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Here's the Scoop
Mexico Takes Out a Drug Kingpin and Tariff Chaos Leads EU to Pause Trade Deal
00:22:10
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- [00:03]
A
Hey, everybody, and welcome to here's the scoop from NBC News. I'm Yasmin Bisugian. Coming up, President Trump is not backing down on tariffs in the wake of last week's Supreme Court ruling. Where does that leave us? Trading partners. Plus, how a blizzard is wreaking havoc on the East Coast. And the US Men's hockey team ended a three decade medal drought at the Milan Cortina Olympics. We're going to bring you our final dispatch from the games for real this time. Up first, though, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum says the wave of violence that swept across the country is now under control beginning Sunday. There were cars on fire, roads blocked, and the Jalisco state capital, Guadalajara, was transformed into a ghost town. It was all at the hands of the Jalisco New Generation cartel, furious over the death of their leader, the drug kingpin known as El Mencho. He was wounded in an operation by the Mexican army and then died in custody. It is the government's biggest move to show the Trump administration it is working to crack down on the cartels. And US Press Secretary Caroline Levitt said the US Helped by providing intelligence. For this, I want to bring in senior White House correspondent Gabe GUTIERREZ on how U.S. pressure led to this very moment. Hi, Gabe.
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B
Hey, Yasmin. Good to be here.
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A
Great to have you. So there has been, as I mentioned, widespread violence in Mexico since El Mencho was killed. What do we know about how this operation went down and and the cartel's response on the ground there?
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B
You know, it was a really dramatic operation, Yasmin. And this is someone who the Americans, DEA really have been tracking for quite some time, many years. We were reporting on their search for el Mencho just five years ago. The reward had went up from $10 million to $15 million. And all came to a head over the weekend. And there was this dramatic operation where the Mexican military tried to capture him in area in Jalisco, about a two hour drive that was southwest of Guadalajara. He was shot and wounded during the operation, but he died while he was being flown to Mexico City. Now today, actually, we just got some new information from Mexico's defense secretary and the Mexican president. And they said that it was actually information that came from tracking one of El Mencho's romantic partners that actually led authorities to locate him at this compound where the shootout took place. And yeah, you mentioned that the White House is saying that the US Provided intelligence to help fuel this operation, but it was something that had been in the works for quite some time.
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A
Who is El Mencho well, look, he
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B
is a long story with him. He was born in this rural area of Mexico, this tiny Mexican town, in the 60s. He actually lived for a time in California when he was much younger. He was arrested in the 1980s for selling drugs in the U.S. he eventually made his way back to Guadalajara and he began working for another cartel. It was known as the Millennial Cartel, and that was a subsidiary of the Sinaloa Cartel, which you may have heard about, a very well known cartel in Mexico. He rose through the ranks there, and he splintered off into this group, the cartel Jalisco Nueva Genenacion, the New generation cartel, around 2010. And since then, he was known as being this ruthless killer. And the New Generation Carte really gained a reputation for, you know, sending brutal messages. They used social media quite extensively. They were compared in some ways to ISIS and being even more brutal with isis. And some of the messages they would send on social media, the torture that they would show off essentially, to try and recruit new members. And then after 2016, when El Chapo was captured, he kind of filled the power vacuum back then, and his cartel gained prominence. And so for the last decade or so, they've been really leading the charge when it came to fentanyl and meth trafficking coming out of Mexico. And American authorities had been searching for him and could not pin him down for so long.
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A
Gabe, we know the President has been hyper focused on drug trafficking and chipping away at it. And I mentioned Caroline Levitt, the press secretary, saying that the United States provided intelligence to support the operation. It's not the first time that this has happened as well. Walk us through what we know about the US Involvement in this operation.
- [04:45]
B
You know, Yasmin, this has been so interesting as we've been asking here at the White House questions about what U.S. involvement to combat drug trafficking will look like in Mexico. You'll remember that over the last several months, there have been those continued boat strikes in the waters off of Venezuela and also in the Eastern Pacific, where the US Is designated some cartels, foreign terrorist organizations, and refers to their members as armed combatants and has been taking out these drug boats in international waters. The President has teased in some ways that he would go and start striking cartels inside other countries, whether it be Colombia, whether it be Mexico. And so there were a lot of questions about how that plays out. In reality, could the US Military go to a sovereign country and carry out some operation without that country being involved or knowing about it? In this particular case, however, the US has made it very clear and gone through great pains to say that this was a Mexican military operation. And you're right, the White House, through Caroline Levitt, has said that the US Provided intelligence. No surprise there. The DEA and American authorities have been very involved in fighting Mexican cartels, either through the CIA or the dea, for decades at this point. One question we have, though, is how involved was the US really here? Was there any personnel that was there on the ground? We don't know the answer for sure to that. You know, the Trump administration hasn't commented on those details, only to say that, you know, they did provide human intelligence. But again, it appears, at least in this instance, that the president talking about taking our cartels within Mexico. So far, it appears to have been done with the close cooperation of Mexican authorities. And this all goes back to President Sheinbaum, who has been trying to demonstrate to the White House that she is serious about fighting cartels in Mexico. Also partly because of the threat of ongoing tariffs, which the president has not been shy in saying that he will use as a foreign policy tool to get what he wants. And certainly immigration, fighting drug trafficking, that being such a huge part of the president's political identity, this is a huge priority for the administration. And the White House is viewing it as a very massive victory to take out this leader of this notorious drug cartel.
