President Trump: We're here today to discuss a sweeping, unprecedented and historically successful operation, that my administration has carried out in recent weeks, to arrest, prosecute, and permanently remove members of foreign drug cartels from American soil.

President Trump: In a matter of weeks, the Task Force has made the largest number of arrests of cartel leaders, operatives, and gangmembers, in American history. More than three thousand and counting. That includes members of the ultra-violent, New Generation cartel, the Sinaloa cartel, the LNFM cartel [La Nueva Familia Michoacana], MS-13 cartel; and you know MS-13, the gang, and Tren de Aragua. Another beauty. That's a group of real garbage that we have to deal with. These are in addition to the massive numbers of dangerous criminals my administration arrested nationwide since January 20th, numbering over one hundred and twenty thousand; it's a record, and a hundred and twenty thousand criminal arrests.

President Trump: Unfortunately, for four long years, before I took office, the last administration allowed the cartels and their operative to, frankly, take over our country; to freely infiltrate America and all the communities nationwide. Along with trans-national gangs, these groups have unleashed more bloodshed and killing on American soil than all other terrorist groups combined. These are the worst of the worst. It should now be clear to the entire world, that the cartels are the ISIS of the western hemisphere.

Attorney General Pamela Bondi: The Biden administration was; for was too long, all of these great law enforcement officers surrounding the table were not able to do their jobs. What they've said is now they've been uncuffed. They can do their jobs now. We've been watching trans-national gangs grow in our country, become organized, set up infrastructure, in all of our states. But no longer under President Trump. We are destroying the infrastructure, and we're no longer on defense. All of these great men and women are on offense, so they better get ready. We're dismantling the cartels, and we are taking the leaders into custody, and all of the gangs. We are going to supercharge this work. This is not a pilot program. This is permanent. We are here to stay, and Secretary Hegseth, we couldn't do this without you, and the Department of War.

Secretary Hegseth: Our message to these foreign terrorist organizations [cartels] is we will treat you like we have treated Al-Qaeda. We will find you, we will map your networks, we will hunt you down, and we will kill you.

Reporter: Is there any evidence that China's now smuggling Fentanyl through Venezuela, to bypass U.S. and Mexican port controls?

President Trump: They are doing that, yes.

Secretary Hegseth: The U.S. Military, as I mentioned; nobody better in the world at mapping networks, identifying who's connected to who inside terrorist organizations.

[mapping began long ago]

President Trump: The West Bank? Don't worry about the West Bank. Israel's not going to do anything with the West Bank, okay? Don't worry about it. Is that your question? They're not going to do anything with the West Bank. Don't worry about it. Israel's doing very well. They're not going to do anything with it.

President Trump: I've been told; a lot of support, he had a lot of support [Changpeng Zhao], and they said that what he did is not even a crime. It wasn't a crime. That he was persecuted by the Biden administration, and so I gave him a pardon at the request of a lot of very good people.

President Trump: Hundreds of thousand we're talking about [trafficked children]; not even believable. And they came in through the border. They were sold. They were bargained for. And this was all Biden. Meaning Biden and Obama, the same mentality, frankly. I think it's the same mentality. Let me tell you, Barack Hussein Obama was a lousy president. A lot of bad things happened. Remember when they used to talk about Trump with the jail cells? Well, he built the jail cells for the children. He build those jail cells.

President Trump: I don't think we're going to necessarily ask for a declaration of war [against cartels]. I think we're just going to kill people that are bringing drugs into our country, okay? We're going to kill them. You know, they're going to be like, dead.

Secretary Hegseth: What we've done so far, is stand alongside federal law enforcement in every way. Facilities and personnel, but also we have a great deal of lift inside the military. We're able to move assets in a way that no other aspect of the U.S. Government can, and so where we can rapidly assist with mass deportations, we have been happy to do that.

Attorney General Pamela Bondi: These organizations, President Trump, are coming in, and there are apps to track our federal law enforcement officers, and it jeopardizes their lives. Where they are going to be, their location, and we've actually been working really well with the tech companies who have been cooperating, because they don't want our law enforcement officers to get injured.

President Trump: They are professional agitators [protesters/rioters], and we are finding out who is paying. We have a lot of information about who they are. You're going to be very surprised when you find out.

President Trump: Adam Schiff is one of the lowest forms of scum I've ever dealt with in politics. He's a horrible human being. A very dishonest person. I have no idea what's going on; you tell me that he's going to be indicted. I don't know…I can only tell you he's a very bad; I think he's actually a sick person.

President Trump: Colombia is a drug den. It's a drug den, and it has been for a long time. You got a lousy leader over there right now. Bad guy. A thug. They make cocaine at levels that we've never seen before, and they sell it back into this; and they're not going to get away with it much longer. We're not going to put up with it much longer. Colombia is very bad. Mexico is run by the cartels. I have great respect for the president, a woman that I think is a tremendous woman. She's a very brave woman. But Mexico is run by the cartels, and we have to defend ourselves from that.