Drugs

Illegal drugs "produced in Mexico and sold in the United States" are the top national security threat facing the American people, according to a Department of Homeland Security assessment released on Thursday.

"While terrorists pose an enduring threat to the Homeland, drugs kill and harm far more people in the United States annually," DHS states, stressing in its report that the flow of illicit substances is "supporting violent criminal enterprises, money laundering, and corruption that undermines the rule of law."

ABC News correspondents Luke Barr and Sarah Beth Hensley note that "DHS said it expects illegal drugs produced in Mexico and sold in the United States will continue to kill more Americans than any other threat" and that "in the past year, traffickers have contributed to more lethal mixes of fentanyl — an already deadly drug — on the market and driving an increase in overdose deaths in the US. It is expected that fentanyl will remain the leading cause of narcotics-related deaths in the US in 2024."

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Barr and Hensley explain that "more than 100,000 people died from drug overdoses in the US during the last year, according to preliminary data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. About 75% of those overdose deaths are from synthetic opioids such as fentanyl."

They add, "DHS said it has invested in stopping these dangerous and illegal drugs from entering the country — seizing more fentanyl, and arresting more people for fentanyl-related crimes in the last two years than in the previous five years combined, DHS said in a statement to ABC News."

Meanwhile, DHS warns that "during the next year, we assess that the threat of violence from individuals radicalized in the United States will remain high, but largely unchanged, marked by lone offenders or small group attacks that occur with little warning. Foreign terrorist groups like al-Qa'ida and ISIS are seeking to rebuild overseas, and they maintain worldwide networks of supporters that could seek to target the Homeland."

DHS also cited domestic terrorists as a risk to public safety, pointing out, "These actors will continue to be inspired and motivated by a mix of conspiracy theories; personalized grievances; and enduring racial, ethnic, religious, and anti-government ideologies, often shared online."

READ MORE: 'Be realistic': Conservative slams Republicans calling for military action against Mexico

View Barr's and Hensley's analysis at this link.

Although President Barack Obama carried Ohio in both 2008 and 2012, the Buckeye State has since been a frequent source of frustration for Democrats. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) was reelected in 2018, yet Ohio has been trending Republican in recent years.

One of the ways Ohio Democrats have been fighting back is via ballot measure proposals. But according to Talking Points Memo's Kate Riga, Republicans have been looking for ways to "rig" November's ballot measures on everything from recreational marijuana use to abortion to redistricting.

Route Fifty's Daniel C. Vock notes that Republicans in the Ohio State Legislature were hoping to change the state's constitution so that it would be harder to get ballot measures passed. That effort failed, however, and according to Riga, Ohio Republicans have a Plan B: distorting measures that make it to the ballot.

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Democratic Ohio State Rep. Elliot Forhan told Talking Points Memo (TPM) that Republicans "know that they have to put their thumb — and all their fingers, and their elbows and knees — on their side of the scale to make it as biased as possible in order to have any chance at winning."

Forhan added, "It goes to the bigger picture of why are we here at all — because we have a democracy in the state of Ohio that is not reflective of the will of the voters."

In Ohio, Democrats are proposing, via ballot initiatives, legalizing recreational marijuana use and enshrining abortion rights in the state's constitution. And Republicans are trying to undermining the abortion measure by altering the language in it — for example, "unborn child" instead of "fetus."

Vock notes that the marijuana proposal "before voters" in Ohio "is on whether to create a state law, not an amendment to the state's constitution."

READ MORE: Republicans facing 'a no-win conundrum' after Ohio ballot measure fails: report

Forhan said that although most Ohio voters have made up their minds about these proposals, he worries about those who haven't.

The Democrat told Talking Points Memo, "Look, most voters will already know what they're gonna do. But not all of them."

READ MORE: Ohio's GOP secretary of state brutally mocked after his amendment goes down in flames

Find Talking Points Memo's full report at this link and Route Fifty's complete article here.

Florida governor and 2024 Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis said in Iowa on Thursday that he is open to bombing drug cartels in Mexico to combat smuggling, NBC News correspondent Alex Tabet reports.

"We will absolutely reserve the right if they're invading our country and killing our people," DeSantis replied to a voter. "I said I would use whatever force we need to defend the country," he later confirmed to NBC. "We'd be willing to lean in against them, and we reserve the right to defend our country."

DeSantis, who has failed to close polling gaps between himself and the GOP's frontrunner, twice-impeached thrice-indicted former President Donald Trump, promoted "deadly force" at the border.

