In a recent interview, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) discussed his plans for dealing with Mexican cartels if he wins the 2024 presidential election.
NEW: GOP presidential candidate @RonDeSantis says under his administration, he would change rules of engagement to allow for deadly force to be used against illegal immigrants cutting through border wall.
“If you drop a couple of these cartel operatives, they’ll stop coming.” pic.twitter.com/tuFMFB9hY6— Bill Melugin (@BillMelugin_) June 26, 2023
Speaking with Fox News host Jesse Watters on Thursday, DeSantis stated that he would have a new set of “rules of engagement” to fight Mexican cartels that smuggle drugs into the United States through the southern border.
Watters began the discussion by asking DeSantis about his recent trip to the southern border during a visit to Texas.
“After seeing what’s going on down there, has that changed your opinion of immigration?” the Fox News host asked.
“It confirmed what I had known,” DeSantis responded. “And it’s worse than you think when you actually get down there.”
The Florida governor then called out “the impunity with which the cartels operate,” explaining the brazen actions of individuals he had seen while visiting the border.
“I was literally in a place in Arizona, there is a piece of wall that just kind of stops,” DeSantis explained. “So, the guy just goes on the other side of where the wall ends, looks out, and he just motions for people to go.”
He then pointed to a disturbing reality of the border crisis under the Biden administration — noting that Border Patrol agents are not actually patrolling the border and are instead tasked with checking people in and letting them go.
“There’s no border patrol to be found, they’re in town processing people,” DeSantis said. “And so, they’re bringing product into our country.”
“They’re killing a lot of people,” he explained. “So one of the things that I saw — the places where there were barriers, the cartels will actually cut through the steel beams and they’ll smuggle in backpacks with a lot of drugs.”
He then discussed his plan to deal with the issue if he is elected president, noting that “we defend the territory of our own country.”
“We’ll have military and everyone down there,” DeSantis added. “If you are in the cartels cutting through our fence to bring drugs in, that’s going to be the last thing you do because we’re going to leave you stone-cold dead. We are having adequate rules of engagement.”
“If you are in the cartels cutting through our fence to bring drugs in … that’s going to be the last thing you do. We’re going to leave you STONE COLD DEAD.”
🔥🔥🔥 pic.twitter.com/sV83ma6H57
— DeSantis War Room 🐊 (@DeSantisWarRoom) June 29, 2023
