh, because they say that", the party that was in power before. They would say, "Oh, it's political persecution". So, what do we do? We just let them stay with their money, because do they have immunity, because they're going to accuse you of political persecution?
I mean, I would guess most of your viewers are smart people, because --
Peter McCormack: They're in Bitcoin!
President Bukele: Yeah, exactly, so they see a little more --
Peter McCormack: Ahead.
President Bukele: -- ahead, exactly. So, do you really think in a country like El Salvador, with so much poverty, 75% of people unbanked, all the problems that you would see in a country like ours, hunger, communities with lack of basic services, housing, water, do you think that we have had honest politicians around?
Peter McCormack: I know you haven't.
President Bukele: Exactly, so what should we do with them? Should we investigate them and process them? Or, should we say, "No, because they're political opponents, and if you arrest a political opponent, then you're a dictator"? It would be probably a lot easier not to arrest anybody, because you don't want enemies; they can cause you harm. It's not that hard, right.
So, if we want to fix things here, we have to go after corruption, crime. Of course, we have to build schools and hospitals and fight the pandemic and more access to technology, we're giving away computers to all the children, we're changing our economic policies. So, all of this will bring results, and you can not only do this. You also have to fight impunity and corruption, and that's messy. I mean, you're cleaning house; that's what cleaning house means.
These people have not only stolen, but actually killed our people. They have trained criminals; there's pictures, videos of it. I mean, there's videos of it, of them giving mountains of money to criminals in exchange for votes. There are videos of them negotiating millions of dollars for the result of an election. There are videos of them and pictures training criminals in their military facilities. And you actually look at gang members, and they're gang members because you can see their faces, and they're actually recognised gang members that are now in jail. And you will see them in the military installations in the shooting range, practising with guns, with ammunition paid with taxes. And they're practising, of course, because that's the silhouette you have to shoot in the head and in the heart.
Where are they going to apply their new talents? You're going to go out and kill our people. So, they did this for a lot of time. There are actually accusations in our current system; not right now, before I was President. They would actually meet the Minister of Security, I don't know what he was doing in the assembly, but he was actually in parliament, not in the chamber, in the offices meeting with gang leaders, authorising the number of homicides they can do a day. Like saying, "Okay, you can do up to here, so we keep this", whatever.
You cannot negotiate that. Justice is something that has to be applied, and this is nothing that has to do probably with economics, but you cannot just let criminals go away. We're not talking about opposition, we're talking about people that have killed and stolen from our Salvadorans for the last 40 years, and some of them will never pay for their crimes, because you know, the criminal system is far from perfect.
Peter McCormack: So, it's easier to clean house than prosecute?
President Bukele: Yes, it's easier to fire somebody than to actually prosecute him and have him go to jail. And it's sad that the justice system will probably spare 90% of them, but it will be very, very unfair to accusers of making 10% of them pay for what they did. We should actually be doing 100%. We do such a lousy job in the justice system that probably 90% of them will get away with their crimes.
So, that should be the focus, "Look, El Salvador is letting all those criminals get away with it". That should be the focus, not, "El Salvador captured one politician out of 1,000 that are corrupt, and had him killed". I mean, it's just the focus should be the other way around.
Peter McCormack: Well, no one can say I didn't ask you these questions!
President Bukele: Yeah, yeah.
Peter McCormack: I've got one more and then a close-out question. This has been a real eye-opening trip for me here. One of the things I really wanted to do was avoid all the clichés in El Salvador. We've seen the tough parts, we've seen the good parts, but when everyone thinks of El Salvador, they think of two topics.
But they don't talk about the beaches and the surf and the food and the people and how hard-working they are; all that's missed. It's all prisons, gangs and civil wars, so we've tried to tell a different story, we've tried to show the real El Salvador, and I appreciate your time and we have shown the opposition. There is one thing that did come up again and again in speaking to people, and it's to do with the machismo.
President Bukele: The what?
Peter McCormack: The gender equality in the country.
President Bukele: Oh, yes.
Peter McCormack: Now, this Bitcoin thing's putting you on the world stage, it's exposing El Salvador to the rest of the world. How far has El Salvador come in equality, and what is the future for the country with regard to this? Meeting women in El Salvador, they said this is their pressing issue.
President Bukele: It's obvious that there's, in all Latin America actually, there's a huge gap in gender equality. People won't talk about it a lot, because it's embedded in the culture, but it's real and you cannot just dismiss it because it's embedded in the culture. I mean, the culture has to be better. So, there's a lot of things that we have to do, and we're working on it.
You name it, there's a thousand topics that have to be fixed, and this place, like everything else, we'll fix one, then we'll fix the other one. I mean, I don't eat whales and I think you don't want to eat whales either, but there's a saying that says, "How do you eat a whale?" You can't actually swallow a whale, so you eat it piece by piece. I'm not advocating for eating whales, but they did 100 years ago.
So, how you fix a huge, gigantic problem as gender equality in a country that's culturally embedded into their equality; that goes through so many stages of having… A lot of women will be, not forced, but forced by culture, let's say, to stay home and work and not be compensated for their work. And then, that makes them dependent of their male partner, because he's the one that has the money.
