As lawmakers struggle over how to move forward, the Republican presidential candidate wants his party to intervene.
“Our caucus of Republicans in Congress should take a position on this. The Department of Defense should stand down,” he said. “We have all these other problems in our military. We need more munitions, we need more recruiting, we need all these other things, and yet they are targeting abortion tourism.»
On Tuesday, DeSantis expressed his intentions to «wake up» the military if he becomes president, with promises to cut diversity, equity and inclusion programs, and ban race and gender quotas, as well as ban drag shows in the bases. The Biden administration criticized his campaign for the comments soon after.
“If Ron DeSantis really cared about the military, he would ask Senator Tuberville to stop the unprecedented damage he is doing to the military and military families every day by blocking hundreds of military nominations and promotions,” Kevin Munoz , Biden campaign spokesman. told ABC News.
DeSantis has established himself as a strong anti-abortion advocate, signing a six-week ban in Florida, but has not pledged to support a national extension of that ban if he were president.
“I think in the states where he’s had the ability to make improvements and add pro-life protections, I applaud the states that have done that,” DeSantis told Fox News in a prerecorded interview broadcast Thursday. “But we have a large and diverse country. I recognize that… I think you are going to see some differences.”
Andrew Zhang contributed to this report.