What would your message be to parents right now, whether it's where you're at in Wichita, up here in the Kansas City area? What's the issue, the thing that as you go around the country, you think more parents need to know when it comes to keeping their kids safe?

Look, watch your children, talk to your children, know where your children are going, know who they're hanging out with.

I mean, common sense advice that I think we have heard since the beginning of time, right, from parents.

But this time it's even more important than at any other point in our history.

And I'll tell you why, because parents, We have seen fentanyl deaths in this nation and drug overdose deaths like we've never seen in the past.

Right now, thank God, under President Trump, we've been able to lower that trajectory significantly.

I mean, significantly.

Is there anything unique to Kansas and or Missouri or the Midwest that you're noticing trends that you're seeing that are different from maybe what you would see on the coasts or down in the southeast or a lot of these problems fairly similar right now across the country?

The numbers are there.

[clapping] I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart, Mr.

President.

My mother was a Cuban immigrant who came to this country in the late 1960s, and just listening to what was being said just a moment ago, even the smallest things make the biggest difference.

It is.

My mother worked so hard, so many tough jobs, cleaning facilities, working in a factory, just so that I could have a better life and live the American Dream to serve the greatest president in the history of this country.

What exactly do you do?

Our office works directly with the White House.

We basically oversee all the government agencies that handle the drug crisis.

So right now we have over $42.8 billion worth of taxpayer money that is sent out across, uh, the federal government from HHS, Health and Human Services, all the way to the Department of War, and it is our job to ensure that all of the agencies are actually moving the money to where the president needs it to be, so that it follows the president's national drug control strategy, which is what we unveiled earlier this year, um, and focused directly on both the supply as well as the demand side.

Uh, it's very important for us to, to look at both sides of this, whether it's the supply issue dealing with the cartels, designation of some of them as foreign terrorist organizations, as well as those that are on our streets, and the people affected every day, not just by the violence that the cartels have pushed on our nation, uh, through the sale of narcotics, but also those in recovery and going through treatment.

Uh, what should we know about this drug? Is it harmful in its regular form? Is it, uh, is regulation incoming?

Yeah, so let me, let me begin.

Yes, you're, you're very accurate on what you're saying.

Why was that such a passion for you?

So I grew up with older siblings and we would get very limited television time.

And I feel like the time that I would get on the television happened to be when ER was on TV.

And I'm probably dating myself because that is an old show.

But I just loved the excitement, the fast pace about it.

So when I was 18, I had my daughter and I knew that I needed to do something other than working at McDonald's my whole life to be able to support her.

And so I decided to apply for a scholarship and I got my CNA license.

Sarah, I want to give you the next 10 to 15 minutes to talk about anything that you feel that we didn't discuss or if there's anything that you want to talk about or bring up.

What is the story here?

So thank you for bringing this up.

And I think it's very important.

And this is, look, we're issuing, this is our third ONDCP drug threat notice.

And we're able to do this because of President Trump's policies.

It is carfentanil.

There's also florafentanil and methafentanil.

Is all of this imported or are there domestic originations of fentanyl that is also poisoning our children? Or is almost all of this really just an imported product that you have to deal with?

Yeah.

I mean, these, these are our wins.

And what about operation, you know, uh, i- in the Caribbean with the sphere? We're, we're targeting the, the drug boats out in the Caribbean, and we're taking them out.

And it was really not just to send a message, right? But we're also eliminating their financial gains.

So even if, even if somebody argues against, "Well, what are we really doing there? Um, we're, what are ...

Are these fishermen or are these, you know, real drug dealers? Who ...

Are these high level enough to go after?" Yes, they are high level enough.

I love it.

Tell us about this new drug.

Well, thank you, first and foremost.

Thank you so much, Rita, for having me on the show today.

I think it's really important because we want to get the information out there to the American public about, and it's our new drug threat notice.

It's to let everybody know that carfentanil, it's an elephant tranquilizer drug, 100 times more powerful than fentanyl.

