‘Total backfire’: CNN mocked for interviewing drug cartel member who claims to ‘respect’ Trump

The interview quickly went viral, drawing mockery from social media users who accused CNN of trying to smear the Trump administration and spin sympathy for a violent criminal.

By Matthew Xiao, The Washington Free Beacon

CNN has drawn a barrage of ridicule for interviewing a drug cartel member who claimed to have “respect” for President Donald Trump, with one social media user saying the left-leaning network was “clearly hoping for a ‘Trump is evil’ soundbite” but instead produced “a total backfire.”

A masked member of the notorious Sinaloa cartel told CNN’s Isobel Yeung in an interview released Friday that Trump has “my respect” and “is looking out for his people” by cracking down on drug cartels.

The interview quickly went viral, drawing mockery from social media users who accused CNN of trying to smear the Trump administration and spin sympathy for a violent criminal, the New York Post reported.

“CNN is in full meltdown mode,” one X user wrote. “All their usual smear tactics have failed—again. So what’s their next brilliant move? Interviewing the freaking Sinaloa Cartel. They were clearly hoping for a ‘Trump is evil’ soundbite. Instead? Total backfire.”

Since returning to the White House, Trump has ramped up efforts to rein in drug trafficking and gang violence in the United States.

In February, amid Trump’s threats to impose steep tariffs, Mexico agreed to deploy 10,000 troops to its U.S. border to curb the flow of drugs and illegal immigrants.

Mexico “is now dominated entirely by criminal cartels that murder, rape, torture, and exercise total control,” Trump said in March.

“They have total control over a whole nation—posing a grave threat to our national security. The cartels are waging war in America, and it’s time for America to wage war on the cartels, which we are doing.”

Social media reactions to CNN’s interview ranged from saying the cartel member’s response is “not the answer” CNN wanted to calling the whole interview “offensive to Americans.”

“Unbelievably,” one X user wrote, “CNN gives Sinaloa cartel member a chance to throw a pity party about being labeled a terrorist, but the cartel member tells them President Trump is just rightly ‘looking after his people.'”