No elected official in Washington, DC, should receive a paycheck until the border crisis is solved, and Mexican cartels should be designated as terrorist organizations, Republican Ohio U.S. Senate candidate Bernie Moreno said during an appearance on Breitbart News Saturday.
Moreno, a Republican candidate whom former President Donald Trump has spoken highly of, briefly detailed his background. Born in South America, Moreno came to South Florida as a child and moved to Cleveland 18 years ago, where he took off in the auto industry, building over a dozen dealerships and starting a technology company. However, he said he ultimately felt a calling to serve his country.
“It’s easier to say, ‘Hey, let’s go to a beach in Florida and relax.’ But the reality is … I know for a fact, actually, this is the only place on Earth where I could have accomplished what I did and being able to build what I created here. This is my way of serving the country that gave me that opportunity, and, you know, I feel indebted to this country. And this is my way to serve the public,” Moreno said.
The Senate hopeful said there are politicians from both sides of the aisle who only seem to think about the next election, putting their personal goals ahead of that of the country.
One central issue the country facing is the border crisis, and Moreno believes lawmakers have shirked their duty to solve it.
Border agents, he said, agree that the situation is a “disaster,” and he personally called it an “invasion of our country.”
![TOPSHOT - Latin American migrants take part in a caravan towards the border with the United States, in Huehuetan, Chiapas state, Mexico, on June 7, 2022. - President Joe Biden's plans to reboot US engagement with Latin America -- especially on critical topics like migration -- took a hit after key partner Mexico snubbed a regional summit opening Monday in Los Angeles to protest Washington's exclusion of three far-left countries. (Photo by Isaac GUZMAN / AFP) (Photo by ISAAC GUZMAN/AFP via Getty Images)](https://media.breitbart.com/media/2022/08/GettyImages-1241157983-1.jpg)
Latin American migrants take part in a caravan towards the border with the United States, in Huehuetan, Chiapas state, Mexico, on June 7, 2022 (Photo by ISAAC GUZMAN/AFP via Getty Images).
“We’ve had millions of people that have crossed our border illegally. No sane country on Earth would allow that to happen. We have to finish the wall,” he said, also emphasizing the importance of working with the Mexican government to prevent the drug flow and human trafficking.
Further, Moreno said no lawmakers in D.C. should receive a paycheck until that issue is solved.
“My point of view, Matt — this may sound extreme — is that I don’t think that anybody in Washington, DC, who’s in elected office should get a paycheck until they solve that border problem because that, to me, is a complete dereliction of duty and in some ways, quite honestly, treason,” he added.
Perhaps what is more, Moreno made it clear that he agrees that the Mexican drug cartels should be deemed terrorist organizations.
“We have to declare the Mexican drug cartels a foreign terrorist organization and wipe them off the face of the Earth,” he said.
Moreno also said he would “absolutely” support authorizing the use of military force against the cartels.
“I saw firsthand what happens when you let Narco terrorists take over a country. That happened in Colombia. The difference is that nobody really cared about Colombia; it’s really far away,” he said, noting that is not the case with Mexico.
“You have these drug cartels that are making insane amounts of money using chemicals they get from China to kill our children. They’re trafficking humans across our border. They’re basically in charge today of our immigration system, and we’re doing nothing. Again, no sane country on Earth would allow that,” he said, deeming the drug cartels “more destructive” than “any other terrorist group on Earth to America directly.”
“One hundred thousand overdose deaths. God knows what we don’t see around where these illegal migrants are going and who chases them into the U.S. to collect the money that they feel they still owe them from making that journey,” he said. “Again, it’s totally absurd, should not be controversial, and it should not even be something that’s partisan. It’s common sense.”
![Two homeless addicts share a small piece of fentanyl in an alley in Los Angeles, Thursday, Aug. 18, 2022. Use of fentanyl, a powerful synthetic opioid that is cheap to produce and is often sold as is or laced in other drugs, has exploded. Two-thirds of the 107,000 overdose deaths in 2021 were attributed to synthetic opioids like fentanyl, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)](https://media.breitbart.com/media/2023/02/AP22330774337393-1.jpg)
The use of fentanyl, a powerful synthetic opioid that is cheap to produce and is often sold as is or laced with other drugs, has exploded. Two-thirds of the 107,000 overdose deaths in 2021 were attributed to synthetic opioids like fentanyl, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong).
“You can’t have a country where we don’t have a border, and the idea that the Democrats don’t see that tells you how far radical they’ve gotten,” the Republican added.
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