Ron DeSantis blames Joe Biden’s ‘weakness’ for Russian warships near Florida

DeSantis AP
'It starts at the top.'

Gov. Ron DeSantis isn’t holding back when it comes to Russian warships miles from the Sunshine State for military exercises with Cuba, even though the Pentagon says they’re “no threat.”

Florida’s Governor told an audience in South Florida that Moscow’s aggression is a direct result of the weakness of the Joe Biden administration and that if he were “Commander in Chief” rather than just the Governor, such a provocation wouldn’t be “something that we would allow to be happening.”

“It starts at the top with the President of the United States,” DeSantis said Friday at Hollywood Fire Rescue Station 5.

“I think it’s really concerning, I think that under this administration, they’ve put out a posture that has invited more aggressive actions from our adversaries,” he added before outlining Russia’s improved strategic position in the Western Hemisphere in recent years (despite not even being able to win a war against Ukraine on its border).

“Now, Russia, this isn’t their first foray into the Western Hemisphere, obviously, if you look through history,” DeSantis said, referencing the Cold War.

“But I think the amount of activity among hostile nations in our own hemisphere is probably at a level that we have not seen in many, many years. And if you look at how the governments of this hemisphere are constituted, now, most of them are more aligned with the Russians and the Chinas, unfortunately than with the United States and the free world.”

“And so I think it is problematic. I think that history has shown that these bad actors, they respond to strength and they’re deterred by strength. They are not going to be deterred by weakness. They’re not going to be deterred by confusion; they’re not going to be deterred by a president wandering around aimlessly at the G7,” DeSantis said, referring to a moment when Biden seemed to wander away from the other world leaders before being corralled by Italian PM Giorgia Meloni.

“They’re going to be deterred because they know that that’s not somebody that you want to mess with. So we’re failing as a country with the deterrent capability. And I think it starts at the top with the President of the United States.”

DeSantis has offered variant comments about Russian leader Vladimir Putin in the past, memorably calling the autocratic ruler “an authoritarian gas station attendant with some legacy nuclear weapons from the old Soviet Union.”

The Governor has also suggested that if foreign nations threatened the U.S., he would obliterate the aggressor.

“If people were firing rockets from the Bahamas into, like, Fort Lauderdale, we would never allow that. I mean, we would flatten them. Within like five minutes, we would flatten them,” he said in Eldridge, Iowa, in early December, during the last weeks of his failed Presidential campaign.

However, there will be no moves to “flatten” the Russian fleet, which is much more imminent than the wild hypothetical of a Bahamian attack on South Florida.

A.G. Gancarski

A.G. Gancarski has been the Northeast Florida correspondent for Florida Politics since 2014. He writes for the New York Post and National Review also, with previous work in the American Conservative and Washington Times and a 15+ year run as a columnist in Folio Weekly. He can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter: @AGGancarski


30 comments

  • Andy

    June 14, 2024 at 11:17 am

    Maybe why Ron wants to name a coast after a man who called Putin, ‘A smart, good man’?

  • Elvis Pitts "The Big Voice On The Right" American

    June 14, 2024 at 11:22 am

    Well in all fairness to The Dook 4 Brains 08IDEN Sad-Ministration, Joe did order all the Gay Pride Painted Cross Walks to have FBI Guards put in place to re-direct Russian Tanks from messing up the Beautiful Rainbows painted on the Cross Walks.
    Putin is reported to be in awe at Joe’s Milatary Leadership Prowess.
    Thank you America,
    Elvis Pitts American
    *America the above was Satire and we suggest you go out and purchase Guns and dont forget Bullets*

  • Ricky Bobby

    June 14, 2024 at 12:01 pm

    Joe Biden is simply the most inept and incompetent President in a lifetime. He makes Jimmy Carter look like Rambo. Joe getting lost in Normandy and o. A leash held by the Italian PM.

    • TJC

      June 14, 2024 at 12:11 pm

      Bullshit.

  • Michael K

    June 14, 2024 at 12:09 pm

    I don’t think the Russians are here to invade Wilton Manors, though the sailors might like some diversion.

    Ronda’s just throwing red-meat lies to the radical far-right base to act tough.

    I trust our DOD more than Rhonda on this one.

    • Ricky Bobby

      June 14, 2024 at 12:11 pm

      Ron served. Did you?

      • MH/Duuuval

        June 15, 2024 at 8:40 pm

        What did he do in Fallujah besides send the men off into the streets with a cautionary or two? Then, when they came back, re-write the narrative so no one committed any war crimes and all acted heroically.

  • tom palmer

    June 14, 2024 at 12:15 pm

    Dear Governor,
    Explain what authority you or anyone has to go after naval vessels from any country when they are outside US territorial waters unless we are in a declared state of war with that country.
    This is just more hot air from this inept twerp.
    .

    • Ricky Bobby

      June 14, 2024 at 12:45 pm

      Where in that article does DeSantis say he would go after those Russian ships outside US territorial waters. Show me.

      • Ocean Joe

        June 14, 2024 at 3:26 pm

        Second paragraph.

