Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R) slammed President Joe Biden (D) in an interview over the weekend over Biden’s border crisis, saying that he believes that the crisis was “intentional” because the administration believes in “open borders.”
The segment comes as Biden’s border crisis has continued to worsen with apprehensions of illegal aliens last month hitting a staggering 674% increase vs. May of 2020 when 23,237 illegal aliens were apprehended, The Daily Wire reported. Last month’s numbers were the worst numbers in more than two decades.
“Why won’t Joe Biden manage the border?” Fox News host Mark Levin asked DeSantis. “Why won’t Joe Biden enforce federal immigration laws? Why won’t Joe Biden put in place policies that have an orderly way for people to apply to come into the United States? Why is the border wide open with all the mayhem and anarchy and all the horror that’s going on down there? What is Joe Biden’s motive here?”
“Well, I think it’s intentional, Mark,” DeSantis responded. “And I’m not sure how much Biden is engaged in this. But certainly a lot of the people that have the sway in the White House on a day-to-day basis, I believe on an ideological basis, they believe in open borders. Now, the public is strongly against what’s going on there. So I think they’re taking a toll, it’s taking a toll on them politically. But they knew by undoing Donald Trump’s policies, which were succeeding, that this would happen, it has happened.”
“And they really show a disregard for all the problems that emanate as a result of this, the people that are trafficked, all the drugs pouring across the border, increasing lawlessness,” he continued. “So it’s got to the point where Texas is doing it on their own, Arizona, they asked other states for help. So Florida has stepped up. And we’re gonna send folks to help stem the tide of what’s going on down at the southern border, but it’s a clear failure of leadership. But I do believe that this is an intentional policy rooted in an open borders ideology.”
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TRANSCRIPT:
MARK LEVIN, FOX NEWS HOST: Welcome back, America. We’re here with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. First of all, Governor, let me just say, how the nation mourns. What took place in Surfside, the collapse of that condominium building was really quite horrific. Doesn’t this really demonstrate why we should behind the behind our police force, our firefighters, our emergency personnel? Because in the end, it’s not about race, it’s not about gender, it’s not about all of these ideological movements that are afoot on the left and within the Democrat Party. It’s about red blooded Americans helping each other.
RON DESANTIS, FLORIDA GOVERNOR: Well that’s right, Mark. I mean, when you have something that’s such a tragedy, where you have a building that a condominium complex partially collapsed in the middle of the night, these people were called upon the scene, and they were on the scene within minutes. And they didn’t know whether the building was going to collapse further, they were able to shepherd a lot of people to safety, they were able to save a lot of people’s lives. And so when you’re in those really tragic situations, when people’s lives are on the line, those people that wear the uniform, they put their lives on the line in order to protect us. And so we need to support them and all their efforts.
LEVIN: They sure do deserve a lot more respect than they normally get. Governor, you have created something that’s very, very interesting as a governor. I don’t think we really see it, certainly not on the conservative Republican constitutionalist side, and that is this, you’re not going to operate just within a small box. You’re going to protect your state the liberties of the citizens of Florida, their federal and state constitutional rights, and the sovereignty of your state against a president and an administration that has abandoned traditional customary institutional governance. And I think you are plowing new ground in this regard, whether it is the border, whether it is the virus, Critical Race Theory, and on and on and on. Is this what you’re intending to do to show other governors how to fight back or what what is your thinking actually?
DESANTIS: Well, Mark, you just have so many threats to freedom nowadays. And what we’re doing is we’ve essentially Katie barred the door to protect Floridians and to protect their freedoms and opportunities. And you see it in a number of different ways. Obviously, we were the leading state fighting against coronavirus lockdowns, we had kids in school in person for the entire school year. I believe had Florida not done that you would not see the other states to have followed. Canada, for example, is still locked down. And I think that’s what a lot of these bureaucrats wanted to see in the United States. And we made sure that we lead in a different direction. You also look at things about going against the Biden administration’s policies, they shut down our cruise industry with the CDC, they didn’t have authority to do that. All these experts said, ‘Oh, you just have to do whatever the CDC says.’ We sued the CDC in Florida, and we won in federal district court. And now the cruise lines are going to be able to resume sailing this summer, you talk about things like like Critical Race Theory, as soon as we started to see that percolate throughout the country, I immediately said, we’re teaching the Constitution, we’re gonna teach American civics and American history. And we don’t have room for ideologies like Critical Race Theory that are based on false premises. And so we ban critical race theory in our K-12 schools. We were able to do that very quickly. And you know what, people are happy that we’re doing that, because they, most parents do not want their kids indoctrinated with a lot of these ideologies.
LEVIN: But I think you have triggered a movement of sorts, that a lot of constitutional conservatives hadn’t really noodled over and should have, which is, you know, the left uses state authority to bring cases against corporations in order to advance an agenda. The famous case of EPA versus, Massachusetts versus EPA, where Massachusetts got standing to change our environmental laws, and bring us so called ‘climate change laws,’ and so forth and so on. But it strikes me as you’re looking for opportunities through the normal course of governance, to extend what we view as liberty, to extend what we view as republicanism, small ‘r’, and it’s something that is beginning to catch on with some of the other governors. Do you talk to other Republican governors about this sort of thing?
DESANTIS: Oh, we do. But I think a lot of it Mark is, you know, I lead, I tell people what I believe, and I tell them what I’m going to do, and then I do it. And I think what happens is, when you’re doing the right thing, when people see that you’re fighting for them, particularly in an era where we have so many problems throughout our country, and we have so few people who’ve really been willing to stand up. When you do that, people do respond, and I tell you I get correspondence into my office, obviously from a lot of Floridians, I get it from all over the country of people saying that what Florida is doing is giving them inspiration. And so I think that a lot of it is organic, I think folks are responding to leadership that is directed at preserving their freedoms. And that’s what we’ve tried to do in Florida across a whole range of issues. I do think we’ve had other states that have also done a good job and have done similar things. And that’s really how you build I think, a really strong movement for liberty.
LEVIN: Why won’t Joe Biden manage the border? Why won’t Joe Biden enforce federal immigration laws? Why won’t Joe Biden put in place policies that have an orderly way for people to apply to come into the United States? Why is the border wide open with all the mayhem and anarchy and all the horror that’s going on down there? What is Joe Biden’s motive here?
DESANTIS: Well, I think it’s intentional, Mark. And I’m not sure how much Biden is engaged in this. But certainly a lot of the people that have the sway in the White House on a day to day basis, I believe on an ideological basis, they believe in open borders. Now, the public is strongly against what’s going on there. So I think they’re taking a toll, it’s taking a toll on them politically. But they knew by undoing Donald Trump’s policies, which were succeeding, that this would happen, it has happened. And they really show a disregard for all the problems that emanate as a result of this, the people that are trafficked, all the drugs pouring across the border, increasing lawlessness. So it’s got to the point where Texas is doing it on their own, Arizona, they asked other states for help. So Florida has stepped up. And we’re gonna send folks to help stem the tide of what’s going on down at the southern border, but it’s a clear failure of leadership. But I do believe that this is an intentional policy rooted in an open borders ideology.
LEVIN: I think you’re quite right. How could it not be an intentional policy, right? Purposely reversing executive orders. Purposely reversing rules. Forcing the head of the Border Patrol to resign, things of that sort. I mean, it’s none of this is coincidental, or by accident, that’s for certain.