On Tuesday’s “Hugh Hewitt Show,” 2024 Republican presidential candidate Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis stated that there have been officials in the government who tried to kneecap the agenda of the elected president, such as leaks during the Trump administration, and that he would fire the State Department employees who have complained about the Biden administration’s support for Israel because “They don’t have a right to go against policy. Their job is to implement policy.”
DeSantis said, “I think the issue is, you have a concentration of power that’s been detached from constitutional accountability. And some of that is because of neglect of the elected branches. For example, the DOJ and FBI, a lot of conservatives — and me included — rightfully point out the weaponization and the abuse of power. But you also have the fact that presidents of both parties, for decades, have not done a lot to police that. Congress has not used the power of the purse. So, I think it’s all of those agencies, and I think the question is, are they exercising power without any clear legislative mandate? A lot of the stuff that happens in the bureaucracy with the rules and the regulations, no one actually voted for that. They’re taking kind of vague statutes, and they’re using that to really do policy that makes a big, big difference.”
He continued, “Now, on some of the intelligence and some of the national security, we saw with former President Trump, when he was in office, some of those people worked to kneecap his agenda. He had situations where he would do a phone call with a foreign leader, it would get leaked to The Washington Post. And it was almost of the idea that hey, you may have gotten 270-plus electoral votes, but ultimately, they still control the show. That’s not the way the Constitution was designed. So, I think we need more constitutional accountability. We have three branches of government. We do not have four branches of government. The president that comes in with a constitutional mandate of winning the Electoral College has a duty and the right to enact the agenda, and these agencies need to do it. The State Department, some of these people complaining about standing up for Israel, I would show them the door. They don’t have a right to go against policy. Their job is to implement policy. But yet, we’ve gotten so far away from that, that we don’t really have a government that is reflective of the American people.”
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