Attorney General Pam Bondi speaks at the Illicit Drug Summit in Nashville, Tennessee.
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00:00President Trump selected a good friend of the Senate to serve as the 87th Attorney
00:15General of the United States, Mrs. Pamela Bundy.
00:19In fact, last week, she announced a major blow to Mexican cartels with a drug bust that
00:37resulted in half a billion dollars of cocaine that was stopped from coming to fewer communities.
00:48Would you please help me welcome Attorney General Pamela Bundy back to the Senate.
01:12She served as the Attorney General of Florida from 2011 to 2019, and she was the first female
01:23elected to that office.
01:26On day one of her new role, Attorney General Bundy issued 14 directives, and she hasn't
01:34slowed down at all.
01:36In fact, just last week, she announced a major blow to the cartels that I just referred to.
01:46So question one, we're going to do a conversation with the Attorney General, and we want her to
01:56feel free to take off on any subject that she desires.
02:02But let me pose a question or two.
02:05Attorney General Bundy, it is wonderful to see you back here.
02:11She was here on the very first of these summits 14 years ago, and she's been back a time or
02:19two more.
02:21And we're thrilled that she took the time from a very, very busy schedule to come be with
02:33you as you go about your chores of saving lives.
02:38That's her goal and ambition.
02:42First, let me congratulate you, Madam General, on your promotion as the 87th Attorney General
02:53in our nation's – our nation's chief law enforcement officer.
03:04As we begin this conversation, please take a moment to share with us what your priorities
03:12are for the Department and the nation's men and women in blue who protect us.
03:20MS.
03:21I thought you were going to come sit with me.
03:25Excuse me.
03:26All right.
03:27Thank you, Chairman.
03:28Thank you, Chairman.
03:29Well, our priorities are pretty easy.
03:46President Trump gave us a very clear directive, make America safe again.
03:51And that includes going back to the basics of fighting violent crime.
03:55And that's – that's the basics – getting the bad guys off the street, the bank robbers,
04:01the armed robbers, the murderers, the violent criminals, the gangs who are bringing all these
04:06drugs in our country, but also eradicating drugs from our country.
04:11And it's all kinds of crime.
04:13And, you know, now we're looking at what they did, Chairman, with Tesla.
04:16You know, they're firebombing, and those bombs are a weapon of mass destruction.
04:22It's crazy to me what they've done.
04:25And we've made six arrests.
04:27And those people are looking at 20 years in prison each, and we are not negotiating.
04:31And they have stopped.
04:32The bombings have stopped.
04:34And, you know, right now they're state charges, but we're currently looking at what they did.
04:42You know, in Pennsylvania, Josh and I were AGs together.
04:47And then I see on the news that on the first night of Passover, that man's home was almost blown up.
04:55I don't know if all of you saw the pictures on the news.
04:57It was horrific.
04:58It was horrific what they did to him and tried to burn his house down.
05:04I mean, there is hate on both sides of the aisle, all across the country.
05:08There are crimes.
05:09And we're doing everything we can to fight violent crime.
05:13I always tell the President we need 10 more hours in every day.
05:17But we're going nonstop.
05:18And I think the core – back to the basics, the core – it's the drugs, too, and eradicating the drugs.
05:25So that's why you being here, doing this for so many years, and all of you being here,
05:32you're saving a life every single day by what you do.
05:36So thank you all, and thank you.
05:38SECRETARY POMPEO- Thank you.
05:40When we first started this life-saving mission some 20 years ago,
05:46Eastern Kentucky, where I live, was dubbed by the state media as the nation's painkiller capital.
05:55And Florida was our nation's pill mill capital.
06:02Drug trends have changed over the years quite a bit since our first summit.
06:11Rather than prescription drug overdoses, synthetic fentanyl from China is now the driving force
06:18behind deadly poisonings in America.
06:23Where does our nation stand today when it comes to fighting this terrible menace that's impacted all of America?
06:33Where do we stand?
06:34SECRETARY POMPEO- It's unbelievable.
06:36Every six minutes – and I know you all know – an American overdoses.
06:41They overdose from drug abuse.
06:44And specifically fentanyl.
06:47You know, you and I were talking backstage about how really when you started prosecuting, it was marijuana.
06:54When I started prosecuting – I prosecuted for 18 years before I was state AG and then before I became USAG –
07:00and it was cocaine.
07:02You know, that was the drug of choice.
07:04Then heroin and meth made a comeback.
07:07And now it's fentanyl.
07:09It's Zizeline.
07:10It's carfentanil.
