Mexican official disputes reported Trump troops threat in call with Nieto
Mexico's foreign minister on Thursday disputed reports that President Donald Trump threatened to send American troops into the country during a call with Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto this week.
“That is nothing close to reality," Luis Videgaray said in an interview with CNN's Anderson Cooper on Thursday. According to an excerpt obtained by the Associated Press on Wednesday, Trump told Peña Nieto that he had "a bunch of bad hombres down there," and that since he wasn't "doing enough to stop them," Trump "just might send [U.S. troops] down to take care of it."
A CNN report, however, gave a diverging account of the conversation, where Trump reportedly told the Mexican president: "You have some pretty tough hombres in Mexico that you may need help with. We are willing to help with that big-league, but they have be knocked out and you have not done a good job knocking them out."
Videgaray also dismissed a report by a Mexican journalist that Trump had "humiliated" Peña Nieto during an "aggressive" exchange between the two.
“That’s plainly false,” he said. Videgaray said CNN's reporting was "certainly closer to reality,” and described the disputed conversation between world leaders as "constructive."
“I was listening to the call, I was alongside the [Mexican] president and I can tell you it was a very good call," he said. "It was a constructive call. And the presidents agreed based on that call to continue working.”
Videgaray also addressed the longstanding dispute between the Trump administration and the Mexican government over the building of a wall along the southern border, saying that though Peña Nieto and Trump held vastly different opinions on the topic, they had agreed to resolve the issue in private.
“They agreed that they would not continue to publicly argue about that because there are so many other things that we need to work on in the relationship," he said.
Videgaray also told Cooper he had spoken to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on the phone for the first time in official government capacity, having previously met him during his time as CEO of ExxonMobil.
“We are very excited having an opportunity to work with him,” the Mexican foreign minister said.