The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | February 22, 2025: Is A Shooting War Coming In Mexico? & Peace Talks Over Ukraine Begin
Sat, 22 Feb 2025
In this episode of The President's Daily Brief: Mexico is ramping up its fight against drug cartels, deploying thousands of troops into cartel strongholds. Is the country on the verge of an all-out shooting war with these powerful criminal organizations? Senior National Security Fellow for the Center for Immigration Studies Todd Bensman joins us to break it down. U.S. and Russian delegations met in Saudi Arabia this week to discuss potential pathways to ending the war in Ukraine. What came out of the talks, and is a diplomatic breakthrough possible? Steve Yates of the Heritage Foundation shares his insights. To listen to the show ad-free, become a premium member of The President’s Daily Brief by visiting PDBPremium.com. Please remember to subscribe if you enjoyed this episode of The President's Daily Brief. YouTube: youtube.com/@presidentsdailybrief Beam: Visit https://ShopBeam.com/MIKE and use code MIKE for up to 40% off. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Is Mexico on the brink of a war with drug cartels?
Welcome to the PDB Situation Report. I'm Mike Baker. Your eyes and ears on the world stage. All right, let's get briefed. We'll start things off today with the latest in the fight against Mexico's drug cartels. Now, as Mexico's government sends thousands of troops into cartel territory, Could it be on the brink of an all-out shooting war with these powerful criminal organizations?
Senior National Security Fellow for the Center for Immigration Studies, Todd Benzman, well, he helps us answer that question. Later in the show, delegations from the U.S. and Russia were in Saudi Arabia this week, working toward ending the war in Ukraine. We'll be joined by Steve Yates of the Heritage Foundation, who will give us his insights on the negotiations.
But first, today's Situation Report Spotlight. Mexico's decades-old hugs-not-bullets policy toward drug cartels is rapidly being challenged as President Claudio Steinbeck faces pressure from President Trump to take more aggressive action.
In a dramatic shift, Scheinbaum has been forced to deploy 10,000 troops to cartel territory along Mexico's northern border, with a focus, at least ostensibly, on taking on transnational criminal organizations and halting fentanyl production. Now, this marks a significant departure from previous efforts that focused primarily on stemming illegal immigration.
But with cartels already ramping up violent responses, could Mexico be on the verge of a full-blown war? Todd Benzman, Senior National Security Fellow for the Center for Immigration Studies, joins us to break down the implications of this escalating situation. Todd, thanks very much for joining us here on The Situation Report. Great to be here. Thank you.
There's so much to talk about here, both from the Mexican perspective and from the U.S. perspective, in terms of taking on the cartels and what that could mean. But you've written recently some very interesting articles. And you touched on something that I think is very emotive. I suspect a lot of people are landing on the fainting couch over this.
But you've written a recent piece talking about the way in which currently we're dealing with deportees. Talk to me about that.
Sure. This all started when the deportation by air began. You may remember that we sent a couple of military flights, I think they were C-17s, to Colombia. And that president turned the planes around and kind of got into a kerfuffle with Trump over that. Trump said, oh, it's going to be 50% tariffs, it looks like, on you if you don't take them.
But the main complaint by the Colombians was that, you know, you've got them cuffed and shackled like, you know, they're animals or something and, you know, that's humiliating and we just can't have that and then You know, just a couple of days ago, Chief Border Patrol Agent Mike Banks put a couple of videos out showing Indian deportees being flown back to New Delhi, chained and cuffed.
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