07:11It's these crazy drugs that are made in China – all made in China – and shipped to Mexico and coming right across the border into our country.
07:23And I just – I want to digress for a minute because I don't want to forget to say this.
07:28And this is everyone out here.
07:31We have to tell – you know, these kids – my first experience with fentanyl was when I was state AG.
07:37And no one really knew what it was.
07:39I fought my own party on getting it scheduled higher because they were telling me,
07:43fentanyl is something you get on a patch when you're in the hospital and having surgery.
07:47I'm like, no, it's apples and oranges.
07:49That's medical fentanyl.
07:50This is completely different.
07:51And how I learned about it, three young men in Tampa Bay – I think it was in St. Pete – dropped dead.
07:59And I can't remember if it was Xanax or Adderall, but it was a drug of choice among college students.
08:05And they bought it on the street, and it was laced with fentanyl.
08:09So if we can tell our kids everywhere I go, I tell everyone, don't take anything from anyone – even if it's a Tylenol.
08:19Don't accept anything.
08:21You know, and these kids think, oh, it's Xanax.
08:23I'm studying for finals.
08:24I don't have a – don't take anything.
08:27Because I think, Chairman – that's how all of these deaths started.
08:30So we've got to still educate kids and stop them from doing this.
08:36But that's how the original three that I learned about started.
08:39And now, of course, it's just – it's wildly out of control.
08:44You know, a few years ago, we had the then Attorney General testify before my subcommittee that funds the Department of Justice.
08:56And at that time, Florida was the home of the pill mills.
09:03I mean, they were lining up people by the hundreds to go through a so-called doctor's appointment to get pills.
09:14And most of the people going down to Florida to get pills were from my district, East Kentucky and the Appalachian area.
09:23Well, the Attorney General – I was telling him, the biggest pill mill we have in this country is in Broward County, Florida.
09:32And we had a fairly heated exchange between he and me.
09:38And finally, I said, you've got the ball.
09:43It's in your court.
09:44You're the Attorney General in charge of most of the agencies.
09:49What are you going to do about the pill mills that you are sworn to eradicate?
09:57And I said, it's in Broward County, Florida.
10:00Let me spell that for you.
10:02It's B-R-O-W-A-R-D.
10:05Well, you took the ball and got rid of the pill mills.
10:12And that was a major blow for the health and welfare of my constituents at that time.
10:23And I worked closely with Jack Conway, who was the Attorney General at the time.
10:27I think it was called the Oxy Express.
10:29Yeah.
10:30And people would drive down from your state, from West Virginia even, right, from everywhere.
10:37Tennessee.
10:38They would – Tennessee.
10:39They would drive to Florida because we had absolutely no regulations.
10:44And they were – I called them drug dealers wearing white coats.
10:47They were these doctors.
10:48And I went all over the state of Florida.
10:50This would have been in 2010, 2011.
10:52And I went all over the state.
10:54And I found out about it when I was running for office because I was all over the state.
10:59And everywhere I went, everywhere I went, whether it was a small, urban community or a huge, affluent, gated community,
11:12moms were coming up to me handing me pictures of their children who would overdose from oxycodone.
11:19And after I became AG, I framed all those pictures in my office as a reminder.
11:24And that was another one I kind of had to fight my own party initially to educate them on what I was seeing and what was happening.
11:31So, 98 of the top 100 oxycodone prescribers – these are the doctors.
11:37They just sent me to figure out what they did.
11:41Yeah, it looks like they did.
11:54Yeah.
11:55Yeah.
11:56What's up?
11:57Oh, I guess they did.
11:58And they're often speaking to me.
11:59I can't do it.
12:00No, no, no.
12:01They're fine.
12:02Yeah.
12:03Yeah.
12:04And they just sent me down.
12:06And they contacted me and did it.
12:09Yeah.
12:10Yeah.
12:11Yeah.
12:12Yeah.
12:13Yeah, but they're so close to me and they're…
12:14Yeah.
12:15Yeah.
12:16It's all right.
12:17Yeah.
12:18You know, they should start me.
12:19Yeah, you know?
12:20Yeah.
12:21Yeah.
12:22Yeah.
12:23Whether it's cocaine, whether it's fentanyl, whether it's meth, whether it's heroin.
12:31But we have a long way to go, and especially with the borders.
12:38All these drugs have just infiltrated our country, and we have got to keep fighting to eradicate
12:44them.
12:45Drug trends have changed quite a bit since our first summit 14 years ago.