We've also found fluoro fentanyl and methyl fentanyl inside these fake pills that across the nation.

And in fact, when it comes to car fentanyl, which is, like I said, an elephant tranquilizer.

How are they getting it in and who's doing it?

How are they getting it in and who's doing it?

Well, it gets into our supply chain, and yes, from as far away as China, manufacturers in China, small labs in China and India, all across the globe, it moves in through the supply chain.

Office of Border Patrol, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection, DEA, ICE, all of us as a whole of government are going after them.

We are catching the supply, but you can't get everything.

all the time.

We're hitting the cartels, land, sea, and air, and we're doing everything we can.

We've lowered the amount of fentanyl coming into the country by over 56%.

So is this stuff happening in America? I don't think it's happening in any other countries, but you would know better than me.

How are they getting it in and who's doing it?

Well, it gets into our supply chain, and yes, from as far away as China, manufacturers in China, small labs in China and India, all across the globe, it moves in through the supply chain.

Office of Border Patrol, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection, DEA, ICE, all of us as a whole of government are going after them.

We are catching the supply, but you can't get everything.

We're hitting the cartels, land, sea, and air, and we're doing everything we can.

We've lowered the amount of fentanyl coming into the country by over 56%.

That's coming across our border.

So is this stuff happening in America? I don't think it's happening in any other countries, but you would know better than me.

How are they getting it in and who's doing it?

Well, it gets into our supply chain, and yes, from as far away as China, manufacturers in China, small labs in China and India, all across the globe, it moves in through the supply chain.

Office of Border Patrol, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection, DEA, ICE, all of us as a whole of government are going after them.

We are catching the supply, but you can't get everything.

all the time we're hitting the cartels land sea and air and we're doing everything we can we've lowered the amount of fentanyl coming into the country by over 56 that's coming across our border that has dropped significantly we're seeing the death rates go down but we still remain aware that we have enemies out there that they are putting this poison into our supply chain And if you take one of these pills, it literally is a death sentence.

And that is what is so terrifying about this.

We really want to make sure that the American people are aware.

So is this stuff happening in America? I don't think it's happening in any other countries, but you would know better than me.

Fair to say?

Oh, absolutely fair to say.

And this is all due to President Donald J. Trump.

This is his policy.

This is our national drug control strategy.

We are hitting the cartels at every single choke point, Craig, from the border, land, sea and air.

We're making sure that the cartels cannot find their way into this country.

Um, tell us how it's going.

It's been going great, Sean.

I, I'm here in San Diego.

I was with Secretary Kennedy, uh, here, as well as Secretary Scott Turner, where our office, the Office of National Drug Control Policy, um, often, yes, referred to as the drug czar, re-released our best practices toolkit.

What it is is a treatment-first way of handling homelessness and drug addiction in the United States.

It's not about housing first.

Secretary Turner, uh, Secretary Kennedy have been very clear.

You either give up your addiction or the odds are high that you're going to die in s- uh, uh, from some drug-related, uh, complication, overdose, whatever it happens to be.

Can you address this notion put out by some that Iran was just minding its own business, hasn't been a threat to the United States of America, not a threat to the Western world? Give the folks the reality of what Iran has been and what continues to be.

You know, I remember and I'm taking myself and dating myself way back.

My father worked for Lockheed Martin and we moved to Saudi Arabia.

My dad was a mechanic on aircraft.

And during the time we moved to Saudi Arabia in the 70s, I was a little girl, and I remember the Iranian revolution, and I remember the horror that everyone felt, Americans especially, living in the Middle East, as even Saudi military officials, U.S. officials, all garnered up and were waiting for retaliation against Americans in the country as the Iranians took over the embassy and took American hostages.

Since that day, this cult-like regime has been the leading state sponsor of terrorism throughout the world.

And just to remind everybody about what Iran is and what Iran has done, but Iranian-backed proxy militias are basically responsible for the deaths of at least, and I'm saying at least because we know how much they did to train the Taliban even in Afghanistan while I was there covering the war.

