At least one White House official is apparently feeling inspired by El Salvador’s move to end presidential term limits.
President Nayib Bukele’s ruling New Ideas party voted overwhelmingly to amend the country’s Constitution, paving the way for Bukele to remain in power indefinitely, Reuters reported.
Deputy White House Chief of Staff Dan Scavino shared an AP link with news of El Salvador’s approval of “indefinite presidential reelection” and wrote Thursday in a social media post, “What to see heads explode? CC:@realDonaldTrump.”
He also added an emoji of a thinking face and pointing finger for good measure.
It wasn’t the first time Trump loyalists have floated the idea of ignoring the U.S. Constitution’s requirements on presidential term limits—or expressed admiration for Bukele’s authoritarian regime.
The 22nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution explicitly says that “no person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice.”
MAGA loyalists have nevertheless called on Trump to run for reelection in 2028, and his newest appointee to the federal appellate bench, Emil Bove, refused during his Senate confirmation process to rule out supporting another run.
Senate Republicans confirmed Bove—who briefly told government lawyers to ignore judicial rulings while serving as Trump’s principal associate deputy attorney general—to a lifetime appointment.
The Daily Beast has reached out to the White House for comment.
Bukele won reelection last year in a landslide victory even though the country’s Constitution previously only allowed single five-year presidential terms. During his first term, he had packed the courts with loyalist judges, who allowed him to run for a second term, according to Reuters.
After his 2024 victory, his opponents worried he would overhaul the Constitution and try to rule for life like neighboring Nicaragua’s Daniel Ortega, who has been in power since 2007, Reuters reported.
Trump has been an open admirer of Bukele’s authoritarianism, calling him “one hell of a president” during an April meeting at the Oval Office.
The 42-year-old’s popularity stems from his massive security crackdown, which all but eliminated gang violence and small business extortion in what was previously one of Latin America’s most dangerous countries.
His strategy involved suspending civil liberties and indefinitely jailing more than 75,000 Salvadorans without any charges in the country’s notorious CECOT mega-prison, where inmates are regularly beaten and are not allowed to have recreation, education, or even access to legal counsel.
There’s also evidence he secretly cut a deal with MS-13 during the early years of his presidency, offering gang leaders money and power in exchange for votes and reduced homicide rates, ProPublica reported in June.
The Trump administration has deported some migrants to the supermax CECOT, and he’s expressed a wish that homegrown criminals could be next.
Bukele enjoys near-total control of El Salvador’s Legislative Assembly, which voted 57-3 to scrap term limits.
“Today, democracy has died in El Salvador,” said opposition legislator Marcela Villatoro, from the Republican National Alliance.
Trump doesn’t have the numbers to amend the U.S. Constitution, which requires two-thirds majority votes in the U.S. House and Senate, or for two-thirds of State legislatures to call for a constitutional convention.
But he has already shown a willingness to disregard what’s written in the Constitution.
In January, Trump signed an executive order declaring that children of immigrants are not entitled to U.S. citizenship despite the 14th Amendment to the Constitution’s guarantee that, “All persons born… in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.”
A federal appeals court ruled last month that the executive order was illegal.
