‘Something’s gonna have to be done’: Trump teases next target after Venezuela attack

In the wake of the attack on Venezuela and subsequent capture of its president, President Donald Trump appeared to tease Saturday what may be his administration’s next target during a phone call with Fox News’ “Fox & Friends.”

Trump phoned in to the conservative media show after his administration’s unprecedented attack on the South American nation earlier Saturday morning, which he boasted earlier about having watched in real time from his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, a viewing experience he said was “like watching a television show.”

Trump was asked whether the attack on Venezuela was also designed to send a “message” to Mexico that the United States would no longer tolerate drug trafficking, to which Trump provided a telling response as to what may be his next move.

“It wasn’t meant to be [a message to Mexico], and we’re very friendly with [Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum]; she’s a good woman, but the cartels are running Mexico, she’s not running Mexico,” Trump said.

“We could be politically correct and be nice, but no, she’s very frightened of the cartels, they’re running Mexico. I’ve asked her numerous times: ‘would you like us to take out the cartels’ – ‘no, no, no Mr. President, please,’ so we have to do something. We lost 300,000 people in my opinion to drugs, and they come in through the Southern Border. Something’s gonna have to be done with Mexico.”

Trump was not the first person to suggest Sheinbaum may suffer the same fate as Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, who’s been captured and extradited to face trial in New York. Earlier on Saturday, Trump’s former deputy national security advisor Victoria Coates made a similar suggestion, telling Fox News that Sheinbaum “is probably legitimately concerned” that she “could be subject to this kind of thing.”