During his unannounced appearance in the White House East Room, the President commented on "some countries" that have much stricter punishments for drug dealers. This came after a riff on the "drug dealers and drug pushers" who Trump says are "really doing damage."

"Some countries have a very, very tough penalty. The ultimate penalty. And by the way, they have much less of a drug problem than we do. So we're going to have to be very strong on penalties," Trump said.

The White House did not immediately respond to CNN's follow-up questions about what exactly Trump meant.

The comments come after Axios reported earlier this week that the President has floated the idea to aides of enforcing a death penalty for drug dealers in the United States.

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