12:55Rather than prescription drug overdoses, now it's synthetic fentanyl and the like from
13:04China.
13:06And that's now the driving force in this whole arena of thought.
13:13Where does the nation stand today when it comes to fighting this menace that endangers
13:22our young people?
13:23MS.
13:24It doesn't.
13:25President Trump has given us a very, very clear directive with DEA, FBI, working hand-in-hand
13:32in Homeland Security.
13:33It's a huge part of this because so much of this junk is imported through Mexico, through
13:39Canada.
13:40So we're working with our counterparts there to try to stop it from coming into our country.
13:45It's also coming in through the mail.
13:47We know that.
13:48It's coming in on cargo ships.
13:49So we're, to back up a second, we just seized in Miami.
13:53Last week I was in Miami.
13:55And they're mixing this with fentanyl, so this is very important.
13:59Half a billion dollars of cocaine.
14:02A billion dollars on a ship coming into our country.
14:06And that's pure cocaine before it's cut with the baking powder or the baby, whatever they
14:11put in it, the baby powder, the baking soda.
14:14They cut it with all this stuff, but they're also lacing it with fentanyl to get people so
14:19highly addicted.
14:20So we made a huge arrest there working with the Coast Guard, working with all our partners,
14:24our U.S.
14:25attorneys down there.
14:27We seized, I wrote a note so I got it right, in 2025, just this year, we have seized 21.5 million
14:38fentanyl pills.
14:39That's crazy there.
14:45And 3,100 pounds of fentanyl.
14:51But think how many millions of lives were saved by taking that off the street.
14:58You know, we're getting it, whether it's a nightclub in Colorado or a drug warehouse
15:02in Washington State or somewhere in Southern California, it's all over the country.
15:07But working hand-in-hand with all of my law enforcement agencies – ATF, DEA, FBI, especially
15:15DEA on these – but also, again, with Homeland Security, and we all work so well together.
15:20We're doing everything we can to get this trash off our streets.
15:25SECRETARY KERRYN BENNETT – Bless you.
15:28Well, we've – we've heard during this summit from the law enforcement
15:37agencies, especially DEA, whom I think deserve a place in heaven.
15:45I mean, they – they're hardworking, tough prosecutors.
15:50In a matter of just a few months, you and President Trump have drastically improved the conditions
16:00at our border.
16:01And I want to thank you for that.
16:05That's the most important thing, perhaps, that we've seen happen.
16:10What do you say about that border and what we need to do?
16:16SECRETARY KERRYN BENNETT – Well, we – President Trump closed the border right away.
16:20Listen, I went to that border in September.
16:22I went to that border with my friend Laura Trump and Morgan – friends Laura Trump and
16:26Morgan Ortegas.
16:28There is nothing humane happening at that border.
16:31Drugs were flowing across our border – flowing.
16:35People were walking across our border – 18- to 35-year-old fighting-age men.
16:40I saw firsthand passports, driver's license, photo IDs just dropped at the other side of
16:46the border.
16:47If they had an ID, they could walk right in.
16:50A Chinese national carrying fentanyl could say, oh, I'm from Cuba.
16:55And they had to believe him if he didn't have ID and let him into our country.
16:59It was horrific.
17:00And it would take another half an hour or more to talk about the human trafficking, which
17:05is another obsession of mine, the sex trafficking, the unaccompanied children coming across the
17:11border.
17:12Because if you posed as a family unit, it's much easier to walk into our country.
17:17And these kids were being smuggled in and out.
17:20They called him a disposable child, a recycled child, coming in and out.
17:23And the border patrol agents recognized this one little boy who kept coming in and out.
17:29And they didn't understand.
17:30They finally, like the third or fourth time, recognized him.
17:33He was being trafficked.
17:34Now, how they were giving him back to Mexico, I don't know.
17:36But they were really bringing him across our border to pose as a family member.
17:41So these are the cartels.
17:44Cartels grew wildly profitable during the last administration.
17:49They did.
17:50They're still – they're multibillion-dollar businesses.
17:53Look at the cocaine I talked about that we just seized.
17:56It's – they're multibillion-dollar businesses.
17:58And they're just – it's flowing into our country.
18:02And President Trump said, no more – it's going to stop.
18:04No more human trafficking.
18:06No more drugs across our border.
18:08And we're doing everything we can to stop it.
18:10But so many of these drugs are already in our country.
18:13And that's why all of you in this audience and you, Chairman, have such a vested interest
18:18in this and helping these victims and getting these drugs off our streets.
