Holly MatkinPalm Beach, FL – Former President Donald Trump called on lawmakers to create a new law mandating the death penalty for convicted drug dealers during a speech on Tuesday night.
Former President Trump pushed for the law change while announcing his 2024 presidential campaign from the ballroom of his Mar-a-Lago mansion on Nov. 15, the Daily Mail reported.
“We will wage war upon the cartels and stop the fentanyl and deadly drugs from killing 200,000 Americans per year,” former President Trump declared. “I will ask Congress for legislation ensuring that drug dealers and human traffickers…receive the death penalty for their heinous acts.”
“These are terrible, terrible, horrible people who are responsible for death, carnage and crime all over our country,” he said.
Former President Trump claimed that every drug dealer will kill an average of 500 people during their lifetimes due to the drugs they put out onto the streets.
“Not to mention the destruction of families,” he added.
The former president expressed his support for China President Xi Jinping and his policy of executing convicted drug dealers immediately after trial.
“That’s a terrible thing, but they have no drug problem,” he said.
Former President Trump said that drug traffickers living in nations with strict drug policies make it a point to come to the United States where “nobody even cares.”
“They can do whatever they want to do and become rich,” he said. “It’s a disgrace.”
He said imposing the death penalty is “the only way” to “solve the problem” and to bring crime rates down.
TRUMP CALLS FOR EXECUTION OF DRUG DEALERS: "We're going to be asking everyone who sells drugs — gets caught selling drugs — to receive the death penalty for their heinous acts, because, it's the only way. […] I don't even know if the American public is ready for it…" pic.twitter.com/Ze9W41we6C
— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) November 16, 2022
During a rally for Senate candidate J.D. Vance in Ohio on Nov. 7, former President Trump claimed that drug cartels “have seen their revenue skyrocket” by 2,500 percent since he left office, The Washington Post reported.
He also brought up the idea of executing drug dealers during another speech in July, The Hill reported.
President Trump’s proposal garnered both accolades and condemnation on social media.
Death penalty for drug dealers is one of the best suggestions Trump has ever had
— Allie Beth Stuckey (@conservmillen) November 16, 2022
Fox News’ Tucker Carlson characterized the plan as offering solutions to problems that we haven’t heard before.
Tucker says Trump’s penalty plan for drug dealers is something we haven’t heard before pic.twitter.com/X1qPnECPfD
— Acyn (@Acyn) November 17, 2022
But critics compared him to Rodrigo Duarte in the Philippines who supported the vigilante killing of drug dealers.
Donald Trump called for the death penalty for drug dealers during his 2024 campaign announcement.
Such rhetoric is eerily reminiscent of other authoritarian strongmen like Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines, who supported the extrajudicial killings of drug dealers & drug users. pic.twitter.com/02a52aOqur
— NowThis (@nowthisnews) November 17, 2022
Numerous critics on social media as the former President if he intended to also apply that policy to Big Pharma.
Sandy Malone
