GOP Senator: ‘We’ve Lost More Americans to Fentanyl Poisoning Than We Did the Vietnam War’

(CNSNews.com) – More Americans died from fentanyl overdose than died during the Vietnam War, Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.) said Tuesday.

“Every day 200 Americans die from fentanyl poisoning. We’ve lost more Americans to fentanyl poisoning than we did the Vietnam War, and these are young Americans. This is the number one killer of young adults out there,” Marshall told Fox Business’ “Mornings with Maria Bartiromo.”

“It is an epidemic, and again, your listeners know that 90 percent of fentanyl precursors are made in China. It goes to Mexico. The cartel then turns it into fentanyl. They lace different drugs, and they’re poisoning our youth of America. It’s 90% coming across the southern border until we secure the border,” he said.

“That’s what the president should be talking about is how do we secure the border? Right now his plans speaking with the Mexico president, he’s just treading water. He’s putting fingers in the dike. He’s not really solving any problems,” the congressman said.

The U.S. military reported 58,220 American casualties in the Vietnam War, according to Britannica.com.

“According to the CDC, 107,622 Americans died of drug overdoses in 2021, with 66 percent of those deaths related to synthetic opioids like fentanyl,” the DEA reports on its website.  

Marshall said that he’s been to the southern border three times, and what President Biden saw on Monday was not the border that the congressman saw.

“They took him to a port of entry, and the Border Patrol officers there are doing an amazing job, but they didn’t take him down the river after dark to see the hundreds of people crossing the river, and you understated the problem. You understated how overwhelmed the Border Patrol officers are between those ports of entry,” he said.

“What it reminded me of, there was a Jim Carrey movie called the Truman Show where they kept Truman in a bubble, and everything was a made—for-TV show. So I just hope they’re being intellectually honest. I don’t think he really does understand or appreciate the chaos that’s going on,” Marshall said.

“I don’t think that he really appreciates that 200 Americans are dying every day from fentanyl poisoning again more than we lost in the Vietnam War. All the long the president has been shielded from the ferocity of this fetanyl epidemic,” the congressman added.

Host Jackie DeAngelis said that it’s difficult to believe that Biden doesn’t know that different parts of the border are completely overrun.

“Perhaps so,” Marshall said. “I used to run a hospital, and you know, they could clean up an OR before I walked in there. I want to know what’s going on in between. He has a responsibility to go look himself. If he really cared, he would go to where the problem is. He would talk to the Texas rangers that I met with to see how they’re being overwhelmed. 

“He should read Governor Abbott’s letter as well and what was in it, a scathing letter talking about the irresponsibility of the president. This president needs to take responsibility. That’s what leaders do is they take responsibility, and they solve the problem. Right now the president is putting fingers in the dike and there is flood of fentanyl coming across the border killing over 200 Americans every day,” the congressman added.

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