18:24SECRETARY POMPEO- CDC recently released a promising report featuring a historic reduction
18:36in overdose deaths nationwide – nearly 30 percent over the last year.
18:43SECRETARY POMPEO- And I expect that number to get even better when the borders are almost
18:51perfectly secure that you and the President have engineered.
18:58Please share with us your idea of the importance of having that secure border and what it might
19:05mean for the fight against Fentonel and others.
19:09SECRETARY POMPEO- Well, it's going to make it a lot tougher for these cartels to get
19:16into our country.
19:18Sinaloa – there are so many major cartels in our country.
19:24Just within the last few days, we arrested a Sinaloa cartel member in Greensboro, North Carolina.
19:32Sinaloa – 27 members of TDA who had come right across our border were arrested in Oregon,
19:41Florida, and New York.
19:43And all these – when I talk about the gangs and the border, these are not people coming
19:49to America for a better life.
19:51TDA, MS-13 – they are terrorist organizations.
19:55They are highly organized.
19:57Their structure – it's like a corporate structure.
20:01They have – in D.C. a couple weeks ago, we arrested one of the top members of MS-13 living
20:08half an hour outside of Virginia – I mean outside of D.C. in Virginia.
20:14They have infiltrated our country.
20:17It's organized crime at its worst.
20:20They're dealing drugs.
20:21They're dealing firearms.
20:22This guy had five firearms on him, living in a very nice residential neighborhood.
20:28And they have an incredible corporate structure.
20:31And the higher-ups in the organization, the leaders, insulate themselves.
20:36So we worked with Governor Youngkin in Virginia, and it's everyone working together.
20:41It's a task force that we all started partnering with states who want to work with us.
20:48And that's how we're securing our borders, by getting the people who are already here
20:53off of our streets, and that's stopping the drug flow throughout the country.
21:00We also recently sentenced a man who was arrested with 14,500 fentanyl pills, and that was in
21:07Washington State.
21:08So this stuff is all over our country.
21:14It's all over our country.
21:15And it's killing our kids, it's killing adults, and people are getting highly addicted.
21:20So that's why the – securing the borders are of utmost importance.
21:24But it's got to be a – it's multifaceted.
21:28We can secure the borders as best we can, but then the drugs are already in our country,
21:33and the gangs are already in our country.
21:34The cartels are already in our country.
21:37So it's keeping Americans safe and getting those violent criminals off our streets.
21:41Well, congratulations on all of those great accomplishments.
21:46In February, you announced the arrests of 29 Mexican cartel members, including Kingpin,
21:56who had been on the DEA's top 10 list for four decades.
22:06By the way, that – that individual was accused of killing a DEA agent, Kiki Camarena, in the
22:211980s.
22:22What more can we expect from your department as it tackles these longstanding, deeply rooted
22:31criminal organizations?
22:32MS.
22:33More of what – more of what I've been talking about, more of what you're seeing,
22:37and the drug kingpin that you just referenced, I get a credit for a lot that it's a team effort.
22:44It's not.
22:45First, it's all Donald Trump.
22:46He – it's – it's his directive, and everything we do is working with him to keep
22:52America safe.
22:53If you've ever heard that man open his mouth, he is anti-drugs.
22:57And so that was – this guy was Rafael Quintera, and this was a lot of hard work by Marco Rubio
23:04in the State Department, because he was in Mexico, and he had escaped multiple times.
23:08So he killed Kiki Camarena in the 80s.
23:13He – they not only killed him, they tortured him.
23:16And Kiki Camarena's family has had to live with this since the 80s.
23:23And I got to be part of the phone call to call his widow and his son and tell them that
23:29this monster is in custody and was on a plane, and we were all there to greet him when he
23:36came back to our country, and will face life in prison.
23:41He will be prosecuted in our country, and he will face life in prison.
23:44And Kiki's son, Chairman, is a circuit court judge.
23:48And we got to FaceTime with his son and talk to his son.
23:52And a little trivia is that after his father was tortured and killed, Mrs. Camarena gave her
24:00son, who's now the judge, her husband's handcuffs from DEA when he was an agent.
24:07And they had them engraved.
24:09And guess who was handcuffed with his father's handcuffs in the U.S. of A?
24:14Not a great story.
24:17So it may take a while sometimes, but they are getting to see justice.
24:23And hearing this widow crying for something that happened to her husband in the 80s and
24:28her son, who's now a judge, it's just – that's why we do what we do.
24:33If we can save one life, lock up one bad guy every single day, then hopefully we're making
24:38a difference.
