BREAKING: Mexico extradites 26 top cartel leaders to US

On to a Fox News alert. Mexico has extradited 26 high-ranking cartel members, including top leaders from the Sinaloa, Jalisco and Noreste cartels to the U.S. That also includes one suspect who is accused of participating in the 2008 killing of a Los Angeles County Sheriff's deputy. Attorney General Pam Bondi writing, quote, these 26 men have all played a role in bringing violence and drugs to American shores. Under this Department of Justice,

they will face severe consequences for their crimes against this country.

We have Hudson Institute,

senior fellow and foreign policy expert Rebecca Heinrich. She joins us now. Rebecca, good morning. Good morning from what I'm reading. These 26 individuals,

cartel members or leaders, I believe that the U.S. promised to seek the death penalty in order, as part of the deal, to get them here. What's Mexico's, what is their incentive to send those folks here?

Well, if you remember when the Trump administration designated the cartels as a foreign terrorist organization, obviously the Mexican government got incredibly nervous about that because that gives incredible power to the U.S. government to pursue the cartels. So the Mexican government is now cooperating with the U.S. government because it does not want U.S. forces going into Mexico to take care of the cartels, which have been a direct threat and have been terrorizing Americans, and which this administration is clearly not going to tolerate it.

So what I find encouraging about this is the collaboration now between the U.S. government and the Mexican government so that, you know, the Mexican government doesn't get any more of the direct kind of ire and attention from the Trump administration. Yeah, a major win for the Trump administration because the last place these 26 cartel leaders would want to be is in U.S. custody. And our relationship with Mexico is unique when it comes to trade and also immigration. The timing of all this, what do you think about that and why this is happening right

now?

Well, of course, President Trump is also threatening increased tariffs against Mexico. But really, you know, they Mexico still wants to be considered an ally of the United States. And in that in that press release that the Trump administration released designating the cartels as a foreign terrorist organization, it it developed in there in that release the connection between the Mexican government, the cartels, saying the Mexican government cannot tolerate the cartels.

It certainly cannot enable and then be enriched by them. And there's been a US concern increasingly that the Mexican government's not cracking down on the cartels and in fact is being, becoming enriched by them. So it's the combination I think of the US government threatening increased tariffs and also taking a more, you know, adversarial look rather than a look of an ally and a trade

partner. Rebecca, from the Southern border to across the sea, in just a few hours, president Trump will join an emergency call with European leaders. They're calling it an emergency call. This is ahead of Friday's meeting with Vladimir Putin. Here's Caroline Levitt yesterday on the Trump-Putin showdown.

The president has deep respect for all parties that are involved in this conflict and are trying to bring this conflict to an end. I think this is a listening exercise for the president. Look, only one party that's involved in this war is going to be present. And so this is for the president to go and to get, again, a more firm and better understanding of how we can hopefully bring this war to an end.

We also have Ukrainian President Zelensky warning of Russia's intentions, writing, we all support President Trump's determination and together we must shape positions that will not allow Russia to deceive the world once again. We see that the Russian army is not preparing to end the war. On the contrary, they're making movements to indicate preparations for new offensive operations.

There's a lot to this. The focus on this phone call that President Trump has had, I guess the German chancellor kind of headed this effort, and they want to get in front of Trump before Trump gets with Putin. Is it really that the world thinks

Putin's going to take advantage of Trump? Or why is this an emergency call?

I think that you're just going to have Europeans obviously express to President Trump their own views. President Trump just got Europeans to commit more money to their own defense because we want Europeans to take more of the burden of the defense against the Russians in Europe and to send more weapons into Ukraine. And so they have a stake in how these conversations play out between President Trump and President Putin. They're close allies of

the United States and President Trump has made NATO stronger. So I think they're expressing their views before President Trump goes in. It's interesting, Joey, because just a couple days ago, you saw Putin talking with Kim Jong-un of North Korea. So those two countries are growing closer together. And, of course, the Chinese back the Russians as well. So on one side of the ledger, you've got Ukraine and the West and then you've got this Axis on the other side.

Well, this phone call is going to take place at 8 a.m. and news will be made as a result of it. That is for sure. Rebecca Heinrichs, thank you for joining us ahead of it.

We appreciate it. We appreciate it. Thank you. You're very welcome.