Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis said he's filling the void left by the Biden administration, telling Newsmax on Thursday that he signed an executive order to get stranded Floridians home from Israel since the president is asleep at the wheel.
Citing what he calls the Biden administration's blundered response in the wake of the terrorist incursion on Israel on Saturday, DeSantis told "Carl Higbie FRONTLINE" that he's not taking any chances with the lives of Floridians.
DeSantis issued an executive order earlier Thursday, declaring a state of emergency, and authorizing the mobilization of rescue operations to repatriate Florida residents and provide humanitarian aid to Israel.
"We're marshaling planes in Israel. We have some stationed throughout the Middle East already," DeSantis told Higbie. "I think we're going to be able to get some people on board prior to Shabbat weekend that starts in Israel at sundown on Friday.
"Bring them back to Florida. We're bringing supplies on the way there. Rescuing people on the way out, and we'll keep running those iterations until we get the people home who want to come back to the state of Florida."
DeSantis criticized Biden's lack of leadership from the start of the conflict.
"We need a president that's going to be engaged," DeSantis said. "I mean, they didn't even wake him up on Saturday. He didn't take that 2 a.m. phone call, and then he kind of blundered through the weekend, not leading.
"He finally said that this is unacceptable, and he has taken the side of Israel, at least rhetorically, but he's not been willing to call out Iran, and they've been very slow on moving to get Americans out of Israel who want to get out of the war zone," he added.
"They just said, 'Well, we may be able to get you to Europe. But then you're gonna have to pay your own way.' Stranding people in Europe doesn't make sense."
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Mark Swanson, a Newsmax writer and editor, has nearly three decades of experience covering news, culture and politics.
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