Trump: Death penalty 'only way' to stop drug trafficking

Former President Donald Trump reiterated his support for applying the death penalty to drug dealers in a bid to curb the illicit trafficking of narcotics in the United States.

Speaking on the "Cats at Night" program with host John Catsimatidis, the former president blamed the Biden administration for an unprecedented surge of both illegal migration and illicit drug trafficking at the U.S. border with Mexico.

"They opened up the border, day one, they opened up the border," he said, adding that "through open borders come drugs... and the drugs have never been as bad as they are now."

Migrant encounters topped 2 million in a single fiscal year for the fist time in August. Moreover, the country has witnessed an alarming surge in trafficking efforts to bring the highly lethal drug fentanyl into the United States. In July alone, U.S. Customs and Border Protection seized 2,071 pounds of the drug. Two milligrams of fentanyl is a lethal dose and the July quantity alone represents enough to potentially kill 470 million people.

Trump lamented the chaotic state of the American border and the rise of the drug traffickers, asserting that the dire situation warranted drastic measures to combat the drug trade.

"The only way you're gonna stop the drugs... is death penalty for drug dealers," he said. "Drug dealers kill 500 people during their lives" on average, he continued, before pointing to East Asian nations that have applied the death penalty to drug traffickers.

"They have the death penalty, they have no drug problem," Trump said of China and Singapore. Without the death penalty "it's just a game of blue ribbon committees," he added.

The extreme approach was not one Trump embraced eagerly, but conceded was a necessary measure.

"I hate to say it," he concluded.