What is the status of the drug interdictions into the United States? China's their version of the opium war against us.

that was kind of just as youtube would have been going on there wasn't all the stuff you have now yeah yeah to find all this stuff and it was just kind of this let's go and spend christmas a new year in florida and

We went with my family.

They had young kids.

We went very different holiday to what we have now kind of thing.

When you're trying to please...

How many of us was there? 10, 12 of us? It's a lot kind of thing.

Staying in a villa.

think it's still dropping at both places i think disney has has lost a bit of its magic of its cast members in recent years not all cast members only a few but um my friend uh james and i we always go you are the magic to people that are like just a grumpy cast member like just to myself to make me feel better when they're mean i'm like you are the magic but they're clearly not the magic

authorities recently uncovered a trafficking tunnel running from mexico to the san diego area sarah carter director of the office of national drug control policy spoke with american thought leaders host yania kelek about the discovery and her 2026 drug control strategy well these

are highly sophisticated tunnels so i started my work you know more than 20 years ago i would say probably more like 25 years ago when i started covering the southern border you know with mexico and One of the most interesting things about how those tunnels are built is that not only are they highly sophisticated, they take a lot of equipment, right? So you gotta be able to dig, you gotta be able to move the dirt out, you gotta be able to get oxygen in.

They've got usually rail systems where they move the narcotics or the humans that they're trafficking.

When you have something that's under 55 feet of ground, They've been building it for years, right? We don't know how long they've been moving narcotics through there.

Hundreds of millions of dollars of narcotics have probably made their way through this tunnel.

Imagine the national security implications of that.

Carter,

Just today,

It

could be your child.

It could be a two-year-old.

It could be a three-year-old that got their hand, which has happened, you know, on a pill.

Or a family member who's an addict who leaves things lying around.

Or, like I said, a 13-year-old who I know is, you know, horrific stories I've heard where they've ordered it online and then their parents walk in the bedroom and find them dead.

Or friends, and we've had friends.

Maybe as we start to finish up, tell me a little bit about how you view that approach to dealing with drugs and the drug problem.

So where does it end when you're in this vicious fight cycle?

They understand.

And burnout.

So eventually it ended when one morning, so we had, if you go to the Transpower office, they have an open plan office and they have these little flags that sit on the top of the computer and it's green means you can disturb me, blue means you can disturb me but I might not deal with it and red means don't talk to me unless the building's burning down.

I thought it was a great idea.

We'd moved into a new building, which was fantastic because now it didn't flood three times a year.

It was great.

were

What did you see? What did you learn? And does it confirm that Arizona is still one of the key battlegrounds in America's fentanyl crisis?

Well, first, thank you so much, James, for having me in the Conservative Circus in the center ring, uh, with you.

It's great to be here in Arizona.

Uh, you're right, this is my first trip since being confirmed as Drug Czar, um, in January.

My, uh, the vote went through.

Uh, I was working for President Trump as a special advisor to the president at the office, uh, for the eight months prior to that.

And the main, uh, homework assignment was like, we've got to get an outside-of-the-box thinking, uh, report and a strategy to the president by the time of my confirmation, and that is what we did.

What did you see? What did you learn? And w- does it confirm that Arizona is still one of the key battlegrounds in America's fentanyl crisis?

Well, first, thank you so much, James, for having me in the Conservative Circus, in the center ring, uh, with you.

It's great to be here in Arizona.

Uh, you're right, this is my first trip since being confirmed as Drug Czar, um, in January.

My, uh, the vote went through.

Uh, I was working for President Trump as a special advisor to the president at the office, uh, for the eight months prior to that.

And the main, uh, homework assignment was, like, we've gotta get an outside-of-the-box thinking, uh, report and a strategy to the president by the time of my confirmation, and that is what we did.

Coming up next, the Conservative Circus Clown of the Week.

