Reporter confronts WH spox about cartels, and she responds with a whopper about fentanyl: 'Historic lows'

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre lied Tuesday when confronted about the Biden administration's handling of the border crisis.

Noting that Mexican cartels kill Americans on this side of the border with drugs, Fox News correspondent Peter Doocy asked Jean-Pierre why Biden is "so comfortable" with the cartels operating in close proximity to the U.S. The question came after a Mexican cartel kidnapped four Americans, killing two of them.

Jean-Pierre responded by claiming "fentanyl at the border" is "at historic lows."

Because of the work that this president has done, because of what we’ve done specifically on fentanyl at the border, it’s at historic lows — historic levels that we have been able to record a number of personnel working to secure the border because of what we’ve been able to do, seizing that fentanyl. We’ve done it in a historic way. That’s because of what this president has done.

03/07/23: Press Briefing by Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierrewww.youtube.com

There is, in fact, no good news to report about the trajectory of fentanyl in the U.S.

Fentanyl seizures are breaking records. In 2022 alone, U.S. authorities seized approximately 380 million lethal doses of fentanyl, enough to kill every person in the U.S. — and then some.

Moreover, fentanyl overdose is now the leading cause of death among U.S. adults ages 18-45. The rate of deaths from fentanyl in that age group is nearly two times that of deaths from auto accidents, according to advocacy group Families Against Fentanyl.

Determining exactly how many Americans die from fentanyl each year is difficult. That is because of how the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention categorizes data from synthetic opioid overdoses.

Still, the agency acknowledged the likelihood of what FAF reports.

"If one assumes that the other synthetic narcotics category for those 18-45 is 90% fentanyl, then one can argue that unintentional fentanyl overdose is likely the leading cause in that age group. However, because we don’t have exact numbers of fentanyl deaths for that age category, we cannot say for certain that this is accurate," a CDC spokesperson told PolitiFact Texas.

It is true that fentanyl seizures are at record levels, but that is because Mexican cartels are emboldened to act with impunity on both sides of the border.

"Joe Biden becoming president is the best thing that ever happened to the Mexican drug cartels," Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) argued on Tuesday.

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