Major drug lord killed in Mexican military operation, Americans told to shelter in place

We'll have more on the breaking news out of Mexico. The U. S. Embassy issuing a shelter in place order for Americans in areas around Mexico City and the resort town of Puerto Vallarta after the Mexican army says it killed a prominent cartel kingpin known as El Mencho. You're looking at some of the response apparently of the cartel members who have been torching vehicles and even airplanes in the Guadalajara area. Let's bring in Lucas Tomlinson from the White House.

Lucas.

Good afternoon, John. So far, there's been no reaction from the White House about the series of ongoing gun battles that we are witnessing in Mexico after, as you mentioned, the drug kingpin and cartel leader, El Mencho, was killed by Mexican forces. We've heard from the Pentagon that the Joint Interagency Task Force countercartel did assist Mexican forces, not likely with boots on the ground, John, but with intelligence sharing.

But after El Mencho has been killed, we have seen a series of warfare, frankly, going on across Mexico in Puerto Vallarta, in Guadalajara. We saw images from the airport. And, of course, thousands of American tourists visit Mexico throughout the year, certainly during the winter months in the United States. And right now, the State Department is warning all Americans in Mexico to shelter in place particularly in Puerto Vallarta and the Guadalajara

area but after El Mencho was killed we're seeing rival cartels engaging in gun battles throughout the day we're seeing videos of Mexican special forces engaging in Mexican police on the streets we're seeing a lot of iPhone video as you can see here on the streets. We're seeing a lot of iPhone video, as you can see here on the screen, some of the aftermath, buses destroyed,

airports being targeted, and really a lot of chaos throughout multiple states across Mexico, John.

Yeah, I've seen a jetliner on fire sent by one of my aviation buddies. It's a serious situation. The president has warned that the cartels are essentially foreign terrorist organizations and he's talked about potentially sending U.S. forces after them. It doesn't sound like that is happening yet, Lucas.

It hasn't happened yet, but many U.S. special operators have been active along the Mexico-U.S. border, John. And of course, when President Trump came back to office, obviously, securing that southern border was a top priority for the president. In fact, something you will probably hear Tuesday night in the State of the Union about how the border has been locked down.

We're not getting illegal aliens coming into the United States. That's something the president has touted many times. But the situation in Mexico is very volatile, as we were reminded of today. You have rival cartel leaders, men who possess billions of dollars. They're engaged in the drug trade, a drug trade that is still active, very flourishing. And they are getting some assistance from the U.S. military in terms of intelligence sharing.

And President Trump himself has threatened drone strikes in Mexico. Remember, going back to his first term with Mark Esper in his memoir, Mark Esper said he was horrified to hear President Trump talk about potentially launching drone strikes into Mexico. Remember after the Maduro raid, there were some warnings from the White House that if you know Mexico doesn't get their act together dealing with these cartels, not necessarily

something like what happened to Maduro and his wife would be next, but there was a warning, need you, Claudia Scheinbaum, the leader of Mexico, to do more against these drug cartels. And perhaps she was listening, and that was the result of today, John.

Yeah, well, those are horrific images of the burned out buses and other attacks that the cartels have been initiating there just to, I guess, just to blow off some steam. And they're taking innocent civilians in the process. Yeah turf war. Yeah let's hope we do not see that kind of thing in this country. Lucas Tomlinson, thank you.

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