- Ron DeSantis railed against the US for having too many federal bureaucrats at a recent campaign stop.
- "We are going to start slitting throats on day one," he said.
GOP Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis continued on his tirade against federal bureaucrats while speaking on the campaign trail Wednesday.
"We are going to start slitting throats on day one," DeSantis said about federal bureaucrats, leading to some dissatisfaction among the crowd at the campaign stop in New Hampshire, according to New Hampshire Public Radio.
Wednesday wasn't the first time DeSantis said he'd slash government agencies if elected to the White House. In June, he said he wanted to get rid of the Internal Revenue Service, the Department of Commerce, the Department of Energy, and the Department of Education.
And in July, DeSantis reiterated his plans while speaking to Maria Bartiromo on Fox News.
"You also have to bring this administrative state to heel, the bureaucracy in Washington is totally out of control," DeSantis said. "It is exerting power that is not therefore under the Constitution, and we need a President to come in and really, really clean house and I will do that on day one.
The president of the American Federation of Government Employees, a labor union that represents more than 650,000 federal workers, said in a statement that DeSantis' comments were "disgusting, disgraceful, and disqualifying."
"These public servants deserve respect and commendation from our nation's leaders," said Everett Kelley. "No federal employee should face death threats from anyone, least of all from someone seeking to lead the U.S. government. Governor DeSantis must retract his irresponsible statement."
In a recent New York Times survey, DeSantis finished second among currently declared Republican presidential candidates, trailing behind former President Donald Trump by 37 percentage points. The same survey found that likely Republican voters much prefer a presidential candidate who thinks the "government should stay out of deciding what corporations can support" rather than one who promises "to fight corporations that promote 'woke' left ideology," as DeSantis has pledged to do time and time again.
DeSantis does have time to claw back supporters in the GOP primary race: he qualified for and has said he'll attend the first Republican presidential debate on August 23.. And in an effort to get more eyes on his campaign, DeSantis just accepted an offer to debate California Gov. Gavin Newsom (who's not running for president).