TAMPA, FL - NOVEMBER 08: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis gives a victory speech after defeating Democratic gubernatorial candidate Rep. Charlie Crist during his election night watch party at the Tampa Convention Center on November 8, 2022 in Tampa, Florida. DeSantis was the projected winner by a double-digit lead. (Photo by Octavio Jones/Getty Images)
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) blamed congressional Republicans for squandering their leverage to tackle the border crisis.
DeSantis stated that House Republicans “surrendered” their power to address the ongoing crisis happening at the U.S.-Mexico border after the chamber had passed a foreign aid package distributed billions of dollars to American allies.
The Florida governor accused the party of handing President Joe Biden the foreign aid funds he requested while gaining nothing in exchange for securing the border.
“They basically just surrendered on the border,” he told reporters. “They now have no leverage to do anything on the border. They had an opportunity to insist that Biden accept the border if he wanted all the foreign aid, and they decided to capitulate.”
“And so he got everything he wants, and Republicans voters did not get anything with respect to stopping this problem at the southern border. Look, we’re doing more in Florida to deal with it than the Congress is, and it’s just pathetic that that’s going on,” he said.
“So I was really, really disappointed to see that they basically capitulated entirely on the border and, at this point, you’re not gonna see anything done on the border for the rest of this year,” DeSantis said.
The $95.3 billion law, backed by House Speaker Mike Johnson, provides $60.8 billion to Ukraine, $15 billion in military aid to Israel, $9 billion for humanitarian aid to Gaza and $8 billion for Taiwan.
Johnson previously promised to secure the border before allowing any more security to foreign nations but relented after former President Donald Trump came out against the bipartisan border security bill.
“Look, the American people feel very strongly about this, and I do as well, and I can tell you House Republicans do,” Johnson said. “We have obligations and things that we can and should do around the world, but we have to take care of our own house first. And as long as the border’s wide open, we’re opening ourselves up to great threat.”
Republicans against this bill, like GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Florida), condemned the House speaker for not including border security measures.
“There is no other way to describe it – it is surrender,” Gaetz told CNN. “It is disappointing. I won’t support it.”
According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), unlawful border apprehensions have exceeded 1.3 million in the 2024 fiscal year, which started in October 2023.
Border officials arrested more than two million migrants during the 2022 and 2023 fiscal years. In the 2021 fiscal year, 1.7 million migrants were apprehended.
The CBP has shown that there were over 400,000 apprehensions in 2020.
DeSantis’ former presidential campaign and his primary super PAC, Never Back Down, spent over $160 million during the period of his failed presidential candidacy.
The governor and super PAC directed $53 million through firms controlled or owned by Jeff Roe, a Republican strategist who had served as the group’s top adviser. They spent $31.3 million on television advertising time and $3.3 million on private jets between the campaign and super PAC. They also donated nearly $110,000 to the campaigns of state and federal elected officials who endorsed DeSantis, all for 23,420 votes in Iowa.
Most of this money—$130 million—had been spent by Never Back Down, and DeSantis’s campaign spent an additional $28 million. This costly flop produced minor results, and the governor decided to drop out before the New Hampshire primary and endorse former president Donald Trump.
On April 16, DeSantis signed an education bill that restricted objections to public school library books.
This new law would limit one objection to a book per month for people who do not have children in a particular school district. People with children in a district will be granted unlimited challenges to library books.
The governor’s office stated that the bill “protects schools from activists trying to politicize and disrupt a district’s book review process.”
The new law changes the legislation DeSantis had signed in 2022, which had increased public participation in reviewing school materials and encouraged unlimited challenges to books in school libraries throughout Florida. He also signed another law in 2023 that expanded restrictions on how information about sex and gender is taught in schools, such as how parents may be against explicit or inappropriate materials.
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