Looks like President Donald Trump isn’t taking the heat off Mexico—as he continues to fight to put America first.

In an excerpt of a phone call leaked to the Associated Press, Trump allegedly told Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto that if Mexico didn’t clean up its act, the U.S. would not hesitate to send troops to intervene.

“You have a bunch of bad hombres down there,” Trump told him. “You aren’t doing enough to stop them. I think your military is scared. Our military isn’t, so I just might send them down to take care of it.”

It wasn’t clear from the leak what Trump was referring to, exactly—whether it was drug cartels or criminal illegal immigrants, or some other disruption. And it wasn’t clear, from the text, what Trump’s tone was—whether he was joking or threatening.
Adding to the mystery: Mexico’s presidential office denied that the “bad hombres” exchange even took place.

“It is absolutely false that the president of the United States threatened to send troops to Mexico,” said Eduardo Sanchez, spokesman for President Nieto.

Earlier, the Mexican Foreign Relations Department had told The AP: “The negative statements you refer to did not occur during said telephone call. On the contrary, the tone was constructive.” They added that the excerpt was “based on absolute falsehoods.”
The White House did not comment on the leak of Trump’s alleged remarks, but Trump had previously said his call with Nieto was “friendly.”

Regardless of what was said on their phone call, the relationship between Nieto and Trump seems to have gotten off to a rocky start. After being roasted by Trump on Twitter over his refusal to pay for the controversial border wall, Nieto abruptly cancelled his first meeting with the U.S. President last week.