Disgraced congressman turned MAGA cable host Matt Gaetz led a delegation of Republican lawmakers - and one Democratic congressman - on a visit to El Salvador’s notorious mega-prison, where prisoners deported from America heckled and taunted the group as they toured the facility.
Claiming that he is the “first American journalist inside” the ward that holds inmates who are accused of being in the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, Gaetz aired a segment on his One America News show Monday night of his visit to the Terrorism Confinement Center, or CECOT.
Throughout Gaetz’s report, which included the Trump loyalist walking through the halls of the maximum-security facility with several members of Congress, much of the footage focused on the difference in behavior between accused MS-13 members and those incarcerated in the TdA ward.
“What no other news organization has shown you until now is the specific ward at CECOT that holds the Venezuelan-based Tren de Aragua members President Trump deported. See if you can notice them reacting differently,” Gaetz noted on Monday night.
He then aired a lengthy clip of the delegation walking through the section housing accused TdA members who had recently been deported from America through the Alien Enemies Act, a little-used wartime powers law. After the president announced the proclamation, a federal judge paused the deportations, but planeloads of Venezuelan migrants had already been shipped to El Salvador and have been imprisoned since. Additional deportation flights of Venezuelan migrants have remained on hold amid court battles.
According to the footage Gaetz aired, the inmates in the MS-13 ward were generally polite and calm when the delegation passed by, while the TdA ward featured the prisoners loudly heckling, taunting and shouting at the OAN host and lawmakers. The members of Congress who accompanied Gaetz were Rep. Andy Ogles (R-TN), Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) and Rep. Vicente Gonzalez (D-TX), whom Gaetz described as “the usually reasonable Texas Democrat.”
Noting the harsh conditions that the majority of inmates suffer while housed in the prison, Gaetz then asserted that the prisoners deported from America are provided better accommodations and food. Pointing out that the rest of the prisoners are only served rice and beans for meals, Gaetz aired footage of a CECOT guard displaying a box containing a burger and fries, insisting that this is the typical meal in the TdA ward.
“That’s a good meal. Can I try it? Can I take a bite?” Luna declared before nabbing a fry.
“Americans are paying for the Tren de Aragua incarceration. It’s a bargain at $6 million,” Gaetz stated in his report. “For that, El Salvador is actually treating the Venezuelan new arrivals better than their murderous countrymen.”
Gaetz leading a Congressional delegation for a made-for-TV tour through the mega-prison, which has been decried by human rights groups as a “tropical gulag,” should hardly come as a surprise.
Following the former Florida lawmaker’s failed bid to become Trump’s attorney general, it was reported that Gaetz actually pitched Trump deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller on the idea of sending migrants to CECOT after he visited El Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele last year.
During the visit, Bukele told Gaetz that he’d be willing to imprison migrants at the prison that Trump wanted removed from the United States if Trump won the election. The following day, Gaetz was given a tour of CECOT, prompting him to float the idea to Miller when he returned from the trip.
“The conditions had zapped the inhabitants of any will to fight,” Gaetz said of the visit. “It’s tough to see the state of the human condition drained of hope.”
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