Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis touted an evacuation operation his administration supported that led to nearly 300 American citizens evacuated from Tel Aviv, Israel, who landed Monday at Tampa International Airport.
DeSantis, a 2024 presidential candidate, told FOX News he saw a lack of actionable leadership on the part of the Biden administration and decided to see what Tallahassee could do to execute what he claimed Washington could not.
"It was sad because the State Department and the embassy over in Israel were not helpful to these people. If you think about it, illegal aliens come across our southern border and the federal government will fly them all over the country for free," he said, noting how illegal immigrants also get taxpayer-funded hotel stays and other perks the average citizen could never attain.
DeSantis said he was instead seeing that Americans stuck in Israel were offered options like "dump[ing] them in Cyprus" – an island in the Mediterranean Sea.
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According to a report from French news agency AFP, a cruise ship was dispatched Monday to evacuate Americans to Limassol, Cyprus.
"So we did an executive order at the end of last week, and said, 'we'll mobilize our emergency response folks – we'll get planes there to bring Floridians back home from Israel. And so we were able to land the first plane last night…" DeSantis told "Hannity."
DeSantis said he and First Lady Casey DeSantis were on hand in Tampa to welcome the Americans home. A local FOX report said about one-third of those onboard were Floridians.
"I had a woman come up to me saying her six-year-old daughter was saying, 'I don't want to hear any more rockets. I want to go back to Florida,'" he said.
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"So we were able to fill the void. There was no leadership. And so we stepped up and we led."
According to that FOX-13 report, the DeSantis administration supported a Hillsborough County nonprofit called Project Dynamo, the co-founder of which told the outlet his team headed to Israel shortly after Hamas attacked civilians there.
On the federal level, Secretary of State Tony Blinken traveled to Israel, where he announced late Monday that President Biden will visit in a show of solidarity. The secretary's announcement came from overseas at what would be about 3 a.m. Tuesday Jerusalem time.
Biden has warned Israel not to take over or occupy Gaza, but also appeared to cryptically warn Iran and the Lebanese Hezbollah political-militant group, "don't," in an interview with CBS News on Sunday.
For his part, DeSantis told FOX News that Biden has been a failure when it comes to confronting Iran, saying he has been playing diplomatic "footsie" with the Raisi regime.
"Stop doing that and understand that Iran wants to fund terrorism," he said, while further adding America's role should indeed be supporting Israel and its "right to get the job done" in "eliminat[ing] Hamas."
