Florida to the rescue

NEWS AND OPINION:

The Sunshine State is looking out for the Lone Star State.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has announced that Florida itself “stands ready to help defend the southern U.S. border and is deploying assets to aid Texas’ border security crisis.”

The governor has released a specific list of those “assets,” which could help Texas grapple with the challenges at hand. And here are those assets, verbatim from the governor’s list:

101 Florida Highway Patrol troopers, 200 Florida Department of Law Enforcement officers, in teams of 40; 20 Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission officers; 800 Florida National Guard soldiers, 20 Emergency Management personnel — including radio technicians, logisticians, mechanics and planners; five available fixed-wing aircraft with monitoring equipment and downlink capabilities with two aviation crew teams, two Mobile Command vehicles and two command teams, 17 available unmanned aerial vehicles (drones) and support teams and 10 vessels — including airboats, shallow draft vessels and midrange vessels.

“The impacts of President Biden’s border crisis are felt by communities across the nation, and the federal government’s abdication of duty undermines the sovereignty of our country and the rule of law,” Mr. DeSantis said in a written statement.

“At my direction, state agencies including law enforcement and the Florida National Guard are being deployed to Texas, with assets including personnel, boats and planes. While Biden ignores the crisis he created, Florida stands ready to help Texas respond to this crisis,” the governor advised.

“We stand with Texas as they work to repel illegal aliens at the border,” said Division of Emergency Management Director Kevin Guthrie, also in a statement.

“We are prepared to assist however needed,” he said.

104 DAYS LATER

Some continue to wonder why President Biden waited so long to launch some practical problem-solving tactics to address the national debt.

“On February 1, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy met with Mr. Biden and asked him to start negotiations to responsibly raise the debt limit. On Tuesday, the president finally agreed to a negotiation structure — 104 days later. That’s 104 days of obstruction and baseless fear-mongering for what? To play politics? So Biden can threaten default to double down on his destructive, inflationary agenda?” asked Tommy Pigott, rapid response director for the Republican National Committee.

“In the meantime, House Republicans passed a bill to responsibly raise the debt limit, save taxpayers money, and grow the economy.

“But now, you have some Democrats suggesting two weeks is not enough time to reach a responsible debt limit deal,” Mr. Pigott said in a statement shared with Inside the Beltway.

“This is yet another failure of leadership from Joe Biden. Thankfully, we have a Republican House majority that is willing to lead,” he advised.

FOXIFIED

Fox News Digital — the network’s online outreach — finished April once again as the top-performing news organization among the competitive set of online rivals such as CNN.com and NYTimes.com, this according to Comscore, an industry source. Fox News Digital accumulated 1.6 billion total multiplatform views and drew 103 million multiplatform unique visitors — who spent a total of 3.2 billion minutes perusing the many offerings at the site.

This marks a 34% increase of visitors over a year ago at this time. That marks seven consecutive months that Fox News Digital was the top news brand with multiplatform views, and 26 straight months as the leader in multiplatform minutes. In addition, the Fox News Mobile App reached 6.4 million unique visitors in April.

The network also rules social media with 35.3 million total social interactions, marking the 104th consecutive month that Fox News was in first place, according to Emplifi. Here are the specifics: Fox News drove 8.7 million interactions on Facebook for the month, along with 22.5 million Instagram interactions and 4.2 million Twitter interactions. On YouTube, Fox News secured the top spot among news brands in video views for the 27th straight month with over 230.4 million views, according to Shareablee, yet another industry source.

WHY SHE’S RUNNING

Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley faces a crowded field in her quest to become a U.S. president. But why is she doing it?

Fox News host Will Cain wanted to find out.

Here’s how the conversation went when Mrs. Haley appeared on the network on Tuesday night.

“If you can tell me, why do you want to be president?” Mr. Cain asked.

“You know, my parents came here 50 years ago to an America that was strong and proud and full of opportunity. I want them to know that country again,” Mrs. Haley replied.

“I’m doing this for my husband and his military brothers and sisters. They need to know their sacrifice meant something. They need to know we love our country. I’m doing this for my daughter who just got married and I saw how hard it was for her and her husband to buy a home,” she continued.

“And I’m doing this for my son who is a junior in college and I see him writing papers on things he doesn’t believe in just to get an A. That’s not us. That’s not America — 78% of Americans right now don’t think their children will have as good of a life as they did. We have to change that — and I’m determined to do it,” Mrs. Haley said.

POLL DU JOUR

• 65% of those who attend church in the U.S. say their church discusses poverty and inequality ”often or sometimes.”

• 44% of churchgoers say their church discusses racism often or sometimes.

• 41% of churchgoers say their church discusses abortion often or sometimes.

• 11% of churchgoers say their church discusses elections and voter fraud often or sometimes.

• 8% of churchgoers say their church discusses former President Donald Trump often or sometimes.

Source: A PRRI survey of 5,872 U.S. adults conducted Aug. 9-30, 2022, by the Public Religion Research Institute and released Tuesday.

• Contact Jennifer Harper at jharper@washingtontimes.com.