- 6 months ago
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00:00If the government, Scheinbaum system, the government, cracked down on any and or all of the cartels in an organized way, would that put Mexico into anarchy?
00:00:30Welcome to the Myers Report Roundtable. It is July 23rd, 2025. It is Wednesday. Our subject today is Mexico, Scheinbaum, and Trump.
00:00:44Tonight, we have with us Carlos Legaspi. Carlos owns and runs Insight Securities, a Highland Park, Illinois-based stock brokerage firm with six offices in the U.S. and other offices in Mexico and several countries in South America.
00:01:02Carlos is our guy with the proverbial finger on the Latin American pulse, which at times can be quite hot.
00:01:11We have a surprise guest with us, Rob Brownsword. He is a retired military officer who specialized in psyops and asymmetric warfare.
00:01:2318 months ago, Rob reported to us when he and a friend toured the U.S.-Mexican border.
00:01:31They went by car and on foot from Laredo, Texas, through Eagle Pass, just a few days after he was making the news, all the way out to El Paso, Texas, about 550 miles in length.
00:01:45He spoke with law enforcement people, border patrol people, state and federal military people, and he gave us a really good background.
00:01:56Also with us is former Nebraska Congressman Hal Daub. Hal was never infected by Potomac fever.
00:02:05We know that because at the end of his term, he went home to Omaha. He didn't stay in the swamp.
00:02:11Hal will give us his interpretation of international issues in the area we're discussing tonight.
00:02:16And rounding out the team is Dr. Bob Janetsky, our chief economist.
00:02:22Bob will fill in some of the economic questions that come up and a note on tariffs, assuming that's even possible in today's environment.
00:02:30Okay, from Mexico City, Carlos, your forecasts on Mexican-American relations have been spot on so far.
00:02:40Can you please tell us about Mexico's president, Scheinbaum, who she is and what is her political philosophy?
00:02:48I think it's important to rewind the clock a little bit to the mid-1990s.
00:02:55Mexico had a one-party system from 1929 to 2000, and it was a party that was, in some ways, even more dominant than the Chinese Communist Party.
00:03:12It controlled all – every president was from the pre-Revolutionary Institutional Party, every governor, every Senate seat, every House representative, every mayor, governor, everything was one party.
00:03:29That started to crack in the mid-1990s, in the mid-1990s, between the opening of Mexico to the world through the North American Free Trade Agreement, where it was also exchange of ideas, there was a move pro-democracy, and for the first time in 71 years, the pre-lost power in 2000 to the right-of-center National Action Party.
00:03:55This began a process of creating a system of checks, balances, division of power, more institutions, which was a unique period in Mexico's history, given that, for the most part, you've had dictators or authoritarian regimes.
00:04:19So, we had a brief window of democracy.
00:04:22In essence, you had three major political parties.
00:04:26You had the right-of-center National Action Party, the former ruling party, the pre-somewhat in the center, and then you had the left-of-center Revolutionary Democratic Party,
00:04:37that was headed by, or one of the founders, was AMLO, Andres Manuel López Obrado.
00:04:48And, and, and, AMLO ran for president in 2006, he lost, he ran again in 2012, and lost.
00:04:59And, and he wanted to run a third time, and his party was not supporting him, so he left the PRD and founded his own party, which is called Morena.
00:05:12And he took a significant portion of the left-of-center party, but he also poached people from the other two parties.
00:05:20And suddenly, they got swamped with resources, and kind of, out of nowhere, they became incredibly dominant to the point that he won the election in 2018.
00:05:34There was very strong indicia that he did it because he made a deal with the cartels that provided financial support for the party and the, and the candidates, not only him, but for all the governorships.
00:05:49So, to this point, literally, the, the role that the PRD had for 71 years, now his party, Morena, has.
00:05:58They probably have control of about three quarters of the governorships.
00:06:03They're just absolutely hegemonic.
00:06:05And the, um, once the envelope came to power, he really, uh, stopped most efforts of, of fighting the cartels and violence surged.
00:06:22Um, in 2024, uh, because it's one single, uh, six-year term for a president, that there's no re-election, even if it's non-consecutive terms.
00:06:35You can only be president once.
00:06:37Um, he appointed Claudia Sheinbaum, who at the time was mayor of Mexico City and had been his protege since the founding of a PRD party in the early 90s.
00:06:50She was the first female, uh, mayor of Mexico City?
00:06:54She was the first female mayor of Mexico City.
00:06:56So, she was with AMLO in the previous party and then jumped to the new forming party with AMLO and then became, uh, uh, you know, equivalent to a governor.
00:07:09Uh, because Mexico City is its own state, um, of Mexico City, um, and in 2018, at the same time that AMLO became president, she became kind of his successor in that role in Mexico City.
00:07:26And then, um, um, nominated for the Morena Party candidacy and won that in June of last year and took office in October of, of, of, of, uh, of last year.
00:07:41Um, with all that background, it sounds like she is beholden to the cartels and the previous president.
00:07:49Yes. So, the, so, AMLO said that he was going to retire to his ranch in Chiapas, and he trusted her to be the continuation of what we call the fourth transformation.
00:08:04That's why they call their political movement.
00:08:06Um, however, the head of the Senate, the head of the House, and significant, um, posts in the cabinet are all AMLO people.
00:08:17So, in a way, she's surrounded by, by AMLO people.
00:08:21Um, you said earlier, go ahead.
00:08:26Yeah.
00:08:26But, so, however, so, she has shown a little bit more, um, standing up to the cartels.
00:08:37Um, she has redeployed the military on a limited basis with the cartels, with something that AMLO didn't do.
00:08:45And, and then, um, after Trump took office, she, um, unilaterally extradited 29, um, uh, you know, cartel bigwigs that had been, uh, imprisoned in Mexico.
00:09:02She just ran them up, put them on a plane, and sent them to the U.S.
00:09:05How did that go, how did that go over down there?
00:09:08Well, it's, um, the, on one side, in terms of the population, good riddance.
00:09:15You know, why do you want these guys?
00:09:17Uh, the consequence, though, is that violence has really spiked up.
00:09:23What's that?
00:09:24Violence spiked up when these people were extradited?
00:09:27Yes.