READ MORE: 'This is an outrage': Suspended Florida state attorney fires back at 'weak dictator' DeSantis

"We're authorizing deadly force. They try to break into our country? They will end up stone-cold dead," DeSantis pledged to his supporters. He further boasted about deploying Florida National Guard troops to Texas and helping fly unsuspecting migrants to so-called "sanctuary cities" like Martha's Vineyard.

DeSantis' comments expanded upon his telling NBC's Amanda Terkel on Monday that authorities should rely on racial profiling to assess if an individual is attempting to sneak contraband into the United States.

"Same way a police officer would know," DeSantis said. "Same way somebody operating in Iraq would know. You know, these people in Iraq at the time, they all looked the same. You didn't know who had a bomb strapped to them. So those guys have to make judgments."

Meanwhile, federal agencies calculated that foreign nationals are not the primary source of illicit substances entering the country.

READ MORE: 'Joe Biden’s the president': DeSantis says 'of course' Trump 'lost' in 2020

The Associated Press noted in 2021 that "US citizens were apprehended nearly seven times more often than Mexican citizens between October 2020 and March 31 for trying to smuggle drugs in vehicles, US Customs and Border Protection data shows. In the 2018 and 2019 fiscal years, Americans were caught roughly twice as often as Mexicans."

Additionally, USA Today explained in July 2023 that "according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection statistics, 90 percent of heroin seized along the border, 88 percent of cocaine, 87 percent of methamphetamine, and 80 percent of fentanyl in the first 11 months of the 2018 fiscal year was caught trying to be smuggled in at legal crossing points."

READ MORE: 'Fascist' and 'tyrant': DeSantis blasted for ousting another elected Democratic state attorney

View Tabet's report at this link.

The United States Supreme Court on Thursday agreed to hear the United States Department of Justice's legal challenge to OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma's bankruptcy settlement for the extensive harm that its pain-relieving drug caused, Reuters correspondents John Kruzel and Andrew Chung report. The case is scheduled for December.

"Purdue filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2019 to address its debts, nearly all of which stemmed from thousands of lawsuits alleging that OxyContin helped kickstart an opioid epidemic that has caused more than 500,000 U.S. overdose deaths over two decades," Kruzel and Chung recall.

"Purdue's owners under the settlement," Kruzel and Chung write, "would receive immunity in exchange for paying up to $6 billion to settle thousands of lawsuits filed by states, hospitals, people who had become addicted and others who have sued the Stamford, Connecticut-based company over its misleading marketing of the powerful pain medication OxyContin."

READ MORE: 'Cynical political ploy': Experts slam GOP’s 'unequivocally false' claim that Biden is behind opioid crisis

But President Joe Biden's administration is now questioning "whether US bankruptcy law allows Purdue's restructuring to include legal protections for the members of the Sackler family, who have not filed for personal bankruptcy," Kruzel and Chung explain.

The reporters note that "in a court filing, the administration told the Supreme Court that Purdue's settlement is an abuse of bankruptcy protections meant for debtors in 'financial distress,' not people like the Sacklers. According to the administration, Sackler family members withdrew $11 billion from Purdue before agreeing to contribute $6 billion to its opioid settlement."

Purdue, however, maintains that the new suit will "single-handedly delay billions of dollars in value that should be put to use for victim compensation, opioid crisis abatement for communities across the country and overdose rescue medicines."

Kruzel and Chang add that a group "comprising more than 60,000 people who have filed personal injury claims stemming from their exposure to Purdue opioid products" told the Supreme Court that "Regardless of how one feels about the role of the Sackler family in the creation and escalation of the opioid crisis, the fact remains that the billions of dollars in abatement and victim compensation funds hinge on confirmation and consummation of the existing plan."

READ MORE: Impeached Texas attorney general partnered with troubled businessman to push opioid program

Kruzel's and Chung's analysis is available at this link.

Republican leaders' attempt to blame President Joe Biden's immigration policies for an increase in fentanyl deaths is a "cynical political ploy" according to critics, The Guardian reports.

Per The Guardian:The Guardian:

The speaker of the House of Representatives, Kevin McCarthy, tied the sharp increase in fentanyl seizures and deaths to the record number of undocumented migrants entering the US last year, and blamed the White House for letting them in. So did Congresswoman Mary Miller when she claimed that Biden and the homeland security secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas, 'opened our borders and flooded our streets with fentanyl.'

Furthermore, according to the report, "Republicans held a congressional hearing in July into the Biden administration's 'open border policies' after the party's members on the homeland security committee released a report accusing Mayorkas of a 'dereliction of duty.'"

READ MORE: Lawmakers readying bipartisan bills to authorize Pentagon resources to combat fentanyl: report

However, Mayorkas deems the Republicans' claims "unequivocally false," according to The Guardian. "The vast, vast majority is thought to be smuggled through the ports of entry and tractor-trailer trucks and passenger vehicles."

