Ron DeSantis on Newsmax’s Rob Schmitt Tonight

All right. Nobody has fought harder against the far left ideology than Florida governor and presidential candidate Ron DeSantis. And, sir, I want to thank you so much for coming back on tonight. I can't believe that we're watching Westerners side with militant terrorists over Israel. And it certainly means that a lot has changed since 9-11. Yeah, I'll tell you what, I mean, I think you hit a lot of that on the head. There's these demonstrations in like New York City where they're cheering Hamas, knowing that Hamas has decapitated babies. They're executing elderly people, raping women. This is obviously an atrocious terrorist attack, but I think that they scraped the bottom of the barrel of human depravity on this. And to take to the streets and celebrate that, there's a sickness in our society here. When you have Harvard students signing these letters, praising Hamas, and I just wonder, it's like, why are you even in this country, if that's your belief on some of that stuff? So I can tell you, here in Florida, we've already taken action. We're expanding Iran financial sanctions. My view is, is the more money that goes into that country, that regime takes it. They're not going to help their own people. They're going to send it to Hamas and Hezbollah and foment jihad throughout the Middle East. So we got to do our part to shut off the spigot as much as we can. But we announced that down in South Florida in one of our synagogues, and, you know, people, the emotions are very raw because they have friends, they have family that are missing, that were killed. And so this has had an enormous impact on Florida and throughout our country. And it's almost like they're just pouring salt in the wounds by going out there and celebrating the atrocities. It is. It's such a scary moment we're in right now, when you start to realize that we're surrounded in this country by people that have an ideology like this. They're all over the place. Israel right now is preparing for an all-out siege on Gaza. We thought it might start this afternoon. It seems to be imminent. I wondered, as a veteran, what do you think that should look like? So I think the reason why we've gotten to this point is because for decades Israel would respond to acts of terror, but they would be very careful to do it in ways that were considered, quote, a proportionate and that would not get them international condemnation. Because the minute they start doing anything, they're always under the microscope. I think in this situation, we in America, we just got to stand with them. The goal should not be a, quote, proportionate response. It should be the elimination of Hamas and the terrorist infrastructure that has grown up in Gaza. And so that will be something that will be more significant than what Israel's been willing to do in the past. I think they're more than capable of doing it. I think it's also important to point out, and you alluded to this as well, the Palestinian Arabs all the way back in the 40s rejected a state. They tried to annihilate Israel in the crib. There was an invasion plan in 67, Israel preempted an invasion in 73. Then you've had all these intifadas. You've had offers of a Palestinian Arab state from Israel, which would have made their security suspect, but they were still willing to do it. And the Arabs rejected that every time. And the reason is, is they don't really want their own state. They just seek the elimination of the Jewish state. So when you hear people like AOC and you see some of that stuff complaining about Gaza, Israel doesn't occupy Gaza. They pulled out of Gaza in 2005. You could have had the Palestinian Arabs there. They could have made something of that. It's actually pretty coastline. But instead, they basically elected Hamas to run. So they've chosen this course. And I just think Israel's in a situation where their population has been decimated with terrorist attacks and it just has to stop. This will be the final battle with Hamas. I hope you're right about that. And that manufactured myth that everybody has bought into, that you'd have to be exceptionally stupid and ignorant about the past to believe that the Palestinians have been oppressed by Israel. They've gotten every opportunity to do this right. They refuse to. They continue to, you know, Hamas, whatever's running that area at the time, has continued for decades now to try and kill these people. It's outrageous to believe that lie. And so many do. Final question. Biden is making his support for Israel very explicitly clear over the last couple of days. I'm sure you've seen his speeches. He's overwhelmingly in support of Israel. And I wonder if there's any guilt in that, that he he knows that he helped to fund this attack, that he's created the atmosphere that was that was ripe for an attack like this. No question. They emboldened the Iranian regime. They relaxed sanctions. They did six billion, which, yes, that six billion wasn't used, but it frees up other money for Iran to use. If he really wants to do something, take the six billion back, put put sanctions on, tighten the sanctions on Iranian oil sales, stop the money that's flowing into the regime. That would be a really strong statement. I also think he came out a little stronger after the weekend. He was missing in action this weekend. He slept in. They didn't even wake him up when our top ally in the region is under a massive terrorist attack. And then he called the lid at 11 a.m. on Monday when we had reports at that time it was nine Americans. You know, we now know it's over 20 Americans and we know Americans very well may have been held hostage at the time. And yet he was nowhere to be found. So it's just a lack of leadership. And my fear with this is, is he saying the right things like we're going to stand with Israel. But, you know, his left flank is going to get very upset as time goes on. And I think his commitment is going to probably start to wilt. So we've got to hold his feet to the fire to make sure that the United States is standing with Israel while they defend their their existence. Yeah. Well said. Governor, thank you so much for taking the time. Good to see you, sir. Thanks.