00:09:28So, so there was a high, um, in May, there was a, um, so the, the current mayor of Mexico City,
00:09:38her name is Clara Brugada, and there's a daily press conference that Claudia does that AMLO
00:09:46used to do every morning, and it's long, it's like three hours every morning, um, to, you
00:09:54know, the head of office of, of, of the chief of staff of the mayor of Mexico City and her
00:10:01assistant got, um, shot and killed, um, um, about a couple of blocks away from the National
00:10:09Palace, right in prime time, in the middle of the press conference.
00:10:13Um, it is believed that the, it was a message that the cartels was, they were sending Claudia
00:10:20and all that, don't stray from us or we'll kill more, um, people in your administration.
00:10:27So, obviously, that action, you know, stepped on some toes within the cartels, um, one would
00:10:37think.
00:10:38Yeah.
00:10:38And then addition, and this is, we go back to July of last year.
00:10:44So, the Sinaloa Cartel was run by two partners, was, uh, Chapo Guzman and El Mayo Zambada.
00:10:55The Chapo Guzman got, you know, captured and extradited to the U.S., so his side of the cartel
00:11:02was being run by his kids called the Chapitos in partnership with El Mayo Zambada, which was
00:11:09the, the, the Capo who's been, you know, head of the cartel since the 1970s.
00:11:14In July, um, under somewhat mysterious circumstances, one of the Chapo's sons, uh, betrayed El Mayo,
00:11:25put him on a plane and flew to El Paso, Texas, and, and, and delivered him to the DEA.
00:11:32So, El Mayo Zambada, who had been head of the Sinaloa Cartel since the 70s, is now sitting
00:11:40in prison in Brooklyn, and he seems to be singing like a bird.
00:11:45Mm-hmm.
00:11:46So, he seems to be singing like a bird, saying which politicians he was paying off, he, uh,
00:11:53and, um, and all involvements of the ruling party with the cartels are coming up.
00:11:58Um, that has really rattled, you know, the, you know, kind of the political establishment
00:12:08because, you know, everything's coming to the surface, and Claudia's in the middle.
00:12:13So, she's been somewhat running towards Trump as a way to counterweight the influence of
00:12:21AMLO and the cartels.
00:12:23So, she's kind of playing one side versus the other.
00:12:26Pardon me?
00:12:26She's using Trump as a foil?
00:12:29Yeah.
00:12:30Is she being reflective at it down there?
00:12:33Well, that's, that's the thing.
00:12:35It's a, it's, it's a fine line because she strayed a little bit away, you know, delivered the,
00:12:41the, these 29 capos, and then they started murdering, um, people in her administration.
00:12:47And, but on the other hand, they had the judicial election for judges that AMLO was pushing in June.
00:12:57And so, she was kind of moving back towards AMLO.
00:13:00And then Trump went and literally executed three banks in, in, in the U.S. Treasury unplugged them from the U.S. financial system.
00:13:13And literally, those banks are on the verge of failure.
00:13:16They had to be taken over by the government.
00:13:17And everybody believes that that's an equal signal from the Trump administration to her that you're with us, not with them.
00:13:24And so, she's right now kind of caught a very fascinating situation because she's between two very powerful forces.
00:13:32Um, the, many of us, our hope is that she uses a cover of Trump to distance herself from AMLO and become her own, you know, I think what Trump wants or the E.A. wants or the administration wants, they probably want some politician to be extradited, to try to break the link between the cartels and the ruling party.
00:13:56Saying, you're not safe, you know, and, you know, uh, you better behave and not, I think they're going to go after other banks, kind of just to put pressure.
00:14:07So, that's what she's navigating.
00:14:10Uh, it's a very tough position, but also an opportunity for her to claim her own power and move away from the shadow of AMLO and, and, and, and really, you know, claim her legitimate place as president.
00:14:26Not the puppet of a former president.
00:14:28Is she strong enough to do this?
00:14:31She's smart enough to do it.
00:14:33I don't know if she, in terms of character, because she has to betray her mentor.
00:14:40Is she that ruthless?
00:14:42Previous presidents have done that?
00:14:44Carlos, are you saying that she is totally locked in and aligned with the former president?
00:14:50It's, it's ideologically and, you know, historically, yes.
00:14:58But pragmatically, her interests are not aligned necessarily with his.
00:15:05In the political system, what is her term of office?
00:15:09Six years.
00:15:10So, she's one single term.
00:15:11So, she's...
00:15:12One term, six years.
00:15:13Yeah, right.
00:15:14Right.
00:15:14Gotcha.
00:15:14Until 2030.
00:15:16Yeah.
00:15:16Yeah.
00:15:16there's midterm elections uh in 2027 so it's a the three congress has three year terms right so
00:15:26um there's a recall provision that amlo inserted so if she gets too far out of whack
00:15:36the party can move to remove her but only her first three years you don't need to answer this
00:15:44question and i ask it because i know that your answer would be sensitive but is there a hierarchy
00:15:53in sort of a secondary or parallel government where there is a kingpin a government a gang
00:16:02drug lord we keep hearing all this about the gangs and the drugs and the gangs but yeah how how can
00:16:10they exert the power that the media seems to say they have so do they kill people i mean
00:16:17who who runs the deal who's the boss so so it is their regional powers so so you have parts of the
00:16:28country that are run by the sinaloa cartel parts from the gulf cartel part from the jalisco new
00:16:35generation so it's not one big thing it's territorial and and sometimes what happens
00:16:43is that when one cartel becomes destabilized some of the others will try to move in so it's kind of
00:16:50like more like the 1920s mafia with capone and things like that in which you have different
00:16:55kingpins fighting each other and they have their own territory so my frustration with all of this
00:17:01and i hear you and i think you're right you're accurate why does she care
00:17:07there's their interest is not the country their interest is in their own revenue base within their
00:17:16regional little mafia fiefdoms why why does she have to worry is there a gloom squad is there is there
00:17:24a is there a a way in which shine bomb and her people have to worry about being assassinated what's
00:17:31what's yes yes they have they have sufficient power firepower that they exceed the the strength of
00:17:39the state so they have the cartels are stronger than the national than the federal than the national
00:17:47military in some places yes so what if they were all arrested and put in jail what would happen
00:17:53well it's like the hydra so if you get the because many of these cartels
00:18:00the capos right now were the lieutenants of the previous generation and the the previous generation