        • Ricky Bobby

          June 14, 2024 at 3:34 pm

          Didn’t say that directly. He just said he wouldn’t let it happen. Maybe a show of USN force but he never said he would go after them. Big difference

          • Dont Say FLA

            June 17, 2024 at 7:12 am

            When you got nothing, try linguistic pedantics, and when that doesn’t work, try name calling pedo’s.

        • Ocean Joe

          June 14, 2024 at 3:41 pm

          And the first paragraph if you’re extra maga-brained today, regarding location. You’re welcome Fake IB.

    • Al

      June 15, 2024 at 5:34 am

      I’m glad someone went past politics, and said it. I was i the navy for about 31 and a half years, and I was actually stationed in Cuba in the late 80’s, and I don’t recall any former Florida governor ever having to talk tough about our Naval capabilities because as a Navy Vet, he should already know. Sounding tough for uninformed paranoid constituents is one thing, but at some point just be truthful. And a truly ambitious politician would be more focused on the strategic importance of Cuba, and the trade benefits of working to push the old regime out, and normalize relations with a potential regional partner, rather than our next door enemy.

  • Ocean Joe

    June 14, 2024 at 3:53 pm

    I’m going to stick with the Palmer interpretation, and simplify for you: our governor is a pompous blowhard who is a Bonespur licking toady.

    • Ricky Bobby

      June 14, 2024 at 7:20 pm

      You don’t like him I get it. You would prefer Andrew Gillum as Governor. Thank God that didn’t happen.

      • MH/Duuuval

        June 15, 2024 at 8:44 pm

        No deep state entrapments for white boys, but go ahead and take out Gillum — which a jury rejected when the case finally got to trial. Admit it: You fear and loath Black men.

        • Michael K

          June 16, 2024 at 5:46 pm

          And women. She really hates women – especially strong, smart women. All of her screen names.

  • No more MAGAts

    June 14, 2024 at 8:59 pm

    Ricky Boobie and Elvis Spits y’all done. First learn how to spell. Second, learn how to type, third, repeat 3rd grade, fourth STFU. Boomers! No more MAGAt religious indoctrination and political ideology in Florida. Make Florida blue again!

    • Ricky Bobby

      June 15, 2024 at 6:38 am

      Not going to STFU. We need to make Florida even Redder. First let’s start with Debbie Wasserman-Schultz. Come on District 25. Get rid of her.

  • JustBabs

    June 15, 2024 at 9:47 am

    Based on Ronnie’s track record, we should thank the stars he has no say in such decisions. The man is unhinged.

  • Ron Castanaga

    June 15, 2024 at 1:02 pm

    All these hulabalu started when Biden boasted about Ukraine using US supplied Javaline bazooka killing 350 Russians aboard their tanks encroaching over the Ukraine-Russian border that seem to have enraged Putin to exhibit his belligerence towards Biden, a very scary provocation. Now Putin is flexing its muscle in opening up joint military exercises with his allies Cuba and Venezuela in the high seas near Cuba within sight from the tip of Key West, Florida,

    • MH/Duuuval

      June 15, 2024 at 8:43 pm

      Putin is not capable of rage: He is a psychopath with sole control of a modern nation’s weaponry. The world is his chess board.

  • My Take

    June 16, 2024 at 3:35 pm

    High seas, international waters, sovereign nations.
    What do the MAGAdoofs not understand?

    • MH/Duuuval

      June 16, 2024 at 9:10 pm

      Gitmo — it remains a USN base. And there is a US submarine there now.

      • My Take

        June 18, 2024 at 6:04 pm

        The Russian sub went to Havana didn’t it?
        Nowhere near Gitmo.

        I wonder how much water around Gitmo we control.

        • Tjb

          June 19, 2024 at 11:23 am

          Why doesn’t Ron send his private army, the Florida Guard, that he established June 2022 to address the Russian in International waters off the Florida coast? His he too weak to make a decision?

        • MH/Duuuval

          June 19, 2024 at 5:22 pm

          The Russian sub went to Havana; our sub went to Gitmo, which we took in 1898 by force.

  • Dont Say FLA

    June 17, 2024 at 7:15 am

    Rhonda saw a Russia ship and gonna take care of the situation?

    Oh my goodness! Well then, such tough talk from such a manly man boy.

    Bahamas had better watch out.

  • Phil Morton

    June 18, 2024 at 7:11 am

    So, the Russian ships after having some rum and cigars, left Cuba because of Joe Biden’s strength? That’s the way that works, amirite?

Comments are closed.


#FlaPol

Florida Politics is a statewide, new media platform covering campaigns, elections, government, policy, and lobbying in Florida. This platform and all of its content are owned by Extensive Enterprises Media.

Publisher: Peter Schorsch @PeterSchorschFL

Contributors & reporters: Phil Ammann, Drew Dixon, Roseanne Dunkelberger, A.G. Gancarski, Anne Geggis, Ryan Nicol, Jacob Ogles, Cole Pepper, Gray Rohrer, Jesse Scheckner, Christine Sexton, Drew Wilson, and Mike Wright.

Email: [email protected]
Twitter: @PeterSchorschFL
Phone: (727) 642-3162
Address: 204 37th Avenue North #182
St. Petersburg, Florida 33704