I don't care how big the United States is, but we're gonna build the wall and we have to build the wall for people, for gangs, for drugs. The drugs has never been a problem like we have right now. And by the way, like the world has with drugs, and you know what, we fill up these councils, they all want to be on councils, they call them Blue Ribbon councils, where we take Melania, great, great first lady, we take - she's great, she is great. You think her life is so easy, folks? Not so easy. She is a great first la-, but we put Melania and other people on this blue-ribbon committee. Do you think the drug dealers that kill thousands of people during their lifetime, do you think they care who's on a blue-ribbon committee? The only way to solve the drug problem is through toughness. When you catch a drug dealer, you gotta, you gotta put him away for a long time.
When I was in China, and other places by the way, I said, Mr. President, do you have a drug problem? No, no. no. We do not. I said Huh, big country. 1.4 billion people, right? Not much of a drug problem. I said, What do you tribute that to? Well, the death penalty. True. Hey, if you're a drug dealer, and you know you're gonna get caught, and you know that you're gonna kill people, you're killing our kids, they're killing our kids, they're killing our kids, they're killing our families, they're killing our workers. You know, we have a hard time of the 100 million people, that special group of people, they're great people. They want to work. We have a hard time. A lot of them can't qualify to work in these factories. Chrysler's coming back in, you saw that from Mexico to Michigan, you have... we have companies coming back into the United States. You haven't seen that. I used tell you that was going to happen, but now it's happening. But a problem, a lot of people can't qualify because of drugs, but I said to the President, I said so, You don't have much of a problem. No. And they had a problem. You know, if you go back 200 years ago and they know all about drugs. It was devastating to China, the opium, devastating, it destroyed China and I'm not gonna let it destroy us.
And there was an article in one of the main papers. Maybe it was the failing New York Times, it's one of them. And I don't even know where they get it because, honestly, I don't know that the United States, frankly, is ready for it. They should be ready for, but at a minimum you have to give long tough sentences. But if you go to Singapore, I said, Mr. President, what happens with your drugs? No, we don't have a problem, President. I said, Really, why? We have a zero-tolerance. And he's not playing games. These guys don't play games. You know, we have a different type of people. They don't play games. I said, How you doing on drugs? No problem. Said, What do you mean no problem? And that's entertainment. You know, a lot of things are happening. So what do you mean no problem? We have a zero-tolerance policy. What does that mean? That means if we catch a drug dealer, death penalty, that's it. And they don't have a problem. Now, remember this: If somebody goes and shoot somebody or kill somebody, they go away for life and they can even get the death penalty, right. One person. They shoot one person they get the death penalty, they shoot, one person kill some person, knife one person, the person dies, they get maybe the death penalty, or maybe life in prison, no parole, right. Okay. A drug dealer will kill 2,000, 3,000, 5,000 people during the course of his or her life. Thousands of people are killed or their lives are destroyed, their families are destroyed, so you can kill thousands of people and go to jail for 30 days. They catch your drug dealer. They don't even put him in jail. Think of it, you kill one person, you get the death penalty in many states or you get life imprisonment. You think of it. You kill 5,000 people with drugs because you're smuggling them in and you make it a lot of money and people are dying and they don't even put you in jail. They don't do anything, but you might get 30 days 60 days 90 days. You might get a year, but you're not gonna get, and then you wonder why we have a problem. That's why we have a problem, folks. And I don't think, I don't think we should play games now. I never did polling on that. I don't know if that's popular, I don't know if that's unpopular, probably you'll have some people that say, Oh, that's, not nice, but - but these people are killing our kids and they're killing our families and we have to do something. We can't just keep setting up, blue-ribbon committees, with your wife and your wife and your husband and they meet and they have a meal and they talk, talk, talk, talk, two hours later, then they write a report said, look, that's what I got in Washington. I got all these blue-ribbon committees. Everybody wants to be blue-ribbon, and we the opioid problem, and for that, we have to go after the drug companies, we have to, we have no choice. We have to go after the drug companies, we have no choice. So, so I think it's a discussion we have to start thinking about, don't you agree? I don't know if you're ready, I don't know if this country is ready for it, but I think, Rick, I think it's a discussion that we have to start thinking about.
"for every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple and wrong."
