WASHINGTON — Sean Penn, in his first interview since news broke that he traveled to Mexico to meet and speak with the then-fugitive drug lord known as “El Chapo,” says the point of his interview was to “begin a conversation about the policy of the war on drugs,” and in that regard, the article he wrote for Rolling Stone on the visit “has failed.”
In an interview with “CBS This Morning” co-host Charlie Rose to air on Sunday’s “60 Minutes,” the actor says that a “myth” has sprung up around his visit to Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman that it was “as the Attorney General of Mexico is quoted — ‘essential’ to his capture,” Penn told Rose. “We had met with him many weeks earlier … on Oct. 2, in a place nowhere near where he was captured.”
Rose asked Penn, “So as far as, you know, you had nothing to do and your visit had nothing to do with his recapture?”
Penn replied that the Mexican government was “clearly very humiliated by the notion that someone found him before they did. Well, nobody found him before they did. We didn’t — we’re not smarter than DEA or the Mexican intelligence. We had a contact upon which we were able to facilitate an invitation.”
He added that he didn’t fear for his life, but he regretted that the attention paid to the legality of his visit with the drug lord took away from the stated purpose for his visit.
“We all want this drug problem to stop,” Penn said, but added, “We are the consumer. Whether you agree with Sean Penn or not, there is a complicity there. And if you are in the moral right, or on the far left, just as many of your children are doing these drugs … . And how much time have they spent in the last week since this article come [sic] out, talking about that? One percent? I think that’d be generous. …
“My article has failed.”