24:39And the same thank you with what you're doing throughout our country to fight for victims
24:44of crime, and all of you.
24:46MR.
24:48President Trump has designated several of these cartel groups and several other people
25:02as foreign terrorist organizations.
25:05What does that mean?
25:07MS.
25:08So it's what I described for TDA, Trans de Agua, and MS-13.
25:14MS-13 are from El Salvador.
25:17TDA are from Venezuela.
25:19Maduro opened up the prisons and let all of these people walk into our country from Venezuela.
25:26No more.
25:27And when they – they are – they are alien enemies of our country for all the reasons
25:32we've been talking about, for the reasons you're here.
25:35You know, they're killing kids with the drugs.
25:37They're killing adults every day with the drugs that they're bringing into this country,
25:41the guns that they're smuggling into this country.
25:43They're organized crime.
25:45MS-13.
25:46And what we're able to do is we're charging them with RICO, with racketeering, because
25:50they are criminal organizations and they are conspiring to destroy American lives.
25:57So we've been prosecuting them that way.
25:59I just talked about the one we arrested in Virginia.
26:02In Miami – I was in Miami all the days run together.
26:05I think that was two and a half weeks ago.
26:08In Miami – but there were – and I met with the victims' families there.
26:12There was a horrific murder where a young man was not a member of the gang, but they – to
26:22rise up in these gangs, to become in the top leadership, you have to kill someone.
26:26So these – it was a cold case.
26:29It had been around for a very long time.
26:32And these four individuals – several had – there were about 11, but four were still
26:37on the run.
26:38And they captured them.
26:40All – FBI did a great job working with DEA, working with Homeland.
26:44Everyone works together.
26:45It's a team effort.
26:46But they captured these four guys.
26:48And so what they did to this victim – we had to use an interpreter.
26:54I had the families in with us.
26:56And these moms were just crying, so relieved that these monsters are off the street now
27:02because they're charged with the murder of her son.
27:05One of them coerced him to come somewhere with him.
27:09And then they stabbed him.
27:10I saw the pictures.
27:11I saw the crime scene photos over a hundred times.
27:14And these guys have been on the run for a very long time.
27:17And we got them off the street.
27:19One was living in the northeast – I can't remember which state now.
27:23One was living right in Fort Lauderdale, Miami area still.
27:27And one – have you all heard of the Villages?
27:30It's a high-end retirement community in Florida.
27:32Yeah.
27:33Ready for this?
27:34One was hanging drywall in the Villages, living among us.
27:38And they were able to capture them, catch them.
27:41They're now in custody, and they will be prosecuted as the terrorists and the murderers
27:46that they are.
27:47And they thought they got away with it.
27:52Yeah.
27:53Let me ask our guests a question.
27:59Do you feel better about things with her in charge?
28:03Huh?
28:04There may be something we've not thought about or talked about that you may want to add,
28:19General.
28:20You know, it's just – it's just – it's a – it's – it's – it's – it's
28:29a group effort.
28:30And it's DEA, FBI, with Kash Patel.
28:33We have Terry Cole coming in who runs – who's going to run DEA.
28:37We're going to have a great new leader of the Bureau of Prisons.
28:40It's all of us.
28:41It's working with Kristi Noem and Tom Holman and ICE and everyone combining Marco Rubio
28:46with Secretary of State and Pete Hegseth, DOD, and Tulsi Gabbard and John Radcliffe.
28:50Because we all work well together because we're going to get these murderers back to our
28:55state to prosecute them, is the one I talked about earlier.
28:58But it's – it's not me.
28:59It's a team effort, but it's one man.
29:01It's Donald Trump who put all of us on that cabinet to make America safe again.
29:06And that's why we're doing what we're doing.
29:08And thank you for the leadership in Congress and what you're doing to help make America
29:13safe again and keep America safe.
29:15SECRETARY TILLERSON , Great.
29:19We are blessed to have in charge now in the country this great Attorney General.
29:30But also, we've got Senator Robert Kennedy coming tomorrow here.
29:38And we're all looking forward to that.
29:41But having you as the Attorney General – and I'm the chairman of the subcommittee that
29:47funds the Department of Justice – so it's important to me personally, in my job, to
29:55be sure that you have all of the weapons that we can arm you with.
30:01So thank you for your service to your country and to your fellow citizens.
30:06And bless you for your work.
30:07SECRETARY TILLERSON , Thank you.
30:12Thank you all.
30:14Thank you, too.
30:15SECRETARY TILLERSON , Thank you.
30:19It was a joy.