00:18:08got they were either killed or extradited um and and and the new ones took their place and then
00:18:17maybe it morphed like the sinaloa cartel that became the chapel and the mayo branches so it's like the
00:18:25hydra and so in your opinion which i think is accurate if the government shine bomb system the
00:18:35government cracked down on any and or all of the cartels in an organized way would that put mexico into
00:18:43anarchy i mean what what what happens in the government she gets tough so you have to look if you go to 2010
00:18:52so the previous president felipe calderon declared the war in the narcos and it was a frontal assault
00:18:59and they really you know interdiction and arrest and gunfights and he really did the conventional
00:19:07warfare with the cartels and it wasn't successful and the number of civilian deaths or population that
00:19:17skyrocketed because sometimes what happens is that the the cartels they start you know in a way taking the
00:19:27the population as hostages and sometimes it would take the whole of whole village and they start
00:19:32shooting the villagers until the forces would back out and and so it's not it's not it's not a simple
00:19:41thing but i do believe that amlo made things much worse by making a deal with the devil for his own
00:19:47benefit to come to power so i take it that the economic straight strains that go through the cartels
00:19:55that there is some sort of a mexico national sort of management committee of cartel representatives
00:20:06they have some relationship to each other correct they sometimes they have agreements or like you know
00:20:13don't go here this is my territory and i'll stay out of your territory what's the money all agriculture
00:20:18is the money all bodies is it all is it drugs what so how do they make their money to have the threat to the
00:20:27government itself so you so it is the the main source is the um either the production or the transit of drugs into the
00:20:40u.s and um started bringing um cocaine from colombia and peru and and that you know so in that in that case
00:20:52mexico is just transit because coca gets produced in south america um and then you have most recently
00:21:01and this is the kind of where it is the big right now is fentanyl because they get um the precursors get
00:21:08brought in from china and then you have these labs in the mountains in sinaloa and places like that
00:21:13and then that gets brought to the u.s now with all the anti-money laundering regulations
00:21:19right now a lot of the money gets recycled through weapons so guns and high-powered guns get acquired in
00:21:28the u.s get shipped down to mexico and then in order to monetize it they use that those weapons
00:21:35for extortion and for kidnapping and and that's how they monetize the business so everybody on this call
00:21:43is so
00:21:46really impressed by your contributions we are surprised you're not wearing a mask
00:21:54just in case but but but what's the answer what what what's the philosophical and public policy answer
00:22:03because shine bomb seems to want to extricate mexico from this the grip of this yeah i i think it's it's
00:22:14one of those things and this one of what i put in my answer to the questions is that when the u.s and
00:22:22mexico are not in good relations the governments government to government of not talking to each
00:22:28other not trusting each other not cooperating that's to the benefit of the cartels yeah uh and and when
00:22:38it you have to form a common uh front both countries have to come up come in front for the benefit of the
00:22:48populations both for the consumers in the u.s and the victims of the violence in mexico and there has
00:22:58to be an acknowledgement of joint responsibility that it's not just the producers problem but it's
00:23:05also the consumers and what are the circumstances and and what is the what is the full chain so let's
00:23:12say you take the these big shipments of drugs that are taken by boat or over in the middle of the night
00:23:18through the border you know that how does that gets distributed into these little packets that are
00:23:25sold on the streets of the cities there's a whole chain that is there that's also local so is the president
00:23:34the former president a gang member the namlo yeah i think i was he not he bought and paid for by them
00:23:43is that the whole deal he wasn't he's an enabler i would call him more an enabler that saying hey you
00:23:49help me you're scratching my back get me get to power and i'll get out of your way and that's the deal
00:23:55he made to the detriment of the country because we had in his six years we had 200 000 murders
00:24:02your insight is most impressive i think you're accurate carlos which is a bigger economy the drug
00:24:11economy in mexico or the rest of the economy
00:24:16i still think the rest of the economy so it's important to the united states and we're the united
00:24:22states is important to them so good relations would help everybody yeah okay uh rob rob brown sword
00:24:30there's been activity there's been cooperation with the united states military and uh the mexican
00:24:38military part of it's been in train a lot of it's cooperative in training and i know that we we know
00:24:45that the u.s has been feeding uh mexico some intelligence rob your expertise uh obviously is
00:24:54the psyops and asymmetric warfare can you tell us what has been going on in mexico and whether or not
00:25:00uh well just tell us what's happening down there yeah so um just wrote down some things so i'll go
00:25:08through them real quick uh just to give you guys uh a little bit of background i wouldn't call myself
00:25:14an expert on this but uh i did spend some time at fort bliss um doing some minor support for joint task
00:25:22force six uh in 98 2002 i've worked as a ranch security manager just north of tecate uh in san diego
00:25:31county i've worked for companies like soci and uh mvm in san antonio and el paso dealing with uh large
00:25:40numbers of um okay i want to interrupt a second you're way too modest by the way this is the route that rob
00:25:49and uh his friend took when they when they examined the border uh 550 miles and rob has worked throughout
00:25:59the world of both for the government and also as a contractor and there aren't that many people that
00:26:08know more about this than rob would so just tell us what you're able to tell us rob um so again i've
00:26:16been i've been in europe so i haven't really had my eye on this ball lately so i had to get
00:26:21get reacquainted uh just to give you an idea from talking with my my border patrol friends um
00:26:29the highest number of encounters uh which is what border patrol call um illegals that they run into
00:26:37on the border in the bush they call them encounters the highest number uh ever was under president biden
00:26:44in 2024 that capped at approximately 3 million so far this year in 2025 the number is 6 000.
