The DeSantises speak out from the Iowa campaign trail
Florida Gov. Ron and First Lady Casey DeSantis join 'The Story' to discuss border control plans, critiques of Nikki Haley.
Prior to a Mamas for DeSantis event in Iowa, Florida first family Ron and Casey DeSantis joined Fox News for a joint interview, with the governor doubling down on his plans to institute a militaristic response plan to blunt cartel smuggling, and the first lady responding to Nikki Haley's debate spat with her husband.
"I am going to declare [the border] a national emergency," DeSantis told "The Story" on Friday.
"I'm not going to send troops to Ukraine, but I am going to send them to our southern border when these drug pushers are bringing fentanyl across… That's going to be the last thing they do," he said, reiterating how those who violently disobey the law will end up "stone-cold dead."
DeSantis expressed outrage at the description of a video taken by Fox News correspondent Bill Melugin of a human smuggler mugging for the camera as he ushered purported illegal immigrants through what appeared to be a mechanically sawed gap in the Trump-constructed border wall.
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The man, clad in black and wearing a mask, gave a shrug that anchor Martha MacCallum described as essentially a nonverbal "see-ya."
DeSantis said if elected, he will declare drug cartels foreign terrorist organizations and that if federal assets positively identify someone who is working with a cartel, they would be able to "engage" with the individual.
Without directly addressing the video because he had yet to view it himself, DeSantis said there will be established criteria as to whom federal forces will be able to directly take lethal action against.
He compared that aspect of the border situation to his time serving in the military overseas, where it was difficult to determine Al-Qaeda militants from Iraqi civilians because they were dressed in plainclothes, not distinctive uniforms.
"If you can positively identify them or if they're making a hostile action or they're displaying hostile intent, then you engage," he said.
"We will engage appropriately, but just the fact that you're able to engage — that is going to have a massive deterrence effect because these people are not going to want to go in there and run into a buzzsaw."
"The cartels have been eating our lunch for years and years, and they're poisoning tens of thousands of our fellow citizens," he concluded.
DeSantis said Biden is actively ignoring such issues at the border and is instead using federal authorities less as gatekeepers and instead in more passive roles involving interdiction of illegal immigrants after they've already crossed, and process them into the nation's interior.
First lady Casey DeSantis, a former Jacksonville news anchor, spoke out during the interview on her husband's closest statistical rival, Haley.
The two governors have sparred over issues including the treatment of Walt Disney World and regulation of explicit literature geared toward young children.
Casey Desantis was asked by MacCallum if Haley is resonating with women on the trail on issues such as abortion — as the DeSantises were themselves about to host the Mamas event.
"I think what you saw in the debate performance is she is not somebody who stands up for the rights of parents and the innocence of our children," Casey said, adding that her husband instead "stand[s] strong against" gender surgery-related legislation.
She cited Ron's endorsements from Evangelical leader Bob Vander Plaats and Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds as evidence of such bona fides.
During the debate, they sparred over handling of transgender bathroom legislation, with DeSantis claiming Haley blunted South Carolina's restrictive efforts on that front a decade ago.
Haley countered that at the time the bill came up, there were "maybe a handful of kids that were dealing with an issue and I said, ‘We don’t need to bring government into this.'"
"Now, 10 years later, we see that this issue has exploded, and this shows how hypocritical Ron continues to be. When he was running for governor and they asked him about that, he said he didn’t think bathroom bills were a good use of his time," Haley added.
DeSantis claimed Haley was not truthful on that account, pointing to his signing of a related bill during his incumbency.
Haley said she agrees that biological boys and girls should remain separated in scholastic athletics and that the controversy is the "women's issue of our time."