DeSantis Campaign Press Release - ICYMI: Ron DeSantis on New Hampshire Radio

"Overall, the important thing for our country to be doing is standing with Israel."

Tallahassee, FL - Ron DeSantis today joined Good Morning New Hampshire with Jack Heath and WFEA'S The Morning Update with Drew Cline. The highlights are below.

Watch part one of the Drew Cline interview HERE and part two HERE.

On eradicating Hamas:

I think the main thing is just moral clarity that Israel has a right to defend itself to the hilt, and that means eradicate Hamas, their networks, their infrastructure. No wishy washy-ness, no on one hand or the other. What those Hamas terrorists were doing was probably the most barbaric things that I've ever seen. And it's very, very difficult to watch. Anyone that's seen some of those videos, it's just absolutely revolting. So I think that's the main thing is just stand firm with them. Because what's going to happen is, as the days and weeks go on, to the United Nations, all these other countries, they are going to start probably blaming Israel. And we just need to say, no, we're going to stand with them. They've got a great military. They have all hands on deck. I think they're going to be able to do what they need to do to protect them. But my fear is, you know, you had the State Department put out something that they had to take down, calling for no further violence. Blinken had to take down a tweet where he was saying there should be a ceasefire. That is going to be very dangerous because then that puts Israel in a more difficult situation.

On Biden's funding of Iran:

Oh, he's got responsibility. They made a deliberate decision when he came into office to loosen the screws on Iran, to allow them to get more money flowing in their coffers for oil sales. I would have had those sanctions to the hilt to deny them that type of money. Of course, we now have this $6 billion which was a terrible deal to do, it sent a very bad signal. The media saying, 'Well, that money can't be used for terrorism,' but obviously, money is fungible, so that freed up the resources to be able to do. What is Iran doing with the money that they get? They don't do it to make the Iranian people's lives better. They send it to their terrorist proxies, like Hamas and Hezbollah. So that was something that was obvious. And even Blinken, and even people in Biden's administration a couple years ago, acknowledged that money that goes to Iran or to the Gaza Strip ends up being used for terrorism. So they knew what they were doing. They had a delusional belief that somehow you can have a rapprochement with the Mullahs in Iran. Look, they hate Israel, they hate the United States. This is a deep-seeded belief. It's ideological, it's part of their religious faith, and they're going to continue to do this. So that should have been something that was obvious. So yes, they do bear responsibility. And then just his response to this overall, this is a guy that's missing in action. He's not out there leading. We have Americans that have been killed. We know at least 11. We don't know, or he's not telling us, whether any Americans are being held hostage. We do know there's Americans that are missing. Where was he all day yesterday? They call the lid at 11:50 in the morning. He didn't come out and address any of these issues. They issued a press release. You can't govern by press release. You were elected to lead, you got to stand up and deliver, and he's just failed to do that. So look, I didn't expect anything more than this. This is a guy that's clearly past his prime and is just not up to the job.

On the importance of securing the border:

I think what's happened in Israel should show us that our border is a massive vulnerability. I mean, do you not think that our enemies have exploited that over the last two and a half years, knowing they can move people through? We know that people from Iran and Russia, other places in the Middle East, China have come across the border. I mean, we know that. We know people on the terror watch list have come across the border. So, it's a massive vulnerability. Now the cartels are really the movers and shakers of what's going on with the mass migration, they're helping to facilitate sex trafficking and human trafficking, and as of course, as communities all across America know, the fentanyl that they're bringing across has sparked a massive epidemic all over this country. And they have blood on their hands. [We need to] treat them as foreign terrorist organizations. When they are trying to break into our country, particularly when they're moving the product, we're going to use lethal force against them. We have every right to do it... they're killing our people. As Commander in Chief, you not only have the right, I think you have the duty to defend your people. And if you do that, and that becomes the way it goes, they're going to change their behavior very quickly. They do what they do because they're allowed to get away with murder, and nobody's pushed back on them. And it's not just going to be at the border. We're going to have naval assets involved in intercepting some of the precursor chemicals that are coming into Mexico that the cartels then use to create the fentanyl. This is something that's costing a lot of American lives, and it's about time we did something about it.

Watch the full interview on Good Morning New Hampshire with Jack Heath HERE.

On Joe Biden missing in action:

President Biden's been missing in action. I mean, he's not showing leadership, they didn't even wake him up when this was, when this broke out- would have been one or two in the morning Washington time. He was nowhere to be found. Yesterday, they called a lid even though 11 Americans at least have been killed by Hamas, and those attacks, we know that they're more missing. The administration hasn't told us whether there's any being held hostage, the State Department had to take down two different tweets in the first 48 hours basically urging Israel to show restraint and even calling for a ceasefire. So, I think the performance has been really, really poor. And it's just sad that we don't have leadership when we need it. Now, overall, the important thing for our country to be doing is standing with Israel. They're a strong ally of ours. And that means they need to be able to go and defend themselves, uproot and destroy the entire Hamas terror networks. What ends up happening in these things is Hamas or Hezbollah, one of these groups will commit some barbaric attacks, although this one does take the cake. There's no question. Israel responds, then like, you know, a week later, people start blaming Israel, and then the UN starts rattling and all this stuff. That will happen, the media is going to start turning it on Israel. I think some of these other countries are going to start doing that. And it's important for the United States to say no, there's no moral equivalence here. What happened to Israel should not happen to anybody. There were more Jews killed that day, then at any time since the Holocaust. So, they have to be able to do this and put this issue to bed once and for all. And if we can just do that, I think that that'll give them the breathing room that they need to be able to defend their people.

On his upcoming trip to New Hampshire:

We've laid the groundwork, and that's what we did over the summer and then now that we're in the fall, we're going to be in New Hampshire a lot. So, I think you're going to see a lot of activity for us. You want to peek in New Hampshire, at the end of the year, the beginning of next year, you don't want to peek in the summer before. This stuff goes up and down. New Hampshire primaries are very volatile, as you know, so we have the groundwork in place. Now you're going to start seeing us. We're going to be up in the town halls, we're going to be doing all that because we know how important it is. So, we're in good shape. I think that there's a lot of real estate to go and we're the only one that's really, you know, challenging Donald Trump in both Iowa and New Hampshire. Some are focusing on one, some are focusing on others, we're going to do both to the hilt because we know both are really important.