Did U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi threaten that anyone saying "Fuck Trump" may get "15 years in El Salvador" for doing that? No, that's not true: The viral image with the supposed quote was not an authentic screenshot of Bondi's interview. In the picture circulating on social media, the contents of the lower banner were digitally replaced with a made-up quote.
The story appeared in a post (archived here) published on X on April 21, 2025. It shared what looked like a screenshot of Bondi's appearance on Fox News. The lower banner attributed the following quote to her:
WE HEAR YOU SAY 'FUCK TRUMP,' AND THAT'S 15 YEARS IN EL SALVADOR.
This is what the post looked like on X at the time of writing:
(Source: X screenshot by Lead Stories)
The inscription in the shared image referred to El Salvador's 40,000-inmate prison (archived here) where the Trump administration sent dozens of foreign-born migrants captured in the U.S. by immigration authorities.
U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi (archived here) appointed by Trump, however, did not say what was attributed to her in the picture on X.
A search across the Fox News website whose logo was seen in the left bottom corner of the "screenshot" showed that the original recording of Bondi's appearance made on April 17, 2025, displayed lower banners with different contents:
(Source: Fox News screenshots by Lead Stories)
A search for the keywords seen here (archived here) across Google News showed a single result: A Snopes fact check that previously reviewed the same claim about the manufactured quote.
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Other Lead Stories fact checks concerning current events are here.
