He first spoke about Operation Absolute Resolve, in which former Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro was captured by U.S. Delta Forces and extracted from Venezuela to the U.S.

“It wasn’t a hard decision,” Trump said about the Maduro operation. “Democrats wanted him, and Republicans wanted him, and nobody had what it takes to get him, or didn’t want to get him. He killed a lot of people. He sent a lot of bad people into our country. He emptied his prisons into the United States. He emptied his mental institutions and insane asylums into the United States.” 

Trump continued to talk about the ways Maduro and his regime in Venezuela endangered the U.S. before touting the success of Operation Southern Spear, in which the Trump administration targeted suspected narco-terrorist vessels in the Caribbean Sea and Eastern Pacific Oceans.

“He did a lot of very bad things, but he was a big drug pusher,” Trump said. “You see that because all the boats that we shot down, they came out of Venezuela. Lot of drugs. It was a lot of boats and a lot of drugs. There are very few boats operating right now.” 

TRUMP SAYS MEETING WITH IRANIAN CROWN PRINCE CALLING FOR PROTESTS WOULD NOT BE ‘APPROPRIATE’

“We’ve knocked out 97% of the drugs coming in by water, and we are going to start now hitting land, with regard to the cartels,” Trump said. “The cartels are running Mexico. It’s very sad to watch and see what’s happened to that country, but the cartels are running it. They’re killing 250,000 [to] 300,000 in our country every single year. The drugs, it’s horrible. It’s devastated families.”

While mentioning the U.S. would start pursuing cartels “on land,” Trump did not expand on how and when such operations would occur. It remains to be seen how and when such operations would commence.