And they're not going to lift a finger to help them.

All harm reduction does, Sean, and I've seen it up close and personal in California, is actually kill American citizens.

If you want to lead people to death, give them this harm reduction, right? Allow them to have someone watching them while they're shooting up with heroin.

or they're using fentanyl and allow them to sit there and abuse themselves and abuse their families and abuse their communities because it's not just about the person that's using that suffering.

It's everyone else around them that's suffering.

It's every family member.

It's everybody in society.

It looks like a scene from Dawn of the Dead.

Talk about-That, the importance of his killing, and then what does that mean for your capacity and your job as drug czar?

Look, it's huge.

It sent a message across Mexico and across the globe, actually, that if we can get El Mencho, which means The Ghost, because he was very elusive, it was very difficult even for our intelligence agencies and, and other intelligence agencies to track this cartel boss down, this foreign terrorist organization's leadership down, uh, to the point where we had actionable intelligence to target him and his, uh, and, and his, his, I would say, major lieutenants, to track them down and, and to remove him.

Now, the operation changes everything, and the question that you s-- is, is right on target, because it sends a message across the globe that if we can get El Mencho, we can get anybody, right? And I made sure that when I was in Mexico, that that was the message that I delivered to the Mexican people.

Like, look, this is about targeting one of the most notorious cartel leaders on the planet.

And for me, it was important to be there.

So we arrived about a day and a half, is what I'm guesstimating, right after, um, El Mencho operation had begun.

so, you know, w- walk us through sort of what's being done to sort of mitigate just the origination of fentanyl.

And they're not going to lift a finger to help them.

All harm reduction does, Sean, and I've seen it up close and personal in California, is actually kill American citizens.

If you want to lead people to death, give them this harm reduction, right? Allow them to have someone watching them while they're shooting up with heroin.

or they're using fentanyl and allow them to sit there and abuse themselves and abuse their families and abuse their communities because it's not just about the person that's using that suffering.

It's everyone else around them that's suffering.

It's every family member.

It's everybody in society.

It looks like a scene from Dawn of the Dead.

There are really five major parts of this strategy, correct?

Absolutely, I think the most important part of the strategy and one of the parts that, I mean, I focused on heavily with my team here at ONDCP, and I'm gonna tell you, I could not do it without the incredible team here at the White House, our Office of National Drug Control Strategy, everybody from detailees, from the military, DEA working with our chief medical officer and everyone on board really made this strategy come to life, really did.

And it was emerging threats.

Emerging threats is number one, and it's there for a reason.

John, you and I both know we've spent our careers as investigative journalists challenging what the status quo, looking for that story, finding out what our adversaries were doing.

And many times it was far too late.

The opioid epidemic in the United States, it was far too late for us to see what was happening.

Talk about that wide range of tools that are now in the plan.

Are there really five major parts of this strategy, correct?

Absolutely.

I think the most important part of the strategy and one of the parts that, I mean, I focused on heavily with my team here at ONDCP, and I'm gonna tell you, I could not do it without the incredible team here at the White House, our Office of National Drug Control Strategy.

Everybody from detailees from the military, DEA, working with, um, our chief medical officer and everyone on board really made this strategy come to life, really did.

And it was emerging threats.

Emerging threats is number one, and it's there for a reason.

John, you and I both know, we've spent our careers, uh, as investigative journalists, um, challenging what the status quo, looking for that story, finding out what our adversaries were doing, and many times it was far too late.

Yeah

What can you tell us?

Absolutely.

This is our national drug control strategy.

It is President Trump's national drug control strategy, a message and a promise to the American people that he will be relentless in the fight just as he has been.

You brought up the targeting of those drug boats in the Western Hemisphere.

This is about everything from health and human services to the Department of War and how the president as a whole of government is approaching this.

We're focused on the supply, Laura, not just on one particular aspect of the supply, but the global supply chain.

Tell me about the scope of everything, and how are you guys tracking the success?