Ben Rhodes

There's a belief that her predecessor did not do enough and kind of left her in a very bad situation.

On the other hand, I think that maybe they got the thrill they wanted from...

shooting small boats in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific.

And that was enough to prove the point that they could kill at will and bring military force into what had traditionally been law enforcement.

So I think there might be a little, I think there might be less pressure to kind of carry out these attacks in Mexico.

On the other hand, I think that the president really wants to.

Possibly, but the common wisdom and actually what we've seen documented is that cartels tend to avoid action against U.S.

interests to the extent they can to avoid bringing the U.S.

more directly into, you know, against them.

So they see, but look, if their backs are against the wall and they don't see any other way out, you know, potentially they would do that to try to reduce U.S.

will.

But the chances of that backfiring, these are sophisticated people.

They're not

They're not some sort of backwoods neophytes.

They've been doing this for generations in some cases, and they will do all they can to avoid having a direct conflict with U.S.

Well, they definitely want to see much more accountability for criminals in Mexico.

There's a sense that her predecessor, who was a very popular president, he was not popular in terms of the security issues.

practices of his government, which were to concede a lot of space, frankly, to organize crime, which under Scheinbaum has been reversed.

And that part is popular, making criminals

pay a price or be held to account is popular because the level of insecurity in Mexico is quite high.