Dr. Robert Marbut
Appearances
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 28th, 2024: Ukraine's Weapons Surge & America's Fentanyl Crisis
Thank you so very much for having on. And more importantly, thank you for caring about the fentanyl crisis. Really appreciate it.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 28th, 2024: Ukraine's Weapons Surge & America's Fentanyl Crisis
Well, I had been President Trump's first homelessness czar, and so I was very involved with everything going on on the street, and I saw how fentanyl was really starting to hit the street. But then, over the last year and a half, two years, the numbers just skyrocketed. And to give you an idea how this is an existential threat to the United States,
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 28th, 2024: Ukraine's Weapons Surge & America's Fentanyl Crisis
This was the number when I sort of was doodling it together, I said, I got to do something about it. I got to produce it. And here's the number. More people have died in fentanyl in the last five years than adding up All 100 years of wars of uniform service, intelligence service for U.S. Americans, men and women.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 28th, 2024: Ukraine's Weapons Surge & America's Fentanyl Crisis
So add up the fatalities of World War II, Korea, Vietnam, Gulf War I, Gulf War II, Afghanistan, Iraq, global war on terror, a few U.N. actions, a couple other ones in there, add all up together, more people have died in fentanyl in the last five years than all American war fatalities in the last 100 years.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 28th, 2024: Ukraine's Weapons Surge & America's Fentanyl Crisis
I think with the current administration of Biden and Harris, there was none. I don't know if it's neglect or sleep at the wheel or incompetence. I don't know what it was. but they were not acting like a house was on fire. This is the biggest existential threat to the United States I think we've had since Hitler, Tojo, and Mussolini, and we are not acting like that.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 28th, 2024: Ukraine's Weapons Surge & America's Fentanyl Crisis
Well, everything starts with China. That's where the precursors initially started coming from. Actually, some of the finished products started coming from China. And then now it's the pre-precursors. And they got in alignment, strategic alignment with the Mexican cartels initially. And to be honest, they filled the void of what Purdue Pharma had done. We all know about Purdue Pharma.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 28th, 2024: Ukraine's Weapons Surge & America's Fentanyl Crisis
You know, that was talked a lot about. And you had millions of people taking prescriptions there. Hundreds of thousands addicted. And when all the lawsuits happened and they started taking that down and they started saying, you can't get that prescription, the doctors stopped giving it less. The Mexican cartels and they they're insidious, really bad people, but they're good business people.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 28th, 2024: Ukraine's Weapons Surge & America's Fentanyl Crisis
And they saw a void and they jumped right in. They already had the distribution network. They were already doing illicit drugs of all different types. They had human trafficking already going so they knew how to get across the border. So it was made ready for them. And they just jumped into that void. And that's phase one of the crisis.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 28th, 2024: Ukraine's Weapons Surge & America's Fentanyl Crisis
It is literally China working with the Mexican cartels to fill the supply void that occurred because of Purdue Pharma.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 28th, 2024: Ukraine's Weapons Surge & America's Fentanyl Crisis
Both. And I think initially it was purely about money. I think it was the criminal bad actors seeing this as a way to fill that supply void, if you will, and make a lot of money. Then over time, I think the regime, the Communist Party of China, sits there and goes, hold on a second. We're making hard cash. We're getting greenbacks to come into our economy. And now we're weakening our adversary.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 28th, 2024: Ukraine's Weapons Surge & America's Fentanyl Crisis
And so they were able to make some money initially, but they now have that extra benefit of weakening their adversary. And so I think initially it was probably about money. And then they realized, wow, we got even maybe a better benefit of weakening our adversary than just the money bringing in.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 28th, 2024: Ukraine's Weapons Surge & America's Fentanyl Crisis
To be honest, over the last four years, I saw very little being done at all. More has been done since President Trump has gotten elected, to be honest. The fact he reached out and talked to both the president of Mexico
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 28th, 2024: Ukraine's Weapons Surge & America's Fentanyl Crisis
and the prime minister of canada look he had the prime minister of canada fly down to mar-a-lago within two days and i can't remember when they met with president biden on this crisis i meant our house is on fire and we're not acting like it but president trump has gotten more action in the last four weeks than the prior administrations done in the last four years.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 28th, 2024: Ukraine's Weapons Surge & America's Fentanyl Crisis
Look, Mexico had two of their biggest drug busts against the cartels just in the last month. The cartel up in Canada, and a lot of people don't talk about how bad Canada's gotten now, But up in Canada, they've had their biggest drug bust in their history of their country the week of the election. So we we got Canada's attention. Now we got Mexico's attention.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 28th, 2024: Ukraine's Weapons Surge & America's Fentanyl Crisis
Now we sort of have China's attention now, you know, and President Trump knows how to get their attention. You have to have that's the first step. And so the fact that more has been done in the last four weeks and he hasn't taken office is more than the last four years combined.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 28th, 2024: Ukraine's Weapons Surge & America's Fentanyl Crisis