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A
I'm glad that you brought up the Mexican president, Claudia Sheinbaum, because she has kind of criticized the kingpin strategy of taking out cartel leaders, essentially saying that once you take out a cartel leader, it kind of creates a vacuum and another leader rises to the top. How significant is the killing of this kingpin? And what does this really mean for the broader fight against drug trafficking in Mexico, considering the power of these cartels and that they're not just led by one man?
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B
Look, whatever criticism President Sheinbaum have of that strategy also has to be weighed against the spot that she is in right now trying to negotiate with the Trump administration. Certainly, even if she had concerns with the the idea of taking out a drug lord, what's the alternative? Resisting what the Trump administration wants to do, and then perhaps setting up a situation where indeed you have the US Military carrying out a strike within your borders without your knowledge and cooperation? Or do you try and work with the Trump administration, stay in the loop, do whatever you can to help facilitate what the president wants and stay on his good side.
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A
Gabe Gutierrez, thank you.
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B
You bet.
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A
Speaking of tariffs, US Trade deals are in limbo after the Supreme Court struck down most of President Trump's tariffs. Coming up, we're going to bring you the latest on the international fallout. And hey, while you've got a minute, why not subscribe to our podcast wherever you're listening now. That way we'll be right there in your inbox tomorrow and every day after that. We'll be right back. Does your home feel like a sanctuary or a source of stress? If clutter has taken over, you aren't failing. You just need a fresh approach in making home your happy place. Katie Wells helps you break free from the chaos without the shame, discover actionable steps to declutter, uncover the emotional roots of mess, and build easy systems that actually stick for your family. Reclaim your time and your peace. Click to LISTEN now on Audible.
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A
And we are back with here's the scoop of NBC News. Last week we reported that the Supreme Court struck down most of the president's sweeping tariffs in a crushing blow to his economic agenda. But just hours after the ruling, the president announced he was using a different law to issue a 10% global tariff. And then over the weekend, he upped the ante, raising that global tariff to 15%. While US trading partners are now reacting, today, the European Union said it is hitting pause on a deal that the US Signed last summer. European lawmakers say the American side of the deal is just too uncertain. For more on this, I want to bring in NBC News business and data correspondent Brian Chung. Hey, Brian.
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D
Hey.
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A
Yes, let's talk about the European Union and what's going on there. So they announced they would be pausing their current trade deal with the United States. The deal has been pretty complicated, to say the least. This isn't even, by the way, the first pause. What was the deal? What is the EU thinking now? And how is the United States responding?
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D
Yeah, well, the deal, like many other frameworks with other countries since the president announced these sweeping tariffs on all these countries around the world in that Rose Garden announcement last April, he has been trying to corral all of these governments to basically either travel to Washington, D.C. or negotiate from abroad. Some sort of deal where you maybe you open your markets to us and we'll lower the tariff rates or you agree to lower your tariff rates on certain American goods going there. The EU deal was going to be something of that level. But what we're seeing now is that with the Supreme Court saying, hey, those tariffs, by the way, in the first place were never legal to begin with. Now you have the European Union saying we're just going to halt work on ratifying that trade deal because even though there was the agreement, the European Union still had to ratify it. They chose not to while they try to figure out what the Supreme Court decision means for them. And as you point out, yes, this isn't the first time they did that. They paused on ratifying this deal after the Greenland tariff threat. You recall that big spat between obviously Denmark and the European Union at large with the United States. So this is actually the second time we've seen this deal paused.
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A
The President doesn't seem to be backing down. As I mentioned. He's saying essentially, from what I understand, listen, if you try and challenge any deals that we have put into place, I'm gonna go harder.