The Guardian notes 2024 Republican candidate and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has also blamed the public health crisis on Biden, and previously "brought dozens of sheriffs from across the US together in Arizona in June to peer into Mexico and claim that the president's easing of [former President] Donald Trump's restrictions on migrants seeking asylum had opened the door to a flood of the drug killing about 200 Americans a day."

The news outlet reports "Ninety of" the sheriffs "signed a letter praising the Florida governor's position as Republicans increasingly link the growing toll from opioids to 'Biden's open border'"

Criticizing the GOP leaders' claims, U.S. Rep. Raúl Grijalva (R-Arizona) said DeSantis' border visit "was motivated by hate and fearmongering 'to pander to the same old race baiting anti-immigrant extremist politicians and officials in southern Arizona,'" according to The Guardian.

READ MORE: O’Rourke condemns Texas migrant traps: Biden 'must step in' because Abbott 'has blood on his hands'

University of Texas, El Paso Center for Law and Human Behavior Director Victor M. Manjarrez Jr., told NPR last year while "it's true that fentanyl is crossing the border," the drug is "not coming over on the backs of migrants, who are often turning themselves in to seek asylum."

READ MORE: Survey cites gun violence as America’s top health threat

The Guardian's full report is available at this link. NPR's report is here.

A Cincinnati court of appeals has discarded the 10 1/2 year-prison sentence for Leron Liggins, a Black man, over "troubling" comments made by the presiding judge over his case, Reuters reports.

Per Reuters, U.S. District Judge Stephen Murphy of Detroit, Michigan, a white man, exhibited "frustration with delays in Liggins' case, which had been pending since 2018" over drug charges.

According to the report, after Liggins "expressed dissatisfaction with two different court-appointed lawyers and changed his mind about pleading guilty," during a 2020 hearing for his case, Murphy "said he was 'tired of this defendant,' who was giving him the 'runaround,'" and asked Liggin's then-attorney "What do you want me to do? This guy looks like a criminal to me. This is what criminals do. This isn't what innocent people, who want a fair trial do."

READ MORE: These MAGA Republicans are determined to expand the failed drug war: report

Representing a three-judge panel, Reuters reports, U.S. Circuit Judge Eric Clay said Murphy's "troubling" comments "called into question his partiality."

Murphy "apologized for getting upset at Liggins, saying he made a 'mistake' and had 'lost my head,' but he declined to let the case be re-assigned, saying 'just because I got mad does not mean I'm biased.'"

Still, Clay wrote, "We are highly concerned by this remark, especially when directed toward Liggins, an African American man. Even if one were to assume a lack of racial bias on the part of the district judge, the remark nevertheless raises the specter of such bias."

Liggin's attorney Wade Fink, said the decision represents the fact that "No matter who you are, no matter what you look like, victims and defendants alike you should be treated with dignity, respect, and, above all, complete even-handed fairness."

READ MORE: 'Time to reverse course': NYT Editorial Board endorses ending the War on Drugs

Reuters' full report is available at this link (subscription required).

A Wisconsin jury found Taylor Schabusiness guilty of murdering and decapitating her lover in what was described as a "meth-fueled" sexual attack, The Daily Beast reported on Wednesday.

"Taylor Schabusiness, 25, was convicted of all charges against her, including first-degree intentional homicide, mutilating a corpse, and third-degree sexual assault in connection with the February 2022 murder of her lover, Shad Thyrion," reported Pilar Melendez. "The verdict came after Brown County Circuit Court jurors deliberated for just 45 minutes."

"Throughout the three-day trial, jurors heard harrowing allegations against Schabusiness, who they say fatally strangled Thyrion on Feb. 22, 2022, in the basement of his mother’s Green Bay home," the report continued. "Prosecutors argued that after smoking methamphetamine and engaging in a sexual encounter, Schabusiness fatally strangled Thyrion before mutilating the 24-year-old’s body for hours."

Schabusiness had already confessed to police that after dismembering Thyrion, she put his head and genitals "in a five-gallon bucket with a beach towel before leaving," after which the gruesome remains were later found by his mother.

The trial was punctuated by drama in February after Schabusiness assaulted her own lawyer in open court shortly after the judge agreed to delay the case. The lawyer, Quinn Jolly, withdrew from the case, leaving her to find new counsel.