00:26:55when you say 3 million encounters per year that's oh yeah but the question is this
00:27:01that's the counting the number of people that were encountered what about the ones that
00:27:06got through don't know does anybody know
00:27:11well i mean they're unobserved so nobody knows except the uh the perpetrators uh it could be 5
00:27:20million but the thing is of late in the past four years people have been crossing the border with their
00:27:27adults or unaccompanied children and seeking out that white chevy tahoe with the green stripe on it so
00:27:33they can surrender themselves when if they're minors they have uh a mobile number written on their
00:27:40forearm with a sharpie that's supposed to be their their family member and so can you define what a minor
00:27:46is uh under the age of 18. and how does anybody know how old they are if they don't have papers well they
00:27:55don't it depends on self-reporting so if the guy with the mustache says he's 16
00:28:04that's the beginning of the report and other uh investigators will try and neck it down
00:28:11later on further down the pipeline but when they uh when they walk across an unfenced area or or somehow
00:28:20penetrate uh the border and uh and encounter this this was under biden not now okay so under biden
00:28:28what you're saying is the biden administration essentially was using the honor system that
00:28:33people would report that illegals crossing into this country illegally would report honestly yes
00:28:41now border patrol agents uh hsi would do what they could to get some better quality uh intel on
00:28:49that but yeah essentially that's it so yeah we're talking uh from three million in one year to
00:28:59we'll probably have 12 000 maybe 16 000 this year so that this is a record low
00:29:04what is life like for u.s citizens in texas and california and do you know anything about
00:29:11life along the border for the mexican citizens well i think um you know whether you're you consider
00:29:20yourself tejano as though your family you're a spanish-speaking family of mexican descent um and
00:29:29you've been in the united states for what is now the united states for 300 years or more um i think
00:29:37those those people along the border tend to be very pro uh border security um which when you say the
00:29:46long do you mean on the american side or the mexican side or both american side yeah i can only speak to
00:29:52the american side uh um now more recent uh folks that have come across uh i i think unlike what the
00:30:02media says i think most people are still comfortable in their own communities uh as far as
00:30:08you know a fear of um uh cbp um but i i do uh i do know that even up here in pennsylvania where i am
00:30:19right now where we probably have 10 000 illegals in adams county alone maybe more what's the
00:30:28population do you know the population of adams county no no not off my uh not off my head i'm
00:30:34actually not a resident i'm just visiting my mom i'm a tampa resident uh but my kids went to school
00:30:41with a lot of uh children uh of illegals so many of many of those kids are are also uh illegals dreamers
00:30:51as they call them and they have a little reporting system that they use whenever somebody sees a
00:30:57vehicle that they suspect is ice not that you can tell who ice is as they drive by but there's a
00:31:05reporting network up here so that there is a bit of fear uh up here so i suppose there there might be
00:31:12uh down on the border with texas also not that i care um i think security wise no matter who you are
00:31:21in texas on the border i think uh i think people are feeling a lot safer when i worked in san diego
00:31:29county and uh right on the border there were a lot of folks that had been there for 20 30 years
00:31:37and from 20 2020 to 2024 i was mostly active out there till 2020 um there was no faith that the
00:31:49state of california or uh the federal government was looking out for the landowners uh along the border
00:31:57um they knew that uh both governments were looking the other way when it came to illegals driving drunk
00:32:05illegals perpetrating crime stealing cars and taking them back into into mexico um it doesn't matter
00:32:12what your last name was whether it was a spanish last name or not people were were uh were not very
00:32:18happy with the lack of law enforcement at that time um but i think that's that's changed a lot this year
00:32:28do you think that the mexican well i'll ask this question to both you and carlos do you uh do you
00:32:35guys think that the the mexican military can contain the cartels and do you think that the u.s military can
00:32:44can contain the cartels and if so would we
00:32:48well go ahead first and i'll jump in second if you want well
00:33:01hsi and dea and fbi
00:33:04have no well have had trust with various um mexican military organizations in the past but that's been
00:33:17been violated many times um i personally i don't think that uh if i were in command with a unit that
00:33:27was working in mexico i would i would trust those that i worked with um there too many people have
00:33:35been attacked and too much information has gotten loose there's 10 000 um roughly mexican army deployed
00:33:45along the the southern border that sounds like a lot but when you think that at a minimum half of
00:33:53those guys are off duty in any given time you've got other people that are going home for the weekend
00:33:57you've got some guys that are sick suddenly that's not a lot for a very lengthy border uh the mexican
00:34:06soldiers don't make a lot of money um i know the the u.s military has a tendency to trust the marines
00:34:13mexican marines more than anybody else it's the same in in the philippines um i think they're considered
00:34:20more more loyal um i like carlos said a lot of these cartels uh have tremendous firepower uh i read
00:34:32something that um it's estimated that if you take all the joint manpower and firepower of all the
00:34:38all the cartels it equals to one quarter of the strength of the mexican military i think that was
00:34:44conservative um sinaloa has been caught with a stinger surface tear missile uh jalisco cartel has been
00:34:53caught with with uh a number of um javelin anti-tank missiles they've got armored vehicles
00:35:02um they've got a lot of sophisticated equipment and uh and they're operating with drones i don't think
00:35:09that the mexican this is just my opinion uh i would defer to carlos on this but i don't think that
00:35:17the mexican government has the the willpower to engage in a long fight to destroy the the cartels on
00:35:26their own and i don't think the the military necessarily has the capability um they need
00:35:32they need a lot of help carlos if the u.s sent in go ahead yeah well i was going to say your question
00:35:41was you know is it possible and for me i don't think neither side could do it alone um and though
00:35:51you know by the power power and by many different things and um so kind of looking back in history
00:35:59you know what has worked and what could be used as a building block because right now the biggest
00:36:05problem i see is the lack of trust like bob said you know right now there's no trust so there's no
00:36:10intelligence sharing or very limited intelligence sharing and um and so there has to be for me
00:36:22a um something that identifies common interest and i think right now the unique opportunity
00:36:30is that um both populations are being impacted by by by the criminal activities both in the u.s and in
00:36:39mexico by the violence and by the by the fentanyl deaths and all that so if if saying uh let's say
00:36:47trump told claudia and said like it's in your own best interest your population is going to rise against
00:36:53you if you don't do something about this violence with the cartels and my people are dying over here how
00:36:59about if we do another beginning maybe like another plan medida or something like that something that