Well, you know, the big takeaway in the last five years, the number I gave earlier, more people have died of fentanyl in the last five years than all 100 years of war for Americans. Another way to think of it right now is a 737 crashing every single day, literally every single day. And we know what happened when two 737s crashed over about a six-week period. They grounded the entire country.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 28th, 2024: Ukraine's Weapons Surge & America's Fentanyl Crisis
Boeing Force worldwide. And we're not acting like that. But that's how many are dying. If we had seven plane crashes the next seven days, and I sure hope we don't, but seven plane crashes in the United States, it would be like, is it terrorism? Who's doing it? What's going on? we would have the whole response of the national government dealing with it.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 28th, 2024: Ukraine's Weapons Surge & America's Fentanyl Crisis
But that's what's going to happen with signal. Over the next week here, we're going to have the equivalent of seven airplanes, 737s crashing, and very little is going to be talked about or done about it.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 28th, 2024: Ukraine's Weapons Surge & America's Fentanyl Crisis
I think the last four years, the Biden administration and the Harris administration were afraid to take on fentanyl because that interrelated with illegal immigration. And for some reason, they just have not had any desire to tackle illegal immigration. And let me speak quickly to my friends on the left and in the middle. You can't talk about fentanyl without talking about illegal immigration.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 28th, 2024: Ukraine's Weapons Surge & America's Fentanyl Crisis
And there are three reasons why there's a direct tie between illegal immigration and fentanyl distribution. Number one, people coming across illegally are either forced to bring fentanyl across or incentivized and said, we'll cut your cost of going across the border if you take the fentanyl and give this to the guy in the van. So that's number one.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 28th, 2024: Ukraine's Weapons Surge & America's Fentanyl Crisis
Number two, and we talked about all this in the movie. Number two, they'll flood a sector. The cartels have five vertical products They sell sex trafficking, human trafficking. They do coyote services taken across. They do illicit drugs. Now they're doing fentanyl. So they'll flood a zone with people. And people really take a lot of officers, a lot of state, local authorities, federal authorities.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 28th, 2024: Ukraine's Weapons Surge & America's Fentanyl Crisis
So they like hit Laredo and then Del Rio is available or Brownsville is available and El Paso. You can just walk it across. So they sort of flood a zone with people and then walk the fentanyl across. And we got video in this in our documentary. And the third that a lot of people are not aware of.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 28th, 2024: Ukraine's Weapons Surge & America's Fentanyl Crisis
is on the northern border, we have Border Patrol agents in their sector, in their office, but they're processing people from the southwest border. So they're on Zoom calls all day long doing paperwork with people on the southwest border, and they're not patrolling the northern border. We have big gaps in the northern border cause initially because of the problems of the southwest border.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 28th, 2024: Ukraine's Weapons Surge & America's Fentanyl Crisis
And I think they were afraid to talk about this. I think that somehow politically they made an early mistake and said, we're going to be open border, we're going to be a fluid border, and they never got off that position. And sadly, FITL is so interconnected with the illegal immigration, and we need to be honest about it. They're directly connected.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 28th, 2024: Ukraine's Weapons Surge & America's Fentanyl Crisis
I think Biden, President Biden did one meeting that got initially some positive verbiage or talk. But nothing ever followed through. It was they said something nice. They released some information. But it turned out he did not follow through. And I hold President Biden responsible for not holding him to those commitments. He said the right things, but didn't take any action.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 28th, 2024: Ukraine's Weapons Surge & America's Fentanyl Crisis
And I'd rather have action than words at this point with so many people dying. And again, that's why I think President-elect Trump, the fact that he's gotten everybody's attention threatening terror, and nobody wants a terror war. I mean, let's be honest. We all know we don't want that. But if that's what it takes to get their attention, if St.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 28th, 2024: Ukraine's Weapons Surge & America's Fentanyl Crisis
Shins is what it takes to get their attention, then we have to do it. Again, if we really believe This is a threat. And in my heart, I really do. We have not been threatened in our country, just think in pure death numbers, since World War II with Hitler, Tojo and Mussolini. And we need to act like that. We need to have a national whole of government response.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 28th, 2024: Ukraine's Weapons Surge & America's Fentanyl Crisis
We need to have a total, complete change of attitude. And to me, if you're a sovereign country, we need to know who's going across our border and what's going across our border. It's that simple. If you think of it in your own house, you wouldn't say, let anybody walk into your house, just willy-nilly, bring in what they want, take out what they want.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 28th, 2024: Ukraine's Weapons Surge & America's Fentanyl Crisis
We would never allow that to happen in our own houses. Why are we letting that happen in our own country?