Another detail that emerged at trial was Schabusiness' apparent fascination with Jeffrey Dahmer, the serial killer notorious for sexually abusing and eating his victims' corpses. Former Green Bay police lieutenant Jena Luberda testified that Schabusiness' phone search history included terms like "Jeffrey Dahmer, Jeff Boyardee, Jeffrey Dahmer’s butt, [and] Jeffrey Dahmer walking into court all sexy."

During the Wednesday, July 25, segment of Fox News' The Five, the conservative co-hosts Jesse Watters, Jeanine Pirro, Dana Perino and Greg Gutfeld suggested Mexican drug cartels are behind a shoplifting surge in America, and to combat the alleged issue — the U.S. military should bomb them.

Host Jesse Watters began the conversation saying, "While the liberal media gets a crash course on crime, we're learning that Mexican drug cartels are fueling America's shoplifting surge. They're selling the stolen stuff online and then laundering the profits through, guess where? Chinese brokers. So, Dana, CNN finally discovered crime is a crisis in San Francisco."

Dana Perino replied, "This is after they made fun of us for pointing it out last year...On this point, I think that finding out that there are Mexican cartels behind this, makes me feel maybe there's hope that we could figure out a way to do something about it. So the state attorneys general are banding together and they're like let's go after it. But also they need help from the retailers. The retailers don't want to be looted like this either. But the problem, to me, is that all this stuff gets taken and then it's resold online. Like on Amazon, for example. So can Amazon help us out? Somehow, can they figure out a way to track them? We've got AI, we've got all these other tools. There must be a way to try to prevent all of this from happening."

READ MORE: Donald Trump complains that 'somebody leaked' his plans to launch Patriot missiles at Mexican cartels

In April, CNN interviewed Mission Local managing editor Joe Eskenazi about San Francisco's surge in crime, and the editor noted, "There is crime in downtown San Francisco, but there always has been. I think the notion that these businesses were driven out by crime is frankly dishonest. That's always been a factor."

Eskenazi later added, "San Francisco also has lots of property crime because there's a great divergence of wealth and people steal things. But San Francisco’s violent crime rate is at a near historic low right now."

Watters then said, "You can put up the task force, maybe with the FBI, bring in the DEA, make it transnational Greg, since the cartels are involved."

Greg Gutfeld replied, "It's weird to see these cartels diversify. They're almost like Amazon now. They're doing drugs, smuggling and theft, pretty soon they're gonna have their own podcast. There's another thing that we said a long time ago and I bet we don't -- bombing the car-- remember we said we were talking about bombing the cartels? And people were going, 'No, no, no, that's an act of war, that's in another country.' Yeah, but we do that to terrorists as well, and this is kind of a terrorist activity. And the thing is, now, we see this at least on the Republican side, a lot of candidates are talking about doing it and I think it's a good idea. I think we need to elect a president who values a border. That's the important thing. Bomb these. And there's, like, one cartel we can cooperate with, let them kill the rest. Encourage them to kill the rest."

READ MORE: MTG says U.S. should be 'bombing Mexican cartels' and 'Antifa BLM rioters' instead of 'aiding' Ukraine

Watters then asked Pirro, "Remember when the Chinese were ripping off our DVDs and we sent the entire federal government after them and we actually were pretty effective. This is pretty similar in terms of now it's shoplifting.

She said, "Yeah, and I remember prosecuting a case for the Motion Picture Association because what they were doing was people were going in and they were just making copies of movies," to which Watters replied, "I've watched a few movies like that where the guy just holds the camcorder and the finger? I mean, my friend watched it."

Pirro added, "This is part of a, you know, global organized criminal activity. The problem is that this organization is not just doing retail theft. They're also doing human trafficking. They're doing fentanyl. They're doing all kinds of crime and so they're expanding their criminal network. And now they're going to be so powerful, I don't know if we're ever going to be able to defeat them. Because we've got a president right now, who, you know, with the border -- and they're in charge at the border -- there is nothing going on that's preventing the fentanyl from coming in. We hear about an arrest every now and then. It's usually the locals making the arrests, not the federal government. But the issue is whether or not these criminals are being prosecuted. That guy walked out, right, and then the person in the store says it's a police state for everyone. So for the victims it's a police state, with the criminal, it's not a police state. That's the actual problem. It's low risk and it's high reward. Low risk because the employee's not gonna punch you out, you're not gonna get arrested, you're gonna make a fortune. You're gonna start this business and you're gonna launder your money through China. And unless we get serious about this, whether it's bombing or whatever -- you have to come up with something. These organizations are dangerous. They are absolutely dangerous. And for everybody at home, your insurance is gonna go up because of it. The cost of retail and consumer products are gonna go up. You're paying for this."

