President Obama's Chief of Staff said there are "a lot of interesting questions" around the possibility of the U.S. allowing Mexico to question actor Sean Penn over his Rolling Stone interview with infamous drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzman.
Denis McDonough also said on CNN's State of the Union on Sunday that he found Guzman's bragging about his drug empire in the interview to be "maddening."
"We see a heroin epidemic, opioid addiction epidemic in this country," McDonough told CNN's Jake Tapper. "We're going to stay on top of this, with our Mexican counterparts, until we get that back in the box."
Guzman, the leader of Mexico's Sinaloa drug cartel, was recaptured on Friday after his interview with Penn seemingly helped Mexican forces track him down.
McDonough said he hadn't read the interview, but he had read "coverage" of the interview.
He wouldn't comment specifically on reports that Mexican officials want to speak with Penn about the interview.
"{But it] poses a lot of very interesting questions, both for him and for others involved in this ... so-called interview," he said.
Sean Penn is under investigation for secretly interviewing El Chapo https://t.co/Mrg2UTmDno
In another interview with ABC's This Week, McDonough said that the U.S. would let Mexico handle any possible probe into the interview.
"We'll let somebody else sort out what Sean Penn did and didn't do," he said. "'El Chapo's' where he should be."
.@Denis44: "El Chapo is behind bars. That's where he should stay" https://t.co/6OZtrg079U #CNNSOTU https://t.co/f2bEWn2yMm