PBD Podcast
“There Is A Hit On Me” - Ex-Honduran President Pardoned By Trump TELLS ALL | PBD Podcast | Ep. 702
18 Dec 2025
Chapter 1: What accusations does Juan Orlando Hernández face regarding drug trafficking?
There are people that think you helped funnel 400 tons of cocaine into America. They think you took the $1 million bribe from El Chapo. It took millions of dollars to help with your campaign for 2013.
Today, Juan Orlando Hernandez, the former president of Honduras, was extradited to the United States to face federal charges.
The only explanation that I have is because They wanted to get rid of me.
I got you. So they put you there so somebody would kill you to get rid of you. That logic makes sense to me. You were in prison with Diddy and Sam Bankman Freed? Yeah. Did you speak with them?
Chapter 2: How did Hernández respond to claims of cartel ties and corruption?
There was another guy, a rapper, he's very famous. They call it 69, I think.
Tekashi 69? Yeah. So the same day that this meeting happens, this picture right here, which is Kamala Harris... Yes. ...and Xiomara Castro... Yes. ...are meeting, on that same day... You get indicted?
Chapter 3: What led to the extradition of Hernández to the United States?
Yes. When you talk about the deep state in America, some people say, hmm, that's a conspiracy theory.
I have lived it. I know this life, man.
Today we have with us the previous president of Honduras, Juan Orlando Hernandez. You've seen him all over television the last two weeks because he was just pardoned by President Trump. It's great to have you on the podcast. Thank you for having me. Yes. So question for you. When I call a lot of different people, I have friends in high places. I have friends in low places.
And I have friends who were formerly associated with Mexican cartel. I have friends who have done a lot of different things. Here's what I hear. There are people that think you helped funnel 400 tons of cocaine into America. They don't think you're a good guy. They think... You were part of it. They think you took the $1 million bribe from El Chapo.
They think you took millions of dollars to help with your campaign for 2013. They have a lot of bad things to say about you, which we'll talk about a lot of that stuff. And you have a PowerPoint here with us, so we'll learn about that as well. Then there's a complete opposite side. The other side is a group of people who say you lowered smuggling when you became president.
You got rid of a lot of these cartels. The cartel didn't like you because you were hurting their business. Because to sell cocaine, 84% of cocaine is made in Colombia and the world. And it goes from Colombia to Venezuela to Honduras. They have to go Honduras to Guatemala to Mexico, then here. So they produce it here for $1,750. Then it goes to Honduras, $13,500. Then it goes $17,000.
Then the U.S., $40,000. If it goes to New York City, this is 2016 numbers I'm giving to you.
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Chapter 4: What was the impact of Hernández’s presidency on drug smuggling in Honduras?
And they say, you stopped it. So because you stopped it and you were hurting business, they started saying, oh, you're behind all this other stuff to throw you under the bus. So then you got served 45 years, and we've all seen the video with you walking up, Rob, if you want to put it up. And they said, no, this guy's going away for jail. He's a bad guy.
But the real bad guys were the ones that wanted to hurt you. So some say that's what happened. And then some people who are more pro-Trump folks had more of a technical question for you. They wanted to know, how is it in a country like Honduras, where presidents can only serve one term for four years,
you were able to get Supreme Court to change things to run a second term, and they want to know how some people in America can do that for President Trump to run for a third term. So they're asking a technical question from you. But having said that, who are you? Can you share with the people your story, why you're here, why you're even willing to go talk to camera after being pardoned?
The audience wants to know.
Wow.
Again, thank you, Patrick, for having me. Thank you, all the team. The reason because I'm here is because I want the world to know the truth. When I was sentenced, I told the judge and looked to the press and said, tell the world that I am an innocent man. Sooner or later, you will find out. Now...
you're giving me the opportunity we're going to talk about things that i haven't said it before and i encourage you that you can go deep into this and you are going to see things that are really scary i couldn't believe that after being called the champion against narco trafficking in central america
Then the deep state and some agents, some public officials in the United States, they were indicted me when they were giving me recognition, prices. How this started? Honduras became the main bridge between South and North America for drugs to come through Honduras and then to Mexico, as you said before. But the thing is this. With that came a heavy price to the Honduran people.
80% of all the violence was related with drug trafficking. So when you wake up and somebody tell you, I was a speaker of Congress, and somebody said to me, Mr. Speaker, this morning, We have the report, 76 people were killed last night. And the day before, 75. And we are just 8 million people. When you have that kind of problem, you cannot, in myself, I cannot look the other way.
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Chapter 5: How did the political landscape in Honduras change after Hernández's presidency?
To do that, I know that I was putting my life at risk, but most scary for me was putting my family's life at risk. But at one point, you have to make a decision. What are the countries that we are going to inherit our children if it is a mess? Then we became the country with the highest murder rate in the planet. Wow.
What year was this? What year is this?
It was from 2008, 9, 10, and 11. And I became Speaker of the House in 2010. So I started to create those instruments in order to go after the narcotraffickers. I did also lead and approve in Congress the anti-laundry money law, the seizing law. We create a very controversial law that some people from the United States didn't like it, the Democrats, from the very far left.