But there's a lot of things in education and human rights and in political positions, so many things that will have women be not protected, or being even neglected over society level, or even the state. So, we're trying to fix that and we're doing a lot of things. The First Lady, Gabriela, my wife, she's doing a lot of projects. They just unveiled one that's huge, $600 million project, a lot more expensive than the Bitcoin one, and it's focused on women and their rights.
It's a long way to go, and it will be a longer interview, of course. But before we started the interview and you asked me how many hours; there are so many things, because we have to fix the agriculture, we have to fix the intake of calories of the children, we have to fix gender equality, we have to fix --
Peter McCormack: It's overwhelming.
President Bukele: Yes, but you have to fix everything, because if not, it's like a table with one leg missing; so you have to fix everything. And it's not going to be easy, but we're doing it. Rome wasn't built in a day, and we're not Rome, and of course we're not going to fix the country in a day. But every time with every project, with all the crime rate, but still you can say, "Still it's a high crime rate". Yeah, but it's lower.
Peter McCormack: From where it's come, yeah.
President Bukele: Yeah, and it's lower than a lot of cities in the US, for example. But there's just a lot more things to do. And for example, in El Salvador, the majority of people being killed will be men, but that's because probably gang leaders will be men. So, it's not because women are more protected. So, when you look about the feminine side, for example, the women that will be killed; one of the factors is because they're being a woman. So, you have to fight that and it's not easy. Now that we have lowered the gang crime rate, so there's a lot of things that we have to fix, and that's definitely one; we're working on it.
Peter McCormack: Well, I appreciate you answering these questions as well.
President Bukele: Thank you.
Peter McCormack: I've spent a lot of time here, and these are things that people asked me to talk to you about. But I think we've got to give the final word to Bitcoin, because that's my base and also, thanks again for doing this, because I know you don't give a lot of interviews.
President Bukele: No, I don't.
Peter McCormack: For some reason, you've given me two and I appreciate that!
President Bukele: I thought we should have a -- it's an ongoing discussion and I thought that before, it was before; and now it's, I won't say after, but it's live.
Peter McCormack: We'll do this every six months!
President Bukele: Yeah!
Peter McCormack: But I do appreciate it, it's very surreal. I do want to give the last word to Bitcoin. I believe in the project and I believe Bitcoin will be a success here. In some ways, it already is, in certain measures. But I want to give you the last words on this. What do you want to tell people about El Salvador? People who listen to this, who maybe haven't been to the country or don't understand what's going on with the Bitcoin project, what do you want to just say to them?
President Bukele: Well, El Salvador's going to speak for itself. I mean, people are coming, people are watching. And, you know, you talk about civil war and the gangs, etc, and probably some informed people, they know about the civil war, etc. Most people, they probably didn't even know where El Salvador was on a map.
Peter McCormack: Yeah!
President Bukele: So, when you say, "El Salvador was known for its civil war", I'm like, "Really?" Of course, very informed people about civil wars, they're very informed about El Salvador Civil War in the 1980s. But most people won't even know where El Salvador is on the map. Now, a lot of people are watching, and now we have the eyes of the world. And actually, on 7 September, we were probably the most commentated, watched country in the world.
Of course, you have ups and downs, you won't be in the news every day; well, we have been, but it's going to go down eventually. But all the attention that we have had now, people coming in in tons, in the airport you have a lot of people come in just to watch this project going on, and you have all of these legacy economists harm -- I could call them differently, but for your show I'll be respectful.
Peter McCormack: You can call them what you want!
President Bukele: I know. All these legacy economists, because I don't want to generalise. There are some very bad people, but there are some good people; they just think different. Now, these legacy economists, they're very smart, most of them. But they're interested in El Salvador; they're commenting and they're writing about El Salvador. I mean, we have a net gain out of it. Even the tax. I mean, all of these media outlets, magazines, everything they're making. They're writing articles, opinion pieces, they're writing essays. I mean, this never happened before, never in El Salvador's 200-year history you would have had this type of attention from the world.
Of course, the project is not for the attention of the world, it's an economic project. But one of the variables that you can now measure, it's huge attention from companies, from banks. I don't know if it's JP Morgan, they issued their assessment of El Salvador's rollout of Bitcoin and they say, "Okay, they have had some glitches in there, but that was expected". JP Morgan is issuing, because a lot of their investors, they want to know what's happening, what's going on and how is it going.
So, this whole thing by itself, it would have been enough benefits, enough good things for the country. But when you add up all the other variables, it's a huge gain for El Salvador, something we didn't dream of before. It's going to be good for El Salvador, it's going to be good for Bitcoin, it's going to be good for the world eventually. So, yeah, for me, it was a no-brainer from the start, and it's a no-brainer right now.
I don't think it's going to work, I'm sure it's going to work, because the fundamentals are there. You can have some bumps in the road, like everything, like the price of Bitcoin against compared to the dollar, if you care about that. But the fundamentals are the same, and it's going to work because the philosophy of it is right, so give it time. It's going to work for El Salvador, it's going to work for Bitcoin, it's going to work for the world.
Peter McCormack: Well, I wish it the best and again, thank you for seeing me again, I do appreciate it. But I wish you the best. I'm here to help people in El Salvador, I'll keep coming back, I'll keep offering my support to people who want to learn about Bitcoin and help them and, yeah, look forward to doing this again at another important point in the future where there's more to talk about. Just thanks again.
President Bukele: You too.
