Florida’s DeSantis takes matters into own hands with relief, investigations after federal delays

From swift hurricane response times and deploying disaster relief resources to other states to spearheading an independent investigation into the second Donald Trump assassination attempt, Florida’s Governor Ron DeSantis is charting a roadmap for state governors to take important issues into their own hands in the face of perceived federal government inaction. 

The popular Florida Republican and former presidential candidate has boldly governed during the Biden era, developing a hotbed of resistance to federal policies and set up his administration as a sharp contrast with the federal government bureaucracy. 

After a narrow first election victory in 2018, DeSantis garnered fame for his anti-lockdown COVID-19 policies that left his state more open than a vast majority of the country. Now, he has moved on to challenging the federal government’s immigration policies and conducting an independent probe into a Trump assassination attempt at a time when many conservatives are losing faith in federal investigators. 

Just last week, when Hurricane Helene devastated his home state and carved a swath of destruction across the Southeast, DeSantis coordinated a swift response and then ordered resources to deploy to North Carolina—a state hit hard by flooding—for search and rescue operations. 

“Floundering federal establishment"

DeSantis’ recent actions have ensured that the former presidential candidate will not fade into obscurity during his last two years in office as the chief executive of the third largest state and hub of conservative resistance to the Biden Administration.

“Florida shows that results matter. We lead not by mere words, but by deeds,” DeSantis said in the address after winning a nearly 20-point election victory, a larger margin than any Florida gubernatorial candidate has received in forty years. DeSantis’ press secretary told Just the News that the governor’s second inaugural address sums up both his philosophy and motivation for taking those bold actions other executives may not. 

At the time, DeSantis said that Florida was proof that a “floundering federal establishment in Washington, D.C.” did not dictate the success or failure of the individual states. 

“It is often said that our federalist constitutional system—with fifty states able to pursue their own unique policies—represents a laboratory of democracy,” DeSantis said on the steps of the Florida Capitol. 

“Now Florida’s success has been made more difficult by the floundering federal establishment in Washington, D.C.,” he added, criticizing government spending, high levels of illegal immigration, and the heavy-handed federal bureaucracy. 

In many ways, DeSantis had taken more and bolder action than any governor, Republican or Democrat, across the country to take the reigns over policy in areas he believes the federal government has fallen short. 

Using state resources

Most recently, DeSantis used state resources to come quickly to the aid of other Southeastern states in the face of what he insinuated was a slow response. 

After Hurricane Helene slammed into Florida's Gulf Coast causing significant damage and carving a path of destruction across the region, it cut a swath to western North Carolina, leaving the rural mountain counties and the city of Asheville the most severely damaged as the result of historic flooding. 

After mobilizing resources to help his own state and restoring power to a majority his residents in only a few days, DeSantis contrasted his state’s response to a slower federal response in other suffering states. 

“If you look at how this response went—the prep and the immediate response—this was overwhelmingly state and local, and that’s how we view it,” DeSantis said earlier this week. “We don’t want to be waiting on the feds. We want to be able to lean in.” 

The governor touted how he was able to mobilize state resources to respond weeks before the Federal Emergency Management Agency would have been able to. 

Operation Blue Ridge

After tending to his own backyard, DeSantis deployed his own Florida State and National Guard resources to help rescue and recovery efforts in North Carolina and Tennessee. This week he said the federal government should be more focused on getting resources to those states, where many are still stranded without reliable access to food or fresh water and the number of deaths is unknown. 

Called Operation Blue Ridge, the governor said he wanted to “answer the call for Americans when the federal government fails to act.” 

Last week the governor said he would deploy rescue and relief teams from the guardsmen under his authority and from the Florida Department of Emergency Management, Florida Department of Law Enforcement, and the Fish and Wildlife Commission Division of Law Enforcement to participate in the relief effort. 

One Florida guard member deployed to North Carolina told Fox News that he is observing a “failure of leadership” in the state, a void that DeSantis has worked to fill. 

“There is a complete failure of leadership here in North Carolina and from the federal government,” the guardsman said in an interview with anchor Bill Hemmer. “And it takes my strong leadership in Florida to send us up here.” 

“If it wasn’t for DeSantis… this [rescue] never would’ve happened,” he continued.

Days after DeSantis’ order, the Biden White House announced that President Biden ordered the deployment of up to 1,000 active-duty soldiers to aid in the disaster response, including distributing food and water to the impacted communities. 

Lawfare against Trump

Last month, DeSantis also intervened in another matter, the second assassination attempt on former president and GOP nominee Donald Trump. The governor said his state has a “strong interest” in bringing the second Trump assassination attempt suspect to justice and signed an executive order to open an investigation independent from the federal government. 

“The State of Florida has jurisdiction over the most serious, straightforward offense, which is attempted murder,” DeSantis explained at a press conference. 

The suspect, Ryan Wesley Routh was arrested in Florida after his apparent attempt to shoot the former president at a golf course in Palm Beach. Federal prosecutors charged him with attempted assassination, possession of a firearm while a felon, and possessing a firearm with an obliterated serial number. 

DeSantis also raised concerns that the federal agencies investigating the incident may have a conflict, considering the Department of Justice is currently prosecuting former President Trump in the same district for allegedly mishandling classified documents. 

Trump praised DeSantis’ independent investigation in a rare positive statement since the Florida governor challenged him for the Republican nomination earlier this year. 

"If the DOJ and FBI cannot do their job honestly and without bias, and hold the aspiring assassin responsible to the full extent of the Law, Governor Ron DeSantis and the State of Florida have already agreed to take the lead on the investigation and prosecution,” Trump posted to his Truth Social platform. 

When the Biden administration started flying immigrants from the southern border into Florida under the cover of night, DeSantis strongly criticized federal immigration policy, calling it a "human smuggling operation.” His office said that during the summer of 2021 alone, his administration had recorded more than 70 of those flights, paid for with taxpayers' money. 

"A few weeks ago, one of those people that Biden dumped ended up committing a murder in northeast Florida," DeSantis told the Fox News Channel. "So, these are crimes that would not have happened but for Biden’s recklessness.”

To combat the federal authorities dumping illegal immigrants in his state, DeSantis famously charted flights to sent migrants to liberal jurisdictions across the United States—most notoriously to Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts. 

Biden a "mere figurehead"

Other conservative governors followed in DeSantis’ footsteps with Greg Abbott,of Texas, and former Governor Doug Ducey, of Arizona sending immigrants to liberal-leaning and self-declared "sanctuary" towns and cities across the country. 

"Biden is just a figurehead,” DeSantis told Republicans gathered at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee this summer. “He’s a tool for imposing a leftist agenda on the American people. They support open borders, allowing millions and millions of illegal aliens to pour into our country and to burden our communities—but just don’t send any to Martha’s Vineyard, then they get really upset.”