The New York Times' Maggie Haberman reported last year that "President Donald J. Trump in 2020 asked Mark T. Esper, his defense secretary, about the possibility of launching missiles into Mexico to “destroy the drug labs” and wipe out the cartels, maintaining that the United States’ involvement in a strike against its southern neighbor could be kept secret, Mr. Esper recounts in his upcoming memoir. When Mr. Esper raised various objections, Mr. Trump said that 'we could just shoot some Patriot missiles and take out the labs, quietly,' adding that 'no one would know it was us.'"

READ MORE: 'Bomb the Mexicans' is the GOP’s new 'build the wall': columnist

However, Haberman wrote experts argue that, "Patriot missiles are the primary surface-to-air missile used by the U.S. military, which is designed as anti-aircraft and anti-ballistic missile interceptors. As there are no reports of airborne drug labs in Mexican air space.

Trump supporter U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) complained earlier this year that American is "not bombing the Mexican cartels who are poisoning Americans every single day. And I know that sounds extreme. I'm not talking about the Mexican government or the Mexican people. I'm talking about the cartels. They're murdering Americans."

Miami Herald columnist Jean Guerrero notes the "Calls for U.S. attacks on Mexican drug cartels, recently discussed in secret if at all, have become a loudly expressed talking point for Republicans who are trying to exploit the violent rhetoric for political gain," highlighting Trump's 2024 GOP opponent and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis' "recent promises to deploy the military against drug cartels, along with his support for executing smugglers and his assertion that 'you absolutely can use deadly force.'"

She argues, "Republicans aren't making a good faith argument, and that their rhetoric has more to do with racism than finding solutions to the ongoing opioid crisis."

Axios reports earlier this year, Rep. Veronica Escobar (D-Texas) said, "If my colleagues were serious about addressing the cartels, they would start with addressing guns here in America," noting that the cartels "are able to outgun Mexican local law enforcement because of American guns."

READ MORE: 'Time to reverse course': NYT Editorial Board endorses ending the War on Drugs

Watch Media Matters' video below or at this link.

READ MORE: Lawmakers readying bipartisan bills to authorize Pentagon resources to combat fentanyl: report

CNN's full report is available at this link. Axios' report is here.

Last Wednesday, a man named Ray Epps who voted for former President Donald Trump twice, participated in the January 6th, 2021 insurrection at the United States Capitol, and subsequently became the face of a Fox News conspiracy theory sued the outlet and its erstwhile chief instigator Tucker Carlson for defamation.

"Carlson and Fox settled on Epps as a 'villain' who could serve as a distraction from the network's own 'culpability for stoking the fire that led to the events of January 6th,'" The New York Times reported. Epps' complaint said that Carlson "became 'fixated on Epps' and began the promoting the idea that Epps and the federal government were responsible for the Capitol riots."

Fox's scapegoating of Epps is not the only spurious narrative that has come back to bite Fox. Fox famously settled a defamation lawsuit filed by Dominion Voting Systems, which resulted in a massive fine and preceded Carlson's firing. Nonetheless, Fox continues to push unfounded claims about President Joe Biden's son, Hunter, and that pattern of behavior was a topic of discussion on Saturday's edition of MSNBC's Ayman.

READ MORE: Man whom Fox News scapegoated in January 6th conspiracy theory sues network for defamation: report

Guest host Michael Steele recalled of Fox's fake Epps story:

The thing that's interesting to me is it wasn't just Fox and Tucker Carlson making these claims. You had individuals like Ted Cruz, Marjorie Taylor Greene, also making Epps a target. This was, you know, this guy's a diehard Trump supporter whose life has been destroyed by the very right-wing conspiracy theories that he was out promoting. Then shouldn't this be like a cautionary tale for Republicans and loyal Fox watchers that, guess what? Yeah, they could come for you too.

Ex-Congressman David Jolly (R-Florida) agreed:

You're exactly right, Michael. Cautionary tale for different reasons. Politically, Republicans are showing that they're not focused on the economy and healthcare and transportation and ladders of opportunity like Joe Biden are [sic], and so they're outta step with the American people. But for Fox News, critically for their financial stability, I think what Dominion ushered in this question of actual malice, and we saw the $800 million settlement has really ripped open, if you will, the opportunity for others to go at Fox News. So Ray Epps is following a similar trajectory saying, look, as Cynthia says, it doesn't have to be actual malice in the case of Ray Epps.

Jolly then envisioned what another round of justice would look like:

But I'll give you a wild card here on Saturday night, Michael Steele. And it's this, I think Hunter Biden could crush Fox News. Financially, I think what Dominion showed us — the discovery involved in Dominion — is that actual malice has occurred within the editorial decisions of Fox News. Dominion got an $800 million settlement. Smartmatic wants theirs. Ray Epps wants theirs.

