Mexican senators came to blows Wednesday after a heated debate over alleged opposition calls for the United States to intervene militarily against drug cartels.
Lawmaker Alejandro Moreno, leader of the opposition PRI party, went to the podium as Wednesday’s session ended and angrily confronted Senate president Gerardo Fernandez Norona, of the ruling Morena party, for not being given the floor.
Moreno can be seen in a video posted on social media by Mexico’s Senate pushing Fernandez Norona several times, slapping him on the neck and pushing another man to the ground when he tried to intervene.
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The brawl followed a heated debate during which the opposition PRI and PAN were accused of calling for U.S. military intervention, a claim that both parties deny.
Norona said later he would file a complaint against Moreno for bodily harm and request that his legislative immunity be revoked.
“The debate could be very harsh, very bitter, very strong… today when (opposition legislators) are exposed for their treason, they lose their minds because they were exposed,” he said.
Moreno accused Norona of initiating the attack, saying on social media platform X: “He was the one who started the attack; he did it because he couldn’t silence us with arguments.”
“The first physical aggression came from Norona,” Moreno wrote on X. “He threw the first shove, and he did it out of cowardice.”
Both senators are involved in separate controversies.
Moreno faces possible impeachment proceedings for alleged corruption during his tenure as governor of Campeche state from 2015 to 2019.
Norona has been criticized over reports that he owns an expensive house at a time when Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has urged public officials to live modestly.
Trump targeting Latin American drug cartels
President Donald Trump has directed the Pentagon to use military force against Latin American drug cartels deemed terrorist organizations, a source familiar with the matter confirmed to CBS News earlier this month. It’s not clear if or when the military could take action.
For its part, Mexico stressed that it “would not accept the participation of U.S. military forces on our territory.” Earlier this month, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum insisted that there would be “no invasion of Mexico.”
In February, the Trump administration designated eight drug trafficking groups as terrorist organizations. Six are Mexican, one is Venezuelan, and the eighth originates in El Salvador.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said earlier this month the administration could use the designations to “target” cartels.
“It allows us to now target what they’re operating and to use other elements of American power, intelligence agencies, the Department of Defense, whatever … to target these groups if we have an opportunity to do it,” Rubio said. “We have to start treating them as armed terrorist organizations, not simply drug dealing organizations.”
Venezuela on Tuesday deployed warships and drones to patrol the country’s coastline after the United States dispatched three destroyers to the region to curb drug trafficking.