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D
Yeah. And for the President's sake, what he's been saying over the weekend applies not just to the European Union, but every country at large by basically saying, hey, you know what, no problem. If the Supreme Court says that our tariffs under at least that emerg emergency provision weren't valid, we're just gonna find other avenues to do it. So they're going down this route called section122. And for all of those non tariff nerds out there, I couldn't imagine there are too many. Basically he's just reinstating them under a different law. But there's a big caveat to this. It's a 15% cap on this tariff rate. He actually started off after the Supreme Court decision by saying we're gonna do 10%. The day after he said, ah, you know what, let's just do the maximum allowed under this provision, taking it up to 15%. But it's also important to note that this is going to be a temporary tariff. It only for 150 days. And that's the reason why they didn't use this as kind of the Plan A. But now the Supreme Court has struck down his Plan A. He's going with plan B, but it
- [13:17]
A
is temporary, temporary 150 days. And then he would subsequently have to go to Congress. And it doesn't seem like he would have Congress in his back pocket to approve these tariffs.
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D
Yeah, and we've seen some Republicans in Congress kind of come out and Say, hey, hey, we're down to codify something. But again, as we know with Congress, it can take many months, if ever, to get anything done. And so the President is likely going to have to do this patchwork of temporarily slapping it on and then once it expires, going down another avenue. And what was really interesting within the Supreme Court decision was that Brett Kavanaugh in his dissent had kind of a layup for the President in saying, hey, okay, we are striking down your tariffs here. The Supreme Court is saying that the emergency authority that you tried to implement these are under were illegal, but you have the section 232, you have section 122, section 201. He was basically giving the President a roadmap for all these other temporary ways by which he could impose these. And so I think if we just kind of zoom out here, if you are an American importer, you're probably saying, all right, well, yep, the Supreme Court struck down that tariff, but we're just going to expect other tariffs to be put up in their place. It'll still keep those costs of bringing things into this country high.
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A
So that leads me to my next question, which is how are other countries positioning this outside of the European Union? And could we subsequently see ourselves in another trade war because of the uncertainty, really, with the Supreme Court decision?
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D
Yeah, as we never got out of the trade war. We've been in the trade war since day one and we still remain in it. I mean, I think the overall picture, when you're talking about all, you know, the rest of the world looking at what's happening, even though it was a monumental decision that the Supreme Court made, I'm not sure they're thinking about it any differently because the whole story throughout the last year has been the President would announce a tariff and then he would say, oh, just kidding, actually, I'm gonna delay those tariffs, or, just kidding, they're back on now, or there's gonna be certain exceptions to those. Tarif. I think with all the uncertainty, which the European Union acknowledged today, every country is thinking about this the same, which is we don't know what the tariff policy is going to be tomorrow. Maybe we should just assume, worst case scenario, that we're dealing with this tariff and build policy around that.
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A
What about China? I mean, we have been in a full fledged trade war with China for some time now. Where do they stand on this?
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D
Yeah, well, the interesting thing is that the rhetoric around China has been particularly pronounced when you consider that we were talking about 10% tariffs on one country 20% on another, maybe 50% in the case of Brazil. But China was the shocking one where you recall last spring, there was like 145% kind of looming over the. Over the horizon. And it never happened. I think for a few days. Technically, it was in effect. But interestingly, with China, the temperature has been dialed down substantially ever since those meetings in Switzerland. I believe it was in the summer last year, where essentially the trade negotiation negotiators between the United States and China said, hey, let's just agree to lower the temperature right now while we continue to have conversations over, you know, what trade should look like between our two countries, what fentanyl policing should look like. And so I would argue that compared to other countries, like we've seen specifically with Canada, the trade negotiations with China have been going a little better than, say, with other trading partners.
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A
How are companies reacting? How are the markets reacting amidst all of this? How is Wall street reacting?
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D
Wall street didn't react too negatively to the Supreme Court decision on Friday, as you can understand, because the idea is that if you are a large corporation, the Supreme Court decision is net. Good for you. And the reason for that is because now that those tariffs are legal, you in theory, should not have to pay as much to import something from the European Union, be it cheese or wine from the European Union or toys coming in from China, avocados coming in from Mexico. But when you consider that immediately after that, the President said, we're gonna stand those tariffs up with these other temporary fixes, as a company, you're probably thinking, net net, this doesn't mean that much. And actually, we got some data from JP Morgan over the weekend, which said that the effective tariff rate with the new Tarif that were announced over the weekend is almost the same as it was prior to the Supreme Court striking down those other emergency tariffs. I think the picture is that if you are an American consumer or you are an American company, we don't know on any given day whether the tariffs are on or off. Companies are having to make assumptions about. Yep, I'm just gonna assume and plan my business around dealing with these tariffs.
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A
Brian Chung, thank you.
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D
No problem. Yes.