Who have they targeted more than anybody else? I guarantee you discovery of Fox News' editorial notes and emails and conversations would suggest that they have engaged in actual malice against Hunter Biden. The most judicious irony of all of this would be of Hunter Biden, Joe Biden's son, is the one that cripples Fox News financially.

Steele loved Jolly's idea:

Put a pin in that one, folks, where the hunted becomes the Hunter. I love Saturday night.

READ MORE: Fox’s Pirro asks 'Why is Hunter Biden always in our face?' while network averages 30 references per day

Watch the clip below or at this link.

READ MORE: 'Up is down': McCarthy claims DOJ indictment of House GOP 'informant' makes Hunter Biden case even 'stronger'

Fox News host “Judge” Jeanine Pirro on Thursday’s edition of “The Five” demanded to know why President Joe Biden’s son gets so much attention.

In a segment titled, “Cocaine ‘Cover Up’,” Pirro and her right-wing compatriots were criticizing the U.S. Secret Service’s investigation into a small bag of cocaine that was found in a heavily-trafficked guest area of the White House. The investigation proved inconclusive, with agents unable to determine who left the drug.

“There was no surveillance video footage found that provided investigative leads or any other means for investigators to identify who may have deposited the found substance in this area,” the Secret Service said in a statement, ABC News reports. “Without physical evidence, the investigation will not be able to single out a person of interest from the hundreds of individuals who passed through the vestibule where the cocaine was discovered. At this time, the Secret Service’s investigation is closed due to a lack of physical evidence.”

READ MORE: House Ethics Committee Re-Opens Investigation Into Matt Gaetz: Report

The agency added it “did not develop latent fingerprints and insufficient DNA was present for investigative comparisons.”

Republicans are outraged that the owner of the small amount of the illegal substance could not be identified.

“And to say that they don’t know who it is, to me, somebody should lose their job over this,” Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN) said. “This thing’s a trash can. Everybody wants to pick and choose. They need to shut the whole thing down put the garden hose to it and clean it out.”

Congressman Burchett has said that Congress has no role to play in stopping school shootings. “We’re not going to fix it. Criminals are going to be criminals.”

ABC reports Congressman Burchett said members of Congress who receive a briefing today were told the amount of cocaine was less than one gram.

According to Statista, the street price for one gram of cocaine in 2020 was $120.

Many on the right, ignoring previous First Families, suggested or even insisted the cocaine belonged to Hunter Biden, despite any evidence.

After asking about security cameras, Pirro demanded to know, “Where are the canines? Why don’t you know everyone who’s gone through there?”

“It’s all hogwash,” she continued. “You vacated the building, it was so dangerous when you saw that, what you thought might be anthrax. And now you don’t have anything to say about it.”

READ MORE: ‘Like a 007 Movie’: Dem Slams Republicans Working With ‘Villain’ Indicted on Arms Trafficking, Foreign Agent Charges

“So it’s either a cover up, they’re inept. And in addition to drug testing the staffers I think they got to stop lying to us and coming out and saying – We know Hunter was there,” she baselessly added.

“The reason this is so important is Hunter doesn’t get the plea deal if they can pin this on him,” Pirro continued, despite the White House specifying no member of the First Family had been in that area – in fact, the Biden family had spent that weekend at Camp David.

“And finally, why is Hunter Biden always in our face?” Pirro also demanded to know.

“Why is this guy at the White House? Why is he on Air Force One? Why is he in Ireland? Why is his [sic] idiot State Department dinners? This guy is either a drug addict or a reformed drug addict. We shouldn’t have to deal with him constantly in our face.”

Hunter Biden is a member of America’s First Family. Pirro and Fox News never asked why Donald Trump Jr. was at the White House or traveling with President Trump. They did not ask why Eric Trump was at the White House or traveling with President Trump.

As many on social media noted, “Fox News” is the answer to “why is Hunter Biden always in our face?”

A quick Google search for the term “Hunter Biden” at the FoxNews.com website returned over 90,000 results. But at MSNBC.com, “Hunter Biden” produced just 14,500 results. USAtoday.com? 8770 results. At Rupert Murdoch’s right-wing Wall Street Journal? 205,000 results. And at Murdoch’s NYPost.com, 32,400 results.

Mediaite adds that Fox News has mentioned “Hunter Biden” nearly 400 times in the past two weeks.

“According to the results of a search of Fox News transcripts in the television database TVEyes, Pirro’s reference to ‘Hunter Biden’ was the 393rd such instance in July. That is an average of 30 times a day as of the evening of July 13.”

