‘Something’s Gonna Have to be Done With Mexico’: Trump Floats Further Intervention to Fox & Friends

President Donald Trump said Friday that the U.S. operation that led to the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro was not intended to send a message to Mexico, though he suggested additional action may be necessary to combat drug trafficking.

Trump called into Fox & Friends Weekend for a nearly 30-minute interview, during which he described the U.S. operation involving airstrikes in Caracas and the capture of Maduro and his wife. Trump said the couple was extradited to the United States to face narcotics trafficking charges filed by the Southern District of New York.

During the interview, co-host Griff Jenkins referenced comments from Vice President JD Vance that “the drug trafficking must stop” and asked Trump directly whether the operation was meant as a message to Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum.

“Well, it wasn’t meant to be, and we’re very friendly with her. She’s a good woman,” Trump said, before arguing that Mexican cartels, not the country’s elected leadership, hold real power. “She’s not running Mexico. The cartels are running Mexico. And we could be politically correct and be nice and say, ‘Oh yes, she is.’ No, no. She’s very frightened of the cartels.”

Trump claimed he had repeatedly offered U.S. assistance in taking action against drug cartels operating in Mexico.

“They’re running Mexico, and I’ve asked her numerous times, ‘Would you like us to take out the cartels?’” Trump said, paraphrasing what he said was her response. “‘No, no, Mr. President, no, no, no, please.’”

The president then pivoted to the issue of drug-related deaths in the United States, asserting that official figures understate the toll.

“We lost — the real number is 300,000 people, in my opinion,” Trump said. “They like to say 100,000. One hundred thousand is a lot of people, but the real number’s 300,000 people, and we lost them to drugs.”

Trump said most illicit drugs enter the United States through the southern border, while adding that some also come through Canada.

“But they come in through the southern border, mostly,” he said. “And something’s gonna have to be done with Mexico.”

Watch above, via Fox News.