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A
All right, we're gonna take a very quick break. And when we are back, an update on the Blizzard pummeling the Northeast. Team USA is bringing home the hardware with a historic 12 gold medals from the Winter Olympics and a second Miracle on Ice moment for men's hockey. Stay with us for the headlines. The perfect night in good shows, comfy clothes, and Gorton's Seafood Skip the reservations and make restaurant quality seafood at home with Gorton's. From crispy fish filets and fish sticks to popcorn shrimp, that goes perfectly with your movie lineup no matter what kind of night you're craving. Gorton's has been making seafood easy and accessible for over 175 years so you can enjoy the goodness of the sea right at home. Visit gortons.com to find recipe inspiration or a store near you.
- [18:21]
C
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and we are back with here's the scoop from NBC News. Let's get to some headlines. Over 69 million people were under winter alerts today with a blizzard stretching more than 600 miles up the eastern coast from Philadelphia to Boston. The Northeast was blanketed with more than 2ft of snow in some places, leaving more than 600,000 customers without power and forcing the cancellation of nearly 6000 flights. Another 1500 flights are already scrubbed for tomorrow. The FBI says it's investigating the man who was shot dead by Secret Service agents at Mar A Lago this weekend. NBC News Capitol Hill and White House correspondent Julie Cirkin has more on what we know.
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E
It happened at 1:30 in the morning. Early on Sunday. Secret Service agents encountered a 21 year old man from North Carolina. He was at the security perimeter at Mar A Lago at the north gate. According to officials, the agents asked the man to drop what he had with him. It was a gas canister and a shotgun. The while he dropped the gas can, officials say he still held his shotgun in what appeared to be a ready to fire position. That's the moment he was fatally shot. Two Law enforcement officials tell NBC News that the suspect's name is Austin Tucker Martin. Apparently, his mother reported him missing earlier that morning. She posted a flyer on her Facebook page. There are so many things we don't know the FBI is currently investigating, like was his gun loaded? How did he get to Florida and when? Why did he go to Mar a Lago with a gun and a gas can in the first place? Remember, the Palm beach property is where President Trump spends most of his weekends in the winter. But this weekend he was at the White House hosting a governor's reception and prepping for the upcoming State of the Union.
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British police have arrested the former ambassador to the United States, Peter Mandelson, amid an intensifying scandal over his ties to late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Documents in the recent Epstein files appear to show Mandelson leading sensitive political and marketing information to Epstein. London's Metropolitan Police say their investigation centers on misconduct in public office offenses, quote, relating to a former government minister. Earlier this month, Mandelson had stepped down as a member of the House of Lords. He has denied any wrongdoing related to Epstein. At an arraignment in Los Angeles today that lasted just minutes, Nick Reiner, the son of late director Rob Reiner, pled not guilty to two counts of first degree murder. The 32 year old is accused of killing his parents, Rob and Michelle Reiner, in their home in December. The district attorney says prosecutors are considering seeking the death penalty. Reiner's next court appearance is scheduled for April 29, and he remains in jail without bail. Finally, cue the music one more time. We know, we know that we said we were done talking about the Olympics last Friday, but we could not let this one slide. The U.S. men's Hockey Gold medal drought is officially over. Here's Shaq Brewster.
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F
Well, it's been an exciting three weeks here in Milan covering these 2026 Winter Games. And we saw that excitement, that drama all the way up to the final moments. We are still talking about that big game between the United States and Canada in men's hockey. Team USA going home with the gold, ending what was was a 46 year drought in getting the gold in men's hockey. And following what we saw from the women last week and we're learning today that President Trump has invited both the men's hockey team and women's hockey team to Washington, D.C. for his state of the Union Tuesday night. Unfortunately, according to a spokesperson, the women's team, they're not able to come and attend that event. They blame scheduling issues and academic commitments. But we can expect these athletes to continue to celebrate what has been a historic, record breaking performance by Team USA throughout these Winter Games. Team USA is going home with 12 gold medals. That's more than the United States has ever pulled in any Winter Olympics. And it comes in number two behind Norway in the total medal count as they pulled in more than 33 medals over the course, of course, of these past couple of weeks. And now the excitement is shifting. We know France is going to be hosting the next Winter Olympic Games. We saw that as part of the closing ceremony. But it will be LA's turn in just about two years for the 2028 Summer Olympics.
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A
Thank you, Shaq. All right, that is going to do it for us. And here's the scoop from NBC News. I'm Yazan Vasugin. We'll be back tomorrow with whatever the day may bring. And if you like what you heard, subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. You can also subscribe to our daily newsletter, the Inside Scoop. It is a deeper dive on the main stories of the day that comes out every weeknight straight to your inbox. You can sign up for the Inside Scoop as part of our paid subscription@nbcnews.com we'll see you tomorrow.
- [24:22]
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What are you doing in a meeting? That could have been an email. Losing interest? Don't let it happen to your money too. Vanguard's Cash plus account can't help you at work, but we can help with your savings. Find out how much interest you could earn@vanguard.com cashplus offered by Vanguard Marketing Corporation member FINRA and SIPC.