Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R) recently knocked former president Donald Trump for his handling of the southern border during his first term in office in an interview with Fox News’s Bill Melugin, promising that he would deliver on the policies Trump purported to support in 2016.
It has been noted that DeSantis was dismissive of Trump’s recent pledge to “carry out the largest wave of mass deportations in U.S. history,” telling Melugin that “he [Trump] said that in 2016 as well and then didn’t do it.”
“I mean, they had some but they didn’t have anything out of the ordinary,” continued DeSantis. “I think we would be much more assertive than he was in his first administration.”
Melugin followed up with a clarifying question about whether DeSantis would carry out the mass deportations that Trump had failed to.
“Yeah, we will,” answered the presidential candidate. “There’s gonna be a firm, and swift consequence to violating the law.”
According to Melugin, DeSantis also said that his border security plan would “end catch-and-release,” “build a border wall,” “cut off all federal funding from non-government organizations,” and “push to end birthright citizenship.”
On Monday, DeSantis’s campaign took that line of thinking even further, threatening military action on Mexican soil if the Mexican government failed to take steps to mitigate the flow of migrants.
“If the Mexican government won’t stop cartel drug manufacturing, DeSantis will surge resources to the Navy and the Coast Guard and block precursor chemicals from entering Mexican ports,” it said in a statement, adding that he would “reserve the right to operate across the border to secure our territory from Mexican cartel activities.”
Trump made border security the centerpiece of his successful 2016 campaign, but failed to deliver on his biggest campaign promise of the cycle, a vow to construct a border wall — paid for by Mexico — along the southern border.