00:37:05is limited is not broad but that try to stretch to build some trust and have some wins that you can
00:37:14start building from because you you need to do it on both sides you can't do it on one side only
00:37:20how i ask the question carlos relative to what uh bob just talked to us about
00:37:30isn't it at a point in time where the money on the cartel side has so many takers
00:37:40that the government clamps down on all this in a very serious clear way
00:37:47the economy that's been built up over years of acquiescence by the government
00:37:56basically the cartels think the government's on their payroll
00:38:01doesn't it really create anarchy i don't think so because in many ways the violence
00:38:10has um scared away investment and what they don't care do they the cartel just interested in their
00:38:19money no the cartels they don't care in terms of anarchy for the economy so let's say let's make
00:38:26this mental exercise okay right let's say that somehow both governments trust each other and they
00:38:33all decide to jointly attack the cartels and you were to um in a way like my problem is with what
00:38:40you just said to start with the predicate there's no organized government president of the cartels
00:38:48correct but the thing is what it is where you could hit him is how what are the levers of power they have
00:38:55okay okay and one of the levers of power they have is because there's impunity there's no consequence
00:39:04so if you're a mayor if you're a governor and and you're dead tomorrow and you're you're not right
00:39:13you could be that that that's the thing is is is but also you you're rewarded lavishly if you if you
00:39:22allow the cartels to do that so in essence in this work here the the goal of saying um
00:39:32you deal with the cartels and we're going to ship you to the us you're a politician i don't care
00:39:38you're governor or something like that so they there's a consequence on the other side so that
00:39:42it puts it at least makes it harder for the for the cartels to infiltrate the government
00:39:51and exercise a lot of the levers of power they have because they don't exercise it directly is
00:39:56they have folks in government that allow them to do that that that don't pursue them look the other
00:40:05way um if if if you have you know uh you go and kidnap and all that and they get released the next day
00:40:13all of that stuff so it starts by building the elements of a stronger state that that's one of the
00:40:20things that eventually you know that's one of the things that made the u.s unique is the rule of law
00:40:26and accountability and things like that which has not been killed so if
00:40:30it's it's it's not for tomorrow it's it has to be a long-term plan that's sustainable but i think the
00:40:38possibility of the rewards are there because it's a health crisis in the u.s and it's a public safety
00:40:45crisis in the u.s and in mexico maybe the answer ought to be that shine bomb should say amnesty for
00:40:52all proven gang members or jail one of the two take your choice something like what colombia did
00:41:02what colombia did yeah yeah yeah with the far carlos so yeah got a question what if um if the u.s how would
00:41:10the mexican people uh react if the u.s sent in special ops to take out to decapitate and destroy
00:41:18the drug industry i think that i think it would be a mix you know it will be parts of the society that
00:41:27about sovereignty there's still a lot of scars you know from invasions in the past a lot of resistance
00:41:33but i think that we're also supported from the areas that are held hostage so i think if you ask
00:41:39anybody in culiacán you know what you want the u.s to come in and take out the sinaloa cartel
00:41:45i think we don't care if the u.s or anybody else somebody has to do something because we're
00:41:50hunkered down in our house because we can't leave our homes so would it be would it be more effective
00:41:55and i'll put this to rob would it be more effective and workable if it was a combination of
00:42:01u.s and mexican troops working together um you know having the post nation military with you and
00:42:12even letting them take the charge whether they're actually the spear point or not it seems attractive
00:42:20politically i'd rather not do that um i i think if it were up to me i'd want to use the mexican army
00:42:29to set up cordons and support um there's a lot of cartels you could you could hit them all
00:42:40relatively at the same time u.s army special operations command has three ranger battalions
00:42:48five active duty special forces groups two national guard special forces groups delta
00:42:56you know the marines would love to get their raiders involved in marsoc there's a whole bunch
00:43:02of seals with nothing to do right now um there's no shortage of of people and systems uh that would
00:43:13they're just itching to to get involved uh
00:43:16uh but mexico is a huge place and the terrain can be extreme
00:43:24so to do this right you know i i wouldn't want to i wouldn't want it to be like the initial
00:43:30afghanistan concept where we thought we could do the whole thing just with special operations you know
00:43:37it's going to take some cavalry regiments it's going to take an armor division it's going to take a
00:43:43a lot of folks to secure the terrain so you're talking about it would take a major invasion
00:43:50similar to a blackjack persian going in after poncho via in my opinion yes that's not the answer people
00:43:57want to hear people want to hear that we can do it on the cheap light easy go in there with a bunch of
00:44:02special operators hanging off of ah6s and just shooting people in the forehead and going home
00:44:09for dinner and that's the end of the movie but uh i think to do it right it would it would take
00:44:19much more than that the cartels are all throughout mexico we're mostly concerned with the ones on the border
00:44:24um i think sinaloa and maybe northeastern like i think northeastern is the one that finally took over
00:44:33uh juarez right yeah so so that's that's a pretty dangerous one um at least calisco is the most violent
00:44:43right yeah yeah i mean as i understand it by the way rob uh that the uh the mexican
00:44:53cartels and the basically the mexican the latin south american gangs are more brutal
00:45:02than hamas and hezbollah well that's what i was that's what i was going to say um this will sound
00:45:08weird but uh for many years i would watch every single beheading video every single torture video
00:45:15anything that came to us uh you know we weren't required to watch it but i would because i wanted to
00:45:21harden myself to it um the mexican cartels make al qaeda in islamic state look like cub scouts
00:45:35the the most violent horrible things that that one human can do to another happen weekly in mexico
00:45:44and i won't even talk about it and i know carlos uh is has an idea of what i'm talking about
00:45:52um you can't even talk about these things in the halls of government so these are the people that
00:46:00over the last four years during the biden administration we led into this country yeah um
00:46:07um even here in adams county which butts up uh pretty close by the way adams county has a population
00:46:16of about a hundred thousand so ten percent of them are now illegals yeah well it's it's been that way for
00:46:23a long time the the the mexicans have been coming here since way back when we still had um migrant worker
00:46:32visas and because of the work they were doing the relationships they had with the community
00:46:38eventually uh they stayed and they became the foreman and they they run the farms and they uh
00:46:47and they they run the orchards they're all u.s citizens now some of them second third generation
00:46:53um but the folks that we have up here uh now are are mostly uh you know like everywhere else
00:47:01guatemala um el salvador uh honduras okay nicolagua and a lot of folks is there any
