Donald Trump started by clarifying that he had heard my question correctly.
"Would I launch strikes in Mexico to stop drugs?"
Then, he followed with an answer that made immediate headlines and caused understandable unease on the other side of the US's southern border.
"It's OK with me," he said. "Whatever we have to do to stop drugs."
Through his actions and words in recent months, the president has made clear he believes the US has the right to strike directly at suspected drug traffickers — even when those people are well outside America's borders.
Since September, the US has carried out 21 air strikes on boats it says were being used to traffic drugs in both the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean.
They have mostly been Venezuelan, though Colombians have also been targeted.
It is believed that 83 people have been killed in the strikes. But it is near impossible to independently verify those numbers, or that the people killed were indeed drug traffickers.
Now, according to NBC News, the Trump administration is considering plans to send troops and CIA officers into Mexico to target cartels.
The report, citing anonymous US officials, said no final decision had been made.
But with his response to the ABC's question in the Oval Office this week, Mr Trump seemed at least open to escalating this "war" against drug trafficking to another level and against another country.
Mr Trump said he would be "proud" to strike Mexico's drug cartels, but added that did not mean he was planning to.
When I asked if he would only take military action in Mexico if he had the country's permission, he would not say.
"I wouldn't answer that question," he said. "I've been speaking to Mexico. They know how I stand."
'It's not going to happen'
Mexico's president, Claudia Sheinbaum, has soundly rejected the prospect of US military strikes.
"It's not going to happen," she said in response to Mr Trump's comments at her own media conference this week.
The idea is unpopular among the Mexican population, polls show, but is gradually gaining support.
In September, Mexico's El Financiero newspaper reported just 34 per cent of poll respondents supported US military action against Mexico's cartels. But that was a significant increase from 24 per cent in July.
Thirty-one per cent of respondents wanted to see Mexico and the US work together more to stop organised crime — an increase from 13 per cent in July.
Fernando Ocegueda Flores, a high-profile activist against cartels in Mexico's north, is among those who want to see more collaboration.
"I believe Mexico is very dangerous now," he said. "And I think so we need the cooperation with the United States."
His dangerous path in activism started after his university student son was kidnapped from his house by men who were dressed as law enforcement. It is now believed his son was taken and murdered by gang members linked to the notorious Sinaloa Cartel.
That cartel and others, like its rival the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, are believed responsible for much of the violence that kills more than 30,000 people in Mexico each year.
The Sinaloa group also has alleged links to two men accused of killing Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson last year, though authorities say they do not believe those killings were directly linked to organised crime.
Mr Flores believes the Mexican government does not have the power to take on the country's large and powerful criminal enterprises alone.
Even if cooperation is rejected by Mexico, he says he would still welcome American involvement.
"It's not an invasion, it's not war," he told the ABC.
Roberto Quijano Sosa, who heads up a citizens' safety group in Tijuana on the US-Mexico border, said the smuggling of drugs and weapons across the border was fuelling concerning rates of local crime. But he does not want the US acting in his country without his government's blessing.
"We don't really support the fact that we will have US troops in Mexico," he said.
"That's an invasion of our country.
"But there are so many things that can be done" he said. "Intelligence to detain individuals, to capture or seize drugs."
Mr Quijano Sosa also thinks there is already been a marked change in how aggressively the Mexican government is taking on cartels since Mr Trump took back office. There has been "a lot of pressure from the United States", he said.
"So I feel we are on the right track right now. It's going to take so many years to resolve this matter."
Tariffs pressure
Mr Trump has used the threat of "fentanyl tariffs" to pressure Mexico to do more to stop drugs coming across the border.
The two nations' governments have since set up a "high-level implementation group" to crack down on the cartels. Mexico has transferred dozens of alleged cartel criminals into US custody to face charges in America.
At her press conference this week, the Mexican president said Mr Trump had also repeatedly offered military action, "but I have told him on all occasions that we can collaborate, that they can help us with the information they have, but that we operate in our own territory".
Ms Sheinbaum also made the point that Mexicans have reasons to be concerned about the US threatening intervention, given the Mexican-American war of the 19th century.
"The last time the United States came to intervene in Mexico, they took half of the territory," she said.
Cecilia Farfán-Méndez, who heads up the North American Observatory at the non-profit Global Initiative against Transnational Organised Crime, said American "boots on the ground had always been a red line for the Mexican government".
And she did not think it would make a meaningful difference, even if America did send troops across the border or hit Mexican cartel targets with air strikes.
"Drug production and trafficking uses a plethora of middle men and women on both sides of the border to operate, which is to say that a strike in a given part of Mexico targeting a fentanyl lab will have little to no effect on the supply side."
Ms Farfán-Méndez also thinks the Mexican president is trying to work co-operatively with the Trump administration, and has broken with her predecessor, Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
"The Sheinbaum administration has departed from the Lopez Obrador administration in framing fentanyl as a US-only problem," she said.
"This is important because it has signalled her government wants to work with the Trump administration on a priority area for the US while emphasising the need of respecting each other's sovereignty."
'Not happy with Mexico'
Still, Mr Trump does not seem to be completely satisfied with the approach of his Mexican counterpart.
"Let me just put it this way, I am not happy with Mexico," he said in the Oval Office this week.
On Thursday, White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt was pressed for more detail on Mr Trump's plans for Mexico.
She praised the "historic strides" made by Ms Sheinbaum, calling her administration "incredibly cooperative" with Mr Trump's efforts to take down cartels.
But she reiterated he was "very interested in taking additional measures against the drug cartels", and said "his national security team is discussing these options all of the time".
"On the campaign trail, the president promised to take on the cartels," she said.
"He has taken unprecedented action to do so and he has left additional options at his disposal on the table.
"Those are only decisions that the president can make."
