No, Pam Bondi Did Not Threaten People Who Slur Trump with 15 Years in El Salvador Jail
By Sarah Komar
What happened: Liberal social media users are falsely claiming that U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said during a Fox News interview that Americans who say “F--- Trump” will be sent to a notorious El Salvador prison.
A closer look: Anti-Trump accounts shared a screenshot showing Bondi being interviewed on Fox News’ “Hannity,” with an on-air graphic reading, “Bondi: ‘We hear you say ‘F--- Trump,’ and that’s 15 years in El Salvador.’” The supposed quote was an apparent reference to El Salvador’s “Terrorism Confinement Center,” a notorious prison where the Trump administration has deported hundreds of migrants without due process.
Liberal Threads user @progressivepower shared the image and said: “The U.S. Constitution grants citizens the right to protest peacefully, dictator-wannabe Trump does not. … #protest.” The post received 26,700 views and 2,600 likes in five days.
An X post by anti-Trump user @JessicaUSAF shared the image and said, “F--- Trump.” The post received 1.8 million views and 68,000 likes in four days.
Actually: NewsGuard found no credible reporting that Bondi had made the supposed comment or anything similar. Indeed, the claim originated as satire.
Bondi did appear on “Hannity” on April 16, 2025, but a screenshot of the segment was altered to add the graphic featuring the fabricated quote.
The image was first posted on April 18 on the Facebook page of liberal comedian and comedy writer James Schlarmann. Schlarmann, who has 195,000 Facebook followers and describes himself on his page as a “satirist,” regularly posts satirical images attributing fake quotes to politicians and public figures, typically targeting conservatives.