00:47:12optimism that this can be worked out carlos do you see it i i think great great challenges also bring
00:47:21great opportunities and sometimes uh sometimes you got to go a little crazy get things done so so i
00:47:31so like i said right now there's a possibility for for a deal i think claudia needs a way out of the
00:47:39grasp of um law and and that structural power she that web of power that he set up and i think her
00:47:47ticket is to line up with trump and trump on the other side he wants to show some wins especially on
00:47:54fentanyl and fentanyl and things like that and so they're the elements for a deal and where saying
00:48:02all right um i'll go after them here but you gotta gotta get my back here and i'll capture them and
00:48:09i'll shoot them over there to you things like that so that you start seeing a little bit of consequence
00:48:16so that maybe not the capos not the core of the cartels but the periphery of the cartel switches
00:48:24sides away from them um and it's not a simple problem it's it's multi-dimensional so that you
00:48:32need to be realistic in what you want to achieve and saying all right well each life that we save
00:48:41it's a win let's start with one and then to ten and then a hundred and then a thousand both on the
00:48:49violence and on the addiction side and the overdoses and hey bob tedeschi what do you think about looking
00:48:56at all this yeah i'm i'm absolutely fascinated carlos when you bring up the mafia in the 1930s
00:49:03countries because it seems to me that there are two parallels here first of all the u.s went through
00:49:10a very similar situation where the mafia did control stuff and there's always a battle between the
00:49:16government and we needed people of integrity to stop that and what what the parallel also to me
00:49:23is when i try and look at the wealth of nations and how nations have expanded over time and become
00:49:29wealthier uh mexico in my perspective is in the 1930s from a wealth standpoint i mean they're a hundred
00:49:39years behind the u.s you have to go back roughly a hundred years yeah give or take whatever so it's
00:49:48fascinating to me the parallel of running through the same similar situation that the u.s face and what
00:49:55has to happen is you know the elliot nest of mexico uh and and and the president have to have enough
00:50:04integrity and conviction of what we can do to basically re-establish the rule of law i mean what
00:50:13you're saying is the the most important principle for economic success the rule of law protecting people
00:50:20and their property is just not in effect in mexico correct and that makes it extremely difficult to grow
00:50:28at a rapid rate but but you you did have a period where things were moving in that direction things have
00:50:38moved back so if you take the period from 1995 to 2015 those those uh 20 years that um
00:50:50where you still had the institutions and you had freedom of information that you could request
00:50:57information like FOIA request and you had a um a human rights um institute that was independent that
00:51:05would that would kind of try to make sure that justice gets imparted so it was moving in that direction
00:51:13until i'm looking back and tore everything apart so so that's the and that's that's the way where is he
00:51:21now where is he um yeah he it's in his ranch he has a beautiful ranch in chapas um so it's uh that uh
00:51:32he's living high and dry on the cloud yeah he's there and it's he named though he he uh he named
00:51:41the his ranch the a la chingada which is like a profanity in mexico it's like where you send somebody
00:51:46to go fuck themselves that's the name of his ranch i'm sorry i didn't mean to interrupt i just
00:51:53that's okay yeah that's that's where he is and pulling the strings of power behind the scenes and
00:51:58i think she needs to clip him become her own woman there's a possibility and and i think the elements
00:52:05are there and what have we seen in terms of of um uh priority reduction uh uh education a lot of
00:52:15things we're moving in the right direction we're not moving back but it showed what's possible when
00:52:23let's go back to bob janetsky for a minute bob so as you look at the trade balance the trump threat of
00:52:31renegotiating the trade agreement between canada mexico and the united states um the current tariff
00:52:40arguments um interesting changes in the automobile manufacturing maquiladora boundaries along mexico and
00:52:50texas yeah bob do you see this being helpful to shine bomb or is it putting pressure on her
00:53:00in a negative way you know i am so impressed with what trump ends up accomplishing not necessarily
00:53:08the way he accomplishes it which can leave an awful lot to be desired but in the end he seems to be
00:53:15several steps ahead of planning to resolve issues and i wouldn't be surprised if the issue with mexico
00:53:23does get resolved uh in one case the end result seems to be similar to what he's doing with other nations
00:53:30that is settled for a 10 percent or 15 percent tariff on all goods coming into the u.s and uh doing
00:53:38a similar thing with canada but at the same time demanding other things that are not necessarily
00:53:45directly related to trade in one way or another and just using the power of the u.s and the u.s economy
00:53:52to bring people to places they wouldn't otherwise want to go like in europe coming to against our u.s
00:53:58technical technological companies or google's and basically um banning uh some of their product by
00:54:07saying that it's censored uh or taxing does that does that taxing them to a great extent but does that
00:54:15impact on her job space in mexico that's a carlos question so so the renegotiation of a free trade
00:54:26agreement um the one that took place in 2017 was actually a really good thing yeah because that
00:54:34worked out pretty well i think yeah i agree that that that that that that you know i have a client
00:54:38that's part of a negotiating team and she said you know it was necessary both countries needed to
00:54:43update it a lot of things didn't exist in 1994 that needed to be included intellectual property things
00:54:50like that so so having periodic periodic refreshment of the treaties i think it's healthy and it's a good
00:54:57thing um the um like i put it in what i wrote to you gary i i i do believe that the relationship mexico u.s
00:55:09absent china is the most important because it touches everything the economic integration migration
00:55:17drugs culture a lot of things and it's it's not in the u.s best interest to have a poor neighbor
00:55:28it's in the u.s best interest that their neighbor thrives because then you could do many more things
00:55:36and in it and and in a way um it it helps solve a lot of the problems of the u.s so
00:55:43so culturally culturally culturally you look at the last four years of open border and the magnet of
00:55:54south america central america movement of people through mexico to find the beautiful dream of america
00:56:06crossing the mexican u.s border that's stopped so there's a adjustment that
00:56:14mexico but moreover the countries south of mexico will have to make as that movement of people changes
00:56:23which changes their economics the only exception to that is argentina but leave them out of it for a
00:56:29minute okay my my view is a very quick gary you started this so the issue is
00:56:36the issue for me is shine bomb politically has to look at the damage control she has to face
00:56:47if she doesn't solve the trade problem with the united states and trump is very aware of how important
00:56:55mexico is to the united states i agree that's what i think bob from an economics point of view uh
00:57:02uh if the cartel and crime problem in mexico could be gotten under control does mexico have
00:57:10the elements going back considering you're comparing them to a hundred years ago the united states
00:57:15does mexico have the elements within it to become a great nation oh absolutely absolutely every