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 28th, 2024: Ukraine's Weapons Surge & America's Fentanyl Crisis
Well, and I spent three weeks in China prepping for this movie, almost three weeks. And the good news is China knows how to take care of this for themselves. There's almost no fentanyl use nationwide in China. So the highest populous country of the world has almost no use. And what they have done is they've criminalized hard drugs. and they hold accountable, and it's certain.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 28th, 2024: Ukraine's Weapons Surge & America's Fentanyl Crisis
So right out of the box, if you were a distributor, wholesaler of it, they have very strict, very strict, it's very certain, it's very fast. So compare that to us in the United States that's doing things like harm reduction. And I don't think you can reduce any harm. I call it so-called harm reduction because there's no way you can make fentanyl safe or the fentanyl supply chain safe.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 28th, 2024: Ukraine's Weapons Surge & America's Fentanyl Crisis
You can't make it safe. Yet in California, there are places like San Francisco spent $28 million on a safe consumption site, a block and a half from City Hall out in the public square. where they funded where you can go take your fentanyl and provided you with straws and foil and paraphernalia. Think of that versus China. China has strict punishment in there.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 28th, 2024: Ukraine's Weapons Surge & America's Fentanyl Crisis
In another area where I'm actually hopeful California legislature has been decriminalizing all type of drugs, high end drugs, every part of it, not prosecuting for a long time. The citizens of California three weeks ago and a lot of this is sort of the rest of the country did not maybe pay attention because they're tied up watching the election. But the citizens of California left California.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 28th, 2024: Ukraine's Weapons Surge & America's Fentanyl Crisis
leaning group of voters voted two to one to recriminalize high-end drugs against their legislature so even the citizens of california are waking up and saying that we got to start using common sense and you can't say we're going to decriminalize especially hard drugs I get there's a conversation around weed and alcohol and lower end drugs.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 28th, 2024: Ukraine's Weapons Surge & America's Fentanyl Crisis
But fentanyl is the deadliest drug we have ever seen in the world. It's a synthetic opioid that's 100 times more powerful than morphine. 1 15th of a rice kernel will kill you a bit though, or two to three grains of salt. It's like dust almost. That's why the zero to four age group, this is the fastest growing death rate in America is zero to four children.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 28th, 2024: Ukraine's Weapons Surge & America's Fentanyl Crisis
They're not calling an addict that they're not calling it. They're not an addict. They're not calling a dealer. They are just getting poisoned because of fentanyl powder out on restaurant tabletops, park benches, around the house. And they put a sandwich down, they pick it up, and they die. I can't tell you how deadly this is.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 28th, 2024: Ukraine's Weapons Surge & America's Fentanyl Crisis
In California, Washington State, parts of Hawaii, Oregon, many cities have either chosen to say, we're going to legalize this, Or they choose not to prosecute it. And both are just as bad.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | December 28th, 2024: Ukraine's Weapons Surge & America's Fentanyl Crisis
And happy holidays to you. And I would encourage anybody, if one hour is worth it, if you're a parent, if you're a child, if you're a policymaker, you'll learn more in one solid hour than you'll ever know about fentanyl. And we need to raise education. We got to do that almost before we start to take these other policy initiatives.