Donald Trump’s brand-new secretary of defense spoke with Fox News’ morning crew Friday and said that invading countries such as Mexico is a very real option.
“The drug cartels have been declared terrorist organizations,” “Fox & Friends” host Brian Kilmeade said, adding that invading countries such as Somalia, Sudan, and Syria would be prime for an American military strike if a terrorist organization such as al-Qaida was found there.
“As the secretary of defense, are you permitted now to go after them in Mexico or wherever they are?”
“Brian, I don’t want to get ahead of the president and I won’t, but that’s ultimately going to be his decision,” Hegseth said. “But let me be clear. All options will be on the table.”
“The military is orienting, shifting toward an understanding of homeland defense on our sovereign territorial border,” Hegseth continued. “That is something we will do, and do robustly.”
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The conversation was ostensibly about fentanyl coming into our country and how serious the GOP is about using might to stop it. Of course, one of Trump’s first acts as president was to pardon infamous drug trafficker Ross Ulbricht. The idea that the GOP is serious about anything other than what the billionaire class, led by Elon Musk wants them to do is laughable.
The preoccupation with Mexico, and many non-white countries for that matter, has been a focus of the GOP for decades, which has only heightened under Trump. Trump and the GOP have routinely used Mexico as a xenophobic scapegoat for their failed economic policies. From calling Mexicans “drug dealers, criminals, and rapists” to telling ghost stories about a mythical “caravan” of immigrants winding its way through South America to invade the U.S. to changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico, nothing is too low for Trump.
Hegseth, a former Fox News weekend host, squeezed through confirmation, even as allegations of sexual abuse, domestic abuse, alcohol abuse, and a deluge of general inadequacies as a person were revealed to the public.
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