00:57:21everyone has that element in it the problem with mexico is okay a hundred years behind the u.s
00:57:28and if mexico is a hundred years behind the u.s and they are in the upper half of the world in terms of
00:57:34median income imagine where these people are coming from and i mean they're a thousand years below the
00:57:43you being the u.s in terms bob you know i i think shine i think shine bomb senses that i think she
00:57:49seems to see that yeah she's very smart she is one thing that give credit to her she's really smart
00:57:57and she's very popular isn't she carlos at this point yeah right here still popularity is holding up
00:58:02really well um part of it is the social programs part of it is the you know the fact that she's a woman
00:58:09so that's also um something that that endears her um and it's it's like i said it's it's i'm almost
00:58:20willing to bet that there are going to be two shine bombs the first three-year shine bomb and the second
00:58:26three-year shamba yeah because once once the once the midterm elections happen in 2027 she cannot be
00:58:34recalled yeah and the good news for mexico carlos mexico was chosen as the 10th happiest nation
00:58:41in the world so that's because that's because you spend a part of the year there bob with that
00:58:48i'd like to pose a simple question it's going to wrap up this portion portion and then we can continue
00:58:54after we're done uh rob brown sword are you optimistic or pessimistic that uh mexico can gain
00:59:03control of the cartels with our help yeah i think i think if we work together at it we we can um
00:59:12i had some i had some stuff that i some updates i got from uh a buddy of mine who's uh in border
00:59:20patrol that i wanted to read to you guys real quick just like some good news if i can go over that news is
00:59:26always welcome okay so in one of one or two i may have hit uh the end of catch and release is over
00:59:36right uh so um it we're now uh doing mandatory detention of all illegal aliens and this has been very
00:59:47effective at stemming the flow so all of them are being detained all of them are being processed in a
00:59:55facility and versus being released at six o'clock in the morning at the gate the next day and released
01:00:03on their own recognizance into mexico so this is what you're getting this information literally right
01:00:09now from yeah for about uh 30 minutes before this call and remember that the majority of all these
01:00:15numbers the last four years have been mexicans with all due respect not immigrants from countries
01:00:21further south that's all a bunch of bunk yeah all the numbers previously that you saw in the news were
01:00:27were complete bullshit they never talked about like like in my instance my case they never talk about
01:00:33the swedish norwegian finnish polish criminals russian criminals yeah um remain in mexico
01:00:43for asylum seekers uh the remain in mexico policy is if you're seeking asylum
01:00:49and you're waiting to cross over the united states that's over so if you're seeking asylum the u.s policy
01:00:57is you will stay in mexico uh that is that has eliminated uh fraudulent claims for asylum
01:01:05but scheinbaum has to deal with that now because that's a backup in the system yeah yeah
01:01:11she had a relief valve before now she doesn't have that anymore well yeah the united states has always
01:01:16been the relief valve yeah and a way to get remittances back uh border fence improvements
01:01:23have also been highly effective uh and that has done a lot to to keep out people fraudulently seeking
01:01:30uh medical um support um here's another point from board patrol uh the border patrol fence pays for
01:01:41itself and keeping out the undesirables and the costs associated with incarcerating them
01:01:47and sending them to hospital now i don't know how much we were spending we the u.s government through
01:01:55soci or uh or through mvm which were both dha or yeah dhhs subcontracts uh not only in the housing
01:02:08the feeding the feeding the medical support and the transport probably i'm going to put this number
01:02:17out there and i bet it's not unrealistic probably a hundred thousand dollars per child uh when you
01:02:24think about thousand dollars per child that that is because they brought two or three kids with them
01:02:29gary and they all had to get paid for somewhere well a lot of these kids spent many many months
01:02:34months uh being processed uh being processed and you can you can get a twenty thousand dollar bill at
01:02:41the children's hospital in san antonio uh very easily just being seen and treated in the ride the
01:02:47mandatory ride and the ambulance uh so the fences is paying for itself in these ways um also they're
01:02:57saying that uh by reducing border crossings it's freeing up agents to do other missions like
01:03:02counter narcotics uh trafficking and investigating other border crimes um this is partly why you've
01:03:09seen a lot of border patrol um helping with the uh the riots and assisting with uh with ice raids
01:03:20because they actually have some free time right now oh by the way um over the next four years
01:03:26um border patrols um border patrols hiring 10 000 agents so it's a huge hiring boom i'm trying
01:03:36to get my son interested since he's leaving the army in in november a great border opportunity for him
01:03:43is the canadian border yeah it is and that's where his heart would be but you got to cut your teeth
01:03:49down on the southern border um if he gets down there is he going to keep us informed i suppose
01:04:01so political rhetoric has further deterred people from seeking legal entry this i'm reading this verbatim
01:04:08aliens no longer feel they are supported by u.s politicians yeah but i but seeing it actually
01:04:15written that way i mean they deliberately typed this to me uh which is good so the daily average in 2024
01:04:22of uh encounters 8 300 per day that's from from ocean to ocean um and 2025 so far it's down to 200 per day
01:04:36200 per day from the from the pacific ocean to uh the gulf of mexico
01:04:45the gulf of america yeah gulf of america that's pretty good that's great that's pretty good pretty
01:04:51darn good uh so i think i mentioned that february to march over six week period uh an operational
01:04:58detachment alpha from seventh uh special forces group trained mexican marines down in campeche
01:05:03that's pretty much the only confirmed u.s military special operations command
01:05:13troops on the ground boots on the ground involvement that i could find
01:05:17so far uh hsi is very active in mexico they've got about 100 agents operating out of 11 field offices
01:05:28uh cia ground branch is very likely operating uh throughout mexico doing uh intelligence collection
01:05:36cia drones are uh are flying frequently through mexican airspace they're uh mq9 reapers but they're not
01:05:48shooting missiles at anybody they're just they're just scouting around uh probably collecting information
01:05:54they can use for targeting the future uh the u.s ambassador to mexico ronald johnson is a very
01:06:01interesting choice he's a uh a career special forces soldier and a former central intelligence agency
01:06:09uh operator uh operator so it's very interesting that somebody with that background would be chosen
01:06:18to be the ambassador of mexico at this time uh military surveillance so we've got u.s military drones
01:06:30flying along the border uh the u.s mexico border probably flying it at altitudes where they can look
01:06:38deep into mexico i've got a former uh warrant officer buddy of mine who used to fly hunter uavs
01:06:44out of fort huachuca it wasn't their mission to surveil into mexico but they accidentally saw stuff
01:06:51all the time and forwarded that to border patrol uh i saw something on a u.s air force rivet joint um
01:07:01electronic reconnaissance aircraft that flew all the way down around the the
