Rob Stein

speaker

556 appearances 4 recordings 1 series first heard Jun 2026 last heard 11 Sep

Rob Stein’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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recordings per month · last 12 months

Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 4 in all, peaking in Sep 2026 with 2.

Appearances

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The NPR Politics Podcast · Trump's oil "deal" and gunboat diplomacy | Sources & Methods · 4 Sep 2026 podcast

has seen historic drops in both illegal immigration and the smuggling of illegal drugs, that the countries that are facing these drug problems are more supportive of American policies, whether that is because they enthusiastically like it or because they feel they have matched

have to and don't want to get on Trump's bad side. matched

But is that true though? matched

Well, according to these US officials, yes, it's it's costing the cartels um more money in terms of what they have to try to do. matched

It's changing their routes. matched

Um and and they say these drops were by half or more, both in the Caribbean and in the Pacific. matched

But I'm gonna toss that to John to see uh down there if uh to fact check this for us because you know I haven't heard independent uh folks talking about such uh dramatic matched

dramatic declines in in the amount of drugs coming to the US. matched

Yes, the US Coast Guard has been involved for years and years with uh b halting, detaining, arresting, um, and then handing over for prosecution uh boats and and uh alleged drug smugglers. matched

So there's been a way to deal with this. matched

Now obviously a lot of drugs were coming into the country and the idea here is that this will reduce the supply by taking out boats with drugs on them uh and matched

discouraging uh further trafficking. matched

But uh as people have noted, even in cases where people are importing illegal drugs, that's not a uh uh a crime punishable by death. matched

So so there are human rights groups, there are governments in the region all raising concerns about this um and the and the number of uh of cases and the the lack of of evidence. matched

Um, you know, even when the when an attack takes place matched

Um the military is saying these are were were drug boats, but the the the evidence is not presented in any way. matched

Well, I th I think we certainly see uh President Trump uh being more active in in Latin America than any other president in in recent years. matched

Um they've targeted illegal immigration, the ousting of Maduro and Venezuela, the suspected drug boats. matched

We hear a lot of talk about a possible uh action in in in Cuba. matched

You could argue uh that this is sort of the clearest part of matched

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