Duterte claims Trump said Philippines is handling drugs 'the right way'

Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte
(Image credit: Pool/Associated Press)

President-elect Donald Trump endorsed the Philippines' controversial drug war tactics, claimed volatile Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte on Saturday after a short phone call with Trump Friday night. "He was quite sensitive to our war on drugs and he wishes me well in my campaign and said that we are doing, as he so put it, 'the right way,'" Duterte said.

Since taking office, Duterte has launched a brutal attack on suspected drug dealers, encouraging extrajudicial killings by police and vigilantes alike. "My order is shoot to kill you," he infamously said of dealers. "I don't care about human rights, you'd better believe me." At least 2,400 people believed to be drug users and dealers were killed in the first two months of Duterte's administration.

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Bonnie Kristian

Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.