They call it the shooting law. down low. Illegal planes were coming from Venezuela with cargo, and all of them were landing in Honduras. And what happened, and this, what I'm going to say, I haven't said it before. Before I became president, there were three deadly incidents in Honduras. They chewed down three planes. But you know what happened with the chief of the Air Force?
Because of the pressure of the U.S.
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Chapter 6: What role did the U.S. government play in Hernández's legal challenges?
government, the Democratic administration, the president of Honduras at that time, he fired the chief of the Air Force. And when I realized that, I said, how can you do that if this guy, what he's doing is doing his duty? In any country, if there is an illegal plane carrying drugs that are deadly, and it is in the Honduran airspace, what are you going to do? You have to do something.
And they fired him. So I said... We are going to create a law with all the protocols based in the international treaties, and we create that law. But before I started as a president, I received the visit of the U.S. ambassador. By the way, who fired him? Was it Roberto Michelite? No.
Who fired him? The guy who fired was Pepe Lobo. Pepe Lobo, he's from the same party as you. Yes. So he's also Republican. He would be a conservative. He's kind of a conservative. Okay, so just to bring context. So the one prior to him, Roberto Micheletti, if I'm saying it correctly, He was a Democrat. He's a liberal. Then Lobo, as previous to you, comes in.
He fires the chief of air force who shot down three planes that were flying drugs into Honduras and then going to the next state. Yes. How did he explain that to the people when he fired the chief of air force? What did he say on TV? They didn't say anything.
When I asked them, they told me,
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Chapter 7: How does Hernández describe his relationship with former President Trump?
We have a pressure from the United States saying that we cannot do that. And I said, why? And they said that some time ago in Peru, there was an accident. They took down a civilian plane. There were some passengers from missionary people, nuns. And I said, now we have to create a law to be sure of that. Our Air Force, although it is small, but it is the most professional in the region.
But when we create that, I'm going to say something else, too, that I haven't said it before. And if you dig into the classified cables from the State Department and also from the Defense Department, you are going to find out. I met with the former South commander before I became president. It was in January of 2014. It was a private meeting.
But then he made it public because he went to have a meeting in the Senate. And we talked about it with him, with General Kelly. And I told him, listen, General Kelly, you know what's going on in Honduras. We're going to extradite people. It's going to be dangerous. We need the backup of the United States because we are not as big as Colombia to support the terrorist attack that we are expecting.
We are going to transform the police. I need to use the military force because as in the United States, the military in Honduras is very well regarded by the people. So we have to create so many other instruments, but we want to work side by side with you. I have to reform the tax collection system and so many other things. And he said, but if you use that law,
the shutting down law, we are going to be with our hands tied, because the State Department doesn't like that. And I said, listen, the new law is based on the International Treaty of Chicago. And there is a lot of protocols, and we are professionals regarding our Air Force.
Later on, I found out when I saw the cables during my trial, the classified cables, that he told the State Department, the President Hernandez told me that he was going to do this because it was a very important deterrent. After a year, he said it in Congress, before that law, let's say every year was about 300 flights, illegal flights, after that law, We have just two.
And so that's the reason, because in the international narcotics strategic report that the United States issues every year, we are improving the whole time that I was in office.
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Chapter 8: What does Hernández believe about the future of Honduras?
And my government was certified also as a trusted partner in the fight against narcotraffickers. And who made those reports? The DA, the Coast Guard, but also Customs. And there is, in Key West, they have a task force of 19 agencies monitoring that.
I was invited there with my whole security council team and was invited to the White House, to the CIA, to the FBI, to the EDA at the very high level. And we were discussing how this fight was going on. And everybody was saying... Juan Orlando is doing unprecedented things, and the results are historic. But also, they said, Juan Orlando, he's a man of his word.
He managed to approve the extradition when he was a speaker of Congress, and then when he became president, he was the first to use that. We extradited, during my term, about 30 kingpins from Honduras. But later on, they used that extradition treaty to extradite me. How is that hypocrisy? Who did?
U.S. ? the Biden administration. The Biden administration. Now, we know General Kelly and Trump, you know, how General Kelly feels about Trump.
Yeah.
A couple years ago, he called him a true fascist and made some comments. But while you're saying this, I want to show something with stats. Rob, can you pull up what happened under the president's watch? Zoom in a little bit when he was talking about crime. So this is Honduras' intentional homicide rate per 100,000 population from 2000 to 2025.
You notice 48.3 per 100,000 goes up, goes up, goes up. keep going 2008 55 2009 64 2010 74 per 100 then it's 83 82 back to back then you get elected 2013 then it's 72 65 55 54 40 38 41 35 38 34 and obviously the lowest levels we've seen from 2000 so What you were doing was working. You said you extradited 30 kingpins out. But when you say Biden's administration,
Obama, it seems like you were at one point an ally of Obama, Biden, and Trump. You've gotten along with the left, and you've gotten along with the right. What happened for the Democrats to all of a sudden switch on you, flip on you, and come in and arrest you, and you're getting 45 years in prison, the numbers that we've seen? What happened is very simple.
My policies didn't always... much the desires of the democratic administration such as for example please using the military to fight violence i create a military police for public order in our constitution the military has the duty to do public order too, but we didn't have that unit. So I create that a special unit. Do you know what I was told by the State Department?
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