01:07:05the baja peninsula up into the gulf of california uh staying in that very narrow
01:07:14slice of international waters so they could surveil uh sinaloa cartel so in your opinion
01:07:21is the completion of the wall necessary given the way things are going now um
01:07:27um yeah i think so i think i think we should uh we should do it now do you have to wall off the
01:07:36entire desert now probably not but the thing about the the thing about the wall it's an obstacle and
01:07:42obstacles uh should be used to to make it difficult for your enemy to approach but also to to channelize
01:07:50them into areas where it it's um convenient and effective for you to intercept them carlos does
01:07:57the completion of the wall create a political problem for scheinbaum so long as don't try to
01:08:03say that mexico will pay for it i think you don't care
01:08:10so you've already got the u.s navy uh along the both coasts of of uh mexico patrolling uh i just found
01:08:20this out the united by the way i take it with the destroyers we've deployed down there they're also
01:08:25looking for cartel submarines well the i suppose the yeah the coast guard usually uh has that mission
01:08:37but i'm sure there's intelligence sharing and overlap um apparently the u.s air force is flying u2s
01:08:45over mexico uh i thought that was interesting um
01:08:51um carlos is this going to bother scheinbaum or is she just kind of wink and a nod and not seeing it
01:09:02it's a wink and a nod it's actually a pretty open secret that she opened the skies for surveillance
01:09:09so everybody knows about it okay so she's part of this yeah that's a good thing yeah it is like i said
01:09:16it's one of those things that you know no politics makes strange bedfalls you know that's a beautiful
01:09:23old old historic saying do you think she's on the right track
01:09:31ah man and i also think that that cyber command is uh is is using all of their little brainiacs to uh
01:09:43to do digital reconnaissance as well uh so right now i think we're in an information or uh collection phase
01:09:53intelligence development and and targeting package development for the time when when we reach the
01:10:01president's decision point to engage either with unconventional or uh conventional forces
01:10:08uh go ahead rob so going back to your question how it's um she's doing better than i thought i have to
01:10:18say you know so i uh she's navigated some really tough you know choppy waters yeah considering the
01:10:26crossfire that she's in uh and i uh i wish her well for the benefit of my country so um i think again
01:10:36she plays her cards right okay sometimes i say like i wish she'd just go into the ranch and chapas
01:10:44put amla on a plane and ship him to the u.s i think a lot of people would cheer so uh yeah i think that's
01:10:51an interesting point once he would be gone that might be a break in the way to enforce a change in how
01:10:59people need to act so yeah if you go back to history uh bob janinski in the the pre was founded
01:11:12by a guy that thought he would control everything right i remember and um and the first couple of
01:11:19presidents that he appointed he did that until lazaro cardenas came he exiled him he said i'm now the
01:11:28president so actually almo's the bad guy he's the bad guy i i think he's a bad apple i think that would
01:11:36be uh you know it would take a lot of courage and again because she's surrounded and the cartels hide
01:11:42behind him right i mean that's kind of like what i mean i'm not saying that i would hold you accountable
01:11:48for saying that on the record but it seems to me he is the obstacle to shine bomb who was his choice
01:11:56right and he's got to decide historically how he wants the deck to be shuffled or the dominoes to fall
01:12:06here in the next what this is the 2025 she's got 2030 right she's got five more years she has five more years
01:12:14the next two years are critical because after like i said after 2027 until the election 2027
01:12:20she cannot be recalled yeah well and trump trump's not going away with his pressure on the whole
01:12:25renegotiation of the economic deal correct that's that's next year that's in 2026 yeah okay
01:12:32bob janetsky are you optimistic about mexico and its future i am i am i you know the time i spend
01:12:40down there i love the country i love the people and uh i i love how they're not as materialistic as
01:12:48the people in the united states they're more family oriented and i think it's justified uh ranking them
01:12:55very high in the world in terms of happiness so they've got a lot of strengths and uh if they can but
01:13:01they keep the thing they have to accomplish is to re-establish the rule of law so that the
01:13:07government is the enforcer not the cartels carlos are you optimistic i am because i've seen what's
01:13:17possible we need to reclaim it okay bob rob brown sword are you optimistic that we'll get this done
01:13:25i am i i i think we're at a point for the first time and in a long time where where we've got the
01:13:34leadership in in the united states to to get it done and i think there's a good relationship going
01:13:40on between trump and shine bound um and i i would like nothing more than to to see uh manufacturing and
01:13:49and all kinds of things that are critical to the united states um being being united states and mexico
01:13:57versus other places overseas it makes a lot more sense to me and i would say that mexican uh culture
01:14:05and and u.s culture is a lot closer than uh than any of them are to china and so i i think uh
01:14:14uh this is a this is a great moment i think we can do it but it has to be done right it's not going
01:14:21to be easy hal dob are you optimistic at the econometric models that dr janetsky might look at
01:14:31and then you look at my tv stations in omaha nebraska where my legal ads are in spanish
01:14:41eighty percent of the kids in our
01:14:45one of the 50 largest school districts in the country are latino meccano chicano origin and speak
01:14:51the language what's it eighty percent eighty percent big cities all the big cities in america you begin
01:14:58to look at the econometric modeling of our neighboring relationship with mexico and over the last 30
01:15:04years the migration that's occurred now in in immigration terms it's called sanguinity and
01:15:13affinity it's by blood and marriage mother father mother sister uncle nephew niece uncle children population
01:15:22and the way the population demographics work of latin-based families
01:15:29given the fertility rate deficit in the u.s forget immigration or the issue of illegal immigration
01:15:39you're looking at a functional economic problems mexico's not going to go ai and robots
01:15:46near as fast as the u.s might think they're going to go
01:15:49so bob janetsky i'm optimistic because i think scheinbaum gets it and i think she's got enough
01:15:57years in her runway to tell ammo to buzz off hal do you think with your knowledge of our government
01:16:08i think it's i think we all would agree that trump has the will to get it done do you think he'll get
01:16:14the governmental support that he needs to get the governmental support that he needs to get it done
01:16:18i think because of the geographic and population shift that's occurred the last 20 years
01:16:27any american politician that doesn't get it might as well go find another job because in any urban area
01:16:37the mexican latinos spanish-speaking population although they get no dei credit and no credit from
01:16:46the liberal left the fact is they are the economic engine that's driving a good deal of our american
01:16:54economics and scheinbaum understands that and she's on the right track she needs to just have backbone and
01:17:01we need to encourage her to stay strong okay and on that note i want to say thank you to everybody uh
01:17:10let's hope that everything goes well and god bless america
01:17:31is
01:17:40you
01:17:42you
01:17:44you
01:17:46you
01:17:48you
01:17:50you
01:17:52you
Comments