Watch Pirro below or at this link.

The discovery of a small container of cocaine at the White House sparked a flurry of right-wing conspiracy theories — many being promulgated by Donald Trump himself.

The former president first graduated from claiming that it might have belonged to Hunter Biden — who has struggled with substance abuse previously but was at Camp David when the bag was most likely dropped — to special counsel Jack Smith, even saying he "looks like a crackhead." Then Trump started claiming President Joe Biden himself was "probably" on drugs — and took it one step further in an interview with far-right talk radio host Wayne Allyn Root on Wednesday, suggesting, with absolutely no evidence, that Biden is given cocaine by his staffers to keep him alert enough to give speeches.

"What is your reaction when you see cocaine in the White House?" asked Root. "Can you even believe that's possible?"

"Well, you saw I put out a Truth," said Trump. "I know most of your people are on Truth because I think Truth is better than anything out there. But I put out a Truth. It's in my opinion, it's Hunter and probably Joe, because, you know, you watch Joe at the beginning of his speech and he's got a little life, not much, but he's got a little life by the end of the speech, he's a disaster. He can't even find his way off the — so there's something going on there. And I wouldn't be surprised if it was for both of them. I think it's for both of them. But that's my opinion.'

"I said, great minds think alike," said Root. "I said that on my TV show just this morning. I said it's either Hunter or it's Joe because he's so bad that before each speech and interview they probably need to give him something to juice him up. Do you think they pump him up?"

"No, I think they pump them up," Trump agreed. "And I think, and we can't have a president that's on cocaine. When you're dealing with nuclear weapons and everything else, you know? We're dealing, and you've heard me say this, President Xi, all these guys, these are at the top of their game. These are smart, whether you like them or their country or their, their policies, you know, which are pretty tough policies."

Watch below or click the link.

Trump claims Biden uses cocaine to do speechesyoutu.be

Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani said only "stupid" people believe that the White House is not covering up the origins of a small amount of cocaine found last weekend.

"Biden never tells the truth. It's almost useful when they say something when somebody like that little lying press secretary that he has, the one who's now given us three different places [for] the cocaine," he said on Sunday. "I mean, they're a mouthpiece — they're a mouthpiece for the crooked White House. How can you possibly say the day after that you just found out about the crime that's not — you're not going to solve it...Can you imagine if there's a murder this morning, and the acting police commissioner shows up and says let me think about this? This may never be solved."

Giuliani said anyone who believed the White House explanation was "too stupid" to listen to his show.

"It this is a damn lie, and it tells you right away there's a cover-up," he insisted. "You gotta be — I'm going to tell you this. If you don't realize this is a cover-up, you're too stupid to listen to this show. Go listen to some other show. Go listen to CNN or MSNBC and make yourself happy, but you obviously don't have a critical intellect."

Watch the video clip below or at this link.

On Sunday night, July 2, the White House was briefly evacuated after a white powder was found inside. The Washington, D.C. Fire Department, however, found that the powder was not a type of explosive and that no one was in any physical danger.

According to Washington Post sources, a preliminary test indicated that the powder was cocaine.

Post reporters Peter Hermann and Tyler Pager explain, "A spokesman for the Secret Service, Anthony Guglielmi, said the substance is undergoing further testing to determine what it is, and authorities are looking into how it got into the White House. He said the D.C. Fire Department determined the substance did not present a threat. The discovery prompted an elevated security alert and a brief evacuation of the executive mansion, Guglielmi said."

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Guglielmi told the Post that President Joe Biden was not inside the White House when the powder was found and said that "an investigation into the cause and manner" of how the powder got into the White House is being conducted.

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Read the Washington Post's full report at this link.

GOP governor Ron DeSantis, running for president but struggling to get out from under Donald Trump’s poll numbers, is spending a few days in New Hampshire where he once again tried to convince Republicans in the Granite State they should want to be just like Florida.

His “Make America Florida” campaign is not translating well to New Hampshire.

“At his first town-hall event in New Hampshire, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida talked on Tuesday about illegal immigration in Texas, crime in Chicago, disorder on the streets of San Francisco and the wonders of nearly every aspect of Florida — a state he mentioned about 80 times,” The New York Times reports. “Roughly an hour into the event, Mr. DeSantis finally got around to saying ‘New Hampshire.'”

At a town hall, candidates get asked questions, and generally are expected to answer them.

And while “DeSantis’s comments seemed to especially resonate when he connected his actions at home to issues of importance to New Hampshire residents, like the flood of fentanyl and other deadly drugs into their communities,” The Times notes, “his self-confident lecture about his record as Florida’s governor left the distinct impression that he believes Republican voters need what he is offering them more than he is interested in what he could learn from their questions.”

