Trump on Drug Strikes: “Now We’re Starting By Land”
President Donald Trump announced at a Friday afternoon Oval Office press conference that his administration will begin land-based strikes targeting drug traffickers moving narcotics into the United States.
REPORTER: I also want to ask about another country that you’re targeting, which of course is Venezuela. Do you intend on seizing more oil assets from Venezuela? PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: No, I wouldn’t tell you that. I mean, it wouldn’t be very smart for me to tell you that. You know, we’re supposed to be a little bit secretive, you’re a very big-time reporter, and I don’t think I want to tell a big-time reporter or a small-time reporter that, but we are knocking out drugs at levels that nobody’s ever seen before. We knocked out 96% of the drugs coming in by water, and nobody can figure out who the 4%, I wouldn’t want to be the 4%, but 96% of the drugs coming in by water. Every one of those boats you see get shut down. You just saved 25,000 American lives, but we knocked out 96% of the drugs coming in by water, and now we’re starting by land, and by land is a lot easier, and that’s going to start happening, and we’re not going to have people destroying our youth, destroying our families. Think about youth. Everybody. You ever see a family with the fentanyl or cocaine? Colombia has at least three cocaine factories. That’s a different country. We’re not happy about it, but we’re stopping it, and we’ve stopped it now on water. You don’t even find boats on water. You don’t even see fishing boats on water. Do you want to go fishing today? … REPORTER #2: You’ve talked about land strikes happening soon. Is there anything at this point that can prevent that and is the objective if you make that decision? TRUMP: Well, I don’t want to say that, but it’s not only land strikes on Venezuela, it’s land strikes on horrible people that are bringing in drugs and killing our people. You know, if we were in a war and we lost 300,000 people in a year, because that’s what the real number is, it’s not 100, you know, you keep hearing 100. And it’s a lot worse than that because the families are devastated when they lose their child. If we were in a war, we lost two or three hundred thousand, but I think it’s more than 300,000. And that’s a war that’s like a war that would be unparalleled. There’s nobody’s ever seen anything like that. And that’s what’s happening. So it doesn’t necessarily have to be in Venezuela. People that are bringing in drugs to our country are our targets.
