'Sipping margaritas' is latest example in Bukele's propaganda machine

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/04/18/nayib-bukele-tweet-margaritas-kilmar-abrego-garcia/

‘Sipping margaritas’ is latest example in Bukele’s propaganda machine
Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele has a long history of using social media to flaunt his powers and once again stepped into the fray on Thursday.


Two images of Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen's meeting with Kilmar Abrego García, a Salvadoran citizen who was mistakenly deported to El Salvador by the Trump administration, have circulated on social media. (Van Hollen Press Office/AP; Office of Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele)
By Azi Paybarah

Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele has a long history of using social media to flaunt his powers — from declaring himself “the coolest dictator in the world” to posting dramatically shot videos of people being herded into his country’s prisons.

That audacious style was once again on display when Bukele shared photos of Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Maryland) visiting with Kilmar Abrego García on Thursday. Abrego García, a Salvadoran immigrant and Maryland resident who is married to a U.S. citizen, was mistakenly deported last month to El Salvador. He was being held in the country’s notorious Terrorism Confinement Center, known as CECOT.

Bukele mocked the senator’s visit, telling his followers that Van Hollen and Abrego García were drinking margaritas in the “tropical paradise of El Salvador.”

Kilmar Abrego Garcia, miraculously risen from the “death camps” & “torture”, now sipping margaritas with Sen. Van Hollen in the tropical paradise of El Salvador!🍹 pic.twitter.com/r6VWc6Fjtn
— Nayib Bukele (@nayibbukele) April 18, 2025

Van Hollen said his attempts to meet with Abrego García were initially refused, even though Bukele previously allowed Republican officials and social media influencers to visit the prison. But late Thursday, Van Hollen shared an image of himself seated at a table with Abrego García in a restaurant in El Salvador. Only in Van Hollen’s photo, there were no salt-rimmed glasses and cherries.

In a news conference on Friday, Van Hollen said that Bukele’s staff had placed glasses at the table during their meeting and that neither he nor Abrego García drank from them. Van Hollen added that Bukele’s staff had made the glass in front of Abrego García less full so it appeared as if he had a drink from it. “It is the lengths that President Bukele will [go] to deceive people about what’s going on,” Van Hollen said.

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