“Yes, we’re going to use lethal force. Yes, we reserve the right to operate,” said Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis Tuesday during the first Republican National Committee debate in Milwaukee, Wisc.
He was responding to the moderator’s question about whether he would send U.S. Special Forces to the southern border to fight drug cartels.
“I am sick – I have met ‘Angel Moms’ throughout this country.
I met a lady in Texas named Tracy and her son took one Percocet that was laced with fentanyl, immediately died. That is happening all across this country because of the poison that they are bringing in.”
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, around 80,000 people died from opioid overdoses in 2021 alone, and 88% of those deaths were related to synthetic opioids such as fentanyl. This powerful opioid – approximately 50 times more potent than heroin – is approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration mainly for use in hospital settings.
When it is laced in other drugs and taken without someone’s knowledge, it can be dangerous and deadly. This April, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland explained the process of fentanyl made in Chinese laboratories being sent to Guatemala-based brokers and cartels in Mexico and then trafficked into the U.S. when he announced arrests related to the Sinaloa cartel.
He called the cartel the “the largest, most violent, and most prolific fentanyl trafficking operation in the world.”
Despite the enforcement, cartels are still trafficking drugs into the U.S. In June – shortly after the Biden-Harris administration announced new statistics about unlawful border entries – the Department of Homeland Security announced new campaigns to stop the illicit fentanyl supply chain.
DeSantis, who still trailed far behind former President Donald Trump in polls Friday even after the GOP frontrunner was booked into jail and had his mugshot taken, apparently wants to take a tougher approach to the cartels.
“Yes, and I will do it, on day one!” he said of sending special forces to the border to battle cartels. “Here’s the thing – the cartels are killing tens of thousands of our fellow citizens.”
He added that the U.S. has to “reestablish the rule of law and we have to defend our people,” and that he would “use all available powers as commander in chief to protect our country and to protect the people.”
The Florida governor also compared his stance on waging a war against the cartels with the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine. Per a fact sheet issued this week by the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, the U.S. has provided Ukraine with $44 billion in security assistance since Russia launched its illegal invasion of the sovereign nation.
“I’m not going to send troops to Ukraine, but I am going to send them to our southern border,” said DeSantis. He said in an X post that he plans to leave drug smugglers “stone cold dead,” and mentioned during the debate that he would treat them as “foreign terrorists.”
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