Florida Governor and 2024 presidential candidate Ron DeSantis said that he would "start slitting throats on day one" when taking on federal "deep state" workers during a Sunday campaign event in New Hampshire hosted by former Sen. Scott Brown, R-Mass. According to The Hill, DeSantis has previously used the jarring expression in an interview he did last month with right-leaning outlet Real America's Voice, where he discussed how, if elected, he would change the hierarchy in the Department of Defense.
"You know, they may have to slit some throats. And it's a lot harder to do that if these are people that you've trained with in the past or that you know," DeSantis said after criticizing the idea that a retired flag or general officer could be promoted to secretary of defense. "So we're going to have somebody out there, you know, be very firm, very strong, but they are going to make sure that we have the best people in the best positions, and there's not going to be necessarily prior relationships that would cloud that judgment."
The national president of the American Federation of Government Employees, Everett Kelley, decried DeSantis' comments about federal employees as "dangerous, disgusting, disgraceful, and disqualifying" in a statement. "We've seen too often in recent years – from the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995 to the sacking of the Capitol on January 6, 2021 – that violent anti-government rhetoric from politicians has deadly consequences," Kelley concluded. "Any candidate who positions themselves within that shameful tradition has no place in public office."
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