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Questions, like one from a teenager who did not get his question answered, but instead got interrogated up front: “Are you in high school?” was DeSantis’ initial, rapid-fire response.

The teen, who answered yes, said he goes to school in nearby Vermont but lives in New Hampshire, and came to see the Florida governor.

“Do you believe that Trump violated the peaceful transfer of power, a key principle of American democracy that we must uphold?” the student asked.

“Well, thank you for the question,” DeSantis replied, after asking if he was a student. “So, here’s what I know. If this election is about Biden’s failures, and our vision for the future, we are going to win. If it’s about re-litigating things that happened two, three years ago, we’re going to lose. And so I can tell you this. I can tell you this. I can point you to Tallahassee, Florida on, I believe, January 5, 2023. We had a transition of power from my first administration to my second ’cause I won re-election in a historic fashion and at the end of the day, you know, we need to win, and we need to get this done.”

“So I wasn’t anywhere near Washington that day. I have nothing to do with what happened that day,” the Florida governor declared. “Obviously, I didn’t enjoy seeing, you know, what would happen, but we’ve got to go forward on this stuff. We cannot be looking backwards and be mired in the past.”.

Joe Walsh, the former Republican and former U.S. Congressman from Illinois, blasted DeSantis — not his response, but DeSantis himself.

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Literally pointing to the video of DeSantis on Twitter, Walsh wrote: “What a chickenshit. Not at all a profile in courage.”

HuffPost White House correspondent S.V. Dáte also weighed in, saying, “Is it that hard to say: I would never attempt a coup. Coups are un-American and wrong and a crime.”

On Monday, Politico reported, “in the month since DeSantis formally entered the presidential race, he’s stumbled in the first-in-the-nation primary state.”

“He got dragged into a tit-for-tat endorsement battle with Trump that generated some media attention but little measurable increase in support. His first visit to the state as a presidential candidate drew more headlines for what he didn’t do — take questions from voters — than the retail politicking he did. And that’s on top of polls that had already swung back in Trump’s favor.”

Indeed, DeSantis continues to get slammed in the New Hampshire polls. The latest, from St. Anselm, puts Trump at 47% and DeSantis at 19% – a 10-point drop from late March, when DeSantis came in with 29% to Trump’s 42%.

It gets worse for the Florida governor.

“The New Hampshire Federation of Republican Women released a statement Thursday slamming DeSantis for planning an event at the same time as their annual fundraising lunch — an event Trump is headlining. The group asked him to reschedule,” Politico notes.

“’It has always been a New Hampshire hallmark to be considerate when scheduling events,’ the group’s events director, Christine Peters, said in a statement. ‘To have a candidate come in and distract from the most special event [the women’s group] holds in the year is unprecedented.’”

Politico spoke to “an adviser to a rival candidate granted anonymity to speak freely.”

“If there’s one thing you don’t do in New Hampshire, it’s piss off the grassroots women,” they said. “Don’t mess with them, they remember everything. Rookie move.”

Watch the video above or at this link.

Editor's note: The Baier-Trump interview aired on Monday, June 19th, 2023. This article was corrected with the proper date.

Former President Donald Trump has repeatedly called for convicted drug dealers to be executed dating back to at least 2018, when he was still in the White House. But on Monday, Trump failed to grasp the real-world implications of his proposal during an interview with Fox News host Bret Baier.

"As an example, a woman who you know very well was in jail. She had twenty-four more years to serve. She served for twenty-two years," Trump reminisced.

"Alice Johnson. She was in the Super Bowl," Baier noted of the woman whom Trump pardoned in 2020.

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"She had twenty — high quality. Oh yeah. I said, 'How many years?' And she was on a telephone call and they were involved in selling marijuana, mostly marijuana. And she got like fifty years in jail," said Trump.

"But she'd be killed under your plan," Baier pointed out.

Trump was stumped.

"Huh?" a befuddled Trump asked.

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"Aa drug dealer?" emphasized Baier, trying to stir Trump's memory.

Trump meandered through a response.

"No, no, no. Under my, oh, under that. Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, it would depend on the severity. It would depend on the severity," Trump stated.

"She's technically a former drug dealer. She the, she had a multi-million dollar cocaine ring," Baier recalled.

"Any drug dealer — look," an agitated Trump replied.

"So even Alice Johnson in that ad?" Baier pressed.

"She can't do it, okay?" crowed Trump, who then declared, "By the way, if that was there, no, she wouldn't be killed. It would start as of now. So you wouldn't go to the past? No."

Watch the clip below or at this link.

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