EXCLUSIVE — The family of Nicholas Douglas Quets, a Marine veteran killed by a suspected Mexican cartel member last weekend, said they were taken aback by the concern and deep support that former President Donald Trump and his running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), have expressed to them in private meetings.
The father and brother-in-law of Quets spoke with the Washington Examiner on Friday about separate encounters they had with Trump and Vance in Arizona this week, just days after learning that Nicholas, a 31-year-old Pima County resident, was fatally shot after being ambushed by another vehicle while driving in northern Mexico last Friday.
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The father, retired Army Lt. Col. Warren Douglas Quets, admitted that he was initially unsure about what to expect from Trump prior to their meeting Thursday but had hoped for the best.
“I did not know what to expect because he’s a TV star, billionaire, populist,” said Quets. “He looked at me, looked at the picture of Nick. He had a tear in his eye, and said, ‘Tell me what happened.’ And he was actually angry as we told him the story. … He said, ‘Tell me what I can do for you and your family.’”
Quets said the conversation, which lasted 10 to 15 minutes while Trump campaigned in Tempe, Arizona, made him feel “like I’d know [Trump] forever.”
“I can tell you, at least I know, if I know nothing else, both Trump and Vance care about us,” said Quets, who spoke with the Washington Examiner in a phone call while holding his son’s ashes in his lap Friday morning.
“My family feels more comfort in this horrible, horrific event that we’ve been dealing with,” said retired Air Force Capt. Philip Sweet, the brother-in-law and best friend to Nicholas Douglas Quets. “To feel comfort from somebody that we’ve never met, but felt like he was a member of our family, and he cared about us, truly cared about us.”
During Trump’s remarks in Tempe Thursday, Quets said Trump made eye contact with him and his family nearly a dozen times as if to reassure them of his sincerity.
The family met with Vance on Tuesday while he campaigned in Tucson.
“[Vance] says, ‘You’re talking to me as J.D. I want you to tell me exactly what I need to know, and I want you to tell me how I can help you,’” said Quets. “That’s what he said. So it was a really classy move, and it was sincere.”
The conversation with Vance lasted 15 minutes. Vance, a fellow retired Marine, then took the stage and vowed in his public remarks to “kick the cartels’ asses.”
“As an apolitical guy, you want the best for the country, which is what I’ve devoted my life to,” said Quets. “I left the meeting thinking I was ready to follow Vance any place.”
In the meeting with Trump, Quets outlined exactly what he wanted the U.S. government to do: be directly involved in the active investigation into the incident and follow that up with the extradition, prosecution, and conviction of those involved in his son’s death.
“Sir, what I would like is for when you’re inaugurated, for us to have a picture of these criminals and thugs being extradited at the border in cooperation with the Mexicans and my son-in-law, who’s a federal law enforcement [agent], to be cuffing the person responsible for this and bring him into the U.S. for prosecution,” Quets said.
Trump told Quets, “We will make that happen on the 20th of January if I am elected,” the father said.
Both family members of the Marine had shared with the Washington Examiner earlier this week that elected officials within the U.S. government had not reached out to them to offer condolences or discuss what to expect as far as the investigation.
Based on their decades of combined experience in the military and federal law enforcement, both said President Joe Biden would have been informed about Quets’s being killed while in Mexico as part of his daily briefing last Saturday.
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“I have no doubt in my mind that the president of the United States was briefed on Saturday morning in his presidential brief that a United States Marine veteran was killed in Mexico. I have no doubt,” said Sweet.
“How can this be that this Marine gets killed 30 minutes south of the border?” said Quets. “I haven’t heard from anybody, elected or appointed government officials, at all. And I begged for that to the point where, yesterday, I wrote the console and said, ‘Don’t worry about it anymore. I’m going to go ahead and contact [President Claudia Sheinbaum] in Mexico and ask for her help in getting the U.S. involved.’”
Sheinbaum was elected earlier this year and took office on Oct. 1. It remains to be seen how her administration will handle the growing Mexican cartels that profit billions of dollars annually from human smuggling and trafficking, drug and firearm smuggling, and other nefarious operations worldwide.
Local police who arrived on the scene when Quets was shot on Oct. 18 have turned the investigation over to Mexican federal police for the time being.
Quets wanted to see the U.S. government jointly involved or take it over if Mexico was willing to do so.
But absent communication from the Biden-Harris administration, the family said it would put pressure on Mexico and the United States in the meantime until January, when they hoped Trump would be sworn into office.
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“Speaking on behalf of my family, we have 100% confidence in their leadership and their ability to get justice for Nick and to get this handled appropriately,” said Sweet.
The White House and Justice Department did not return requests for comment.
