Speaking at the Department of Justice in Washington, D.C., on Friday, President Donald Trump comforted a mother whose son died from fentanyl poisoning, telling her, “He’s up there watching you” and “he’s so proud of mom.”
Trump highlighted the profound impact of fentanyl poisoning on U.S. citizens, saying during his speech that “more Americans died from fentanyl last year than died in the Korean War, or the Iraq War or the Afghanistan War. All of them combined.”
He blamed President Joe Biden’s open border policies, the cartels and countries such as Mexico, Canada and China for allowing the fentanyl problem to become so widespread.
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Stepping aside for a few moments, the president called to the stage Anne Fundner, an anti-drug activist and mother who lost her son – Weston – to fentanyl poisoning, to speak about how the deadly drug is hurting Americans.
While onstage, Fundner thanked Trump and his administration for shutting down the border, targeting the cartels and migrant crime groups as “foreign terrorist organizations” and for instituting tariffs to target countries where fentanyl is flowing from.
“The cartels were allowed to operate on American soil and took hundreds of thousands of American lives. And so, we knew there was only one person that could save us from the devastation on our American soil. And that was President Trump,” said Fundner. “I feel like I can speak for the entire fentanyl fighting community when I say thank you to President Trump and thank you to Pam Bondi and everyone out here who is fighting this fight. God bless you. God bless you, President Trump.”
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In a heartfelt moment caught on the microphone, Trump leaned in to hug Fundner and said, “He’s up there watching you. He’s so proud of mom.
“I just said to Anne, ‘Weston is up in heaven watching his mom, and he’s so proud of you, he’s so proud of you,” Trump said afterward.
Turning to the crowd, Trump also addressed a group of parents who also lost children to fentanyl, saying, “We want to acknowledge you and also, your daughters, your sons, they’re looking down on you, and they’re loving you like crazy.”
The president said that since he took office the DEA and FBI have seized 1 million deadly doses of fentanyl.
“And that’s just the beginning,” he said. “At my direction and working with Pam and everybody else, we’ve launched an all-out war on fentanyl traffickers. And it’s a war that we’re going to win. We’re going to win this war.”
He also hinted that the death penalty for certain cartel drug trafficking crimes is being considered but acknowledged that “America may not be ready for it.”
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“Wherever you have the death penalty, you don’t have drugs,” he said. “But I just don’t know if this country is ready for it. So, I tell people and it’s always an option.”
The Trump White House has previously told Fox News Digital that it would be “ruthlessly aggressive” in responding to cartel threats to American lives.
“This department will not rest until we have ended the fentanyl epidemic in America once and for all,” Trump said on Friday.
In addition to taking action against the cartels, Trump said his administration would soon be launching a series of ads to emphasize the negative effects of drug use in an attempt to lessen the widespread deaths across the U.S.
