Thursday on FNC’s “Fox & Friends,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) sounded off on the rioting at some of the George Floyd protests across the country following his death in Minneapolis in police custody.
DeSantis said the violence, looting and arson seen at the protests cannot be allowed to “go unabated.” He also highlighted Florida as having “done a lot better” than some of the other states in suppressing the violence because he responded swiftly by bringing in the National Guard.
“I think that having respect for the rule of law, order in society is just the fundamental thing that has to be respected, and I think the president’s right to insist on that,” DeSantis outlined. “I think if you look at some of the big problems that’s happened throughout the country, it’s when local officials have abdicated their responsibility to maintain order, keep people safe from violence, looting and rioting. Ideally, you would have it solved at the local level. When that fails, you do have governors like me that have the ability to put National Guard in play. We’ve done that in Florida as a support. Fortunately, we fared much better than some of these other states on this, but if that fails in a state, then the federal government has the ability to come in and maintain order. And so I think that has to be the case. You cannot have a situation in which widespread looting and violence and arson is just allowed to go unabated.”
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