Natalie Kitroeff

This is a president who has literally just gone into Venezuela and ousted the president by force with a military operation.

So it feels like what the Mexican government is dealing with at this point isn't just rhetoric.

It's actually a real possibility.

So we have this picture of a Mexican president, Claudia Sheinbaum, who's under immense pressure to take action.

But at the same time, she is someone who, as you've said, has already seemed to be more willing to confront the cartels than other Mexican leaders.

And so I wonder whether it's possible that the pressure from Trump is—

actually may in a sense be giving her political cover to do what she may want to do anyway.

Like maybe she would have faced some resistance from all these politicians who are in bed with the cartels.

Now she can point to Trump and say, look, I have no choice.

Jack, you said that the violence in response to El Mencho's killing died down quite quickly.

And I want to ask about that because that was actually one of the most surprising things to me, that the violent response from the cartel didn't last longer.

And I wonder if you think it's possible that the cartel moderated their response to their leader's death because they worried that making the country look too out of control might give Donald Trump...

an excuse to intervene, which would be devastating for them.

Given that, let's talk about what this capture means for the cartel that El Mencho ran moving forward.

What's the upshot for this multibillion-dollar organization?

How big of a blow is this for them?

Right.

That battle over succession could play out across the country for months, if not years.

And I think the question now is how far is the Mexican government willing to take a war on the cartels?

I want to talk about that 10-year project, about what it would actually take to dismantle these groups.