Rep. DeSantis On Sgt. Bergdahl and the Release of the “Taliban Dream Team”

The following is a partial transcript of an interview with Congressman Ron DeSantis (FL-6) on the Friday, June 6, Secure Freedom Radio show. The entire interview may be listened to here.

Frank Gaffney: I’d be very interested in your take on what I call the “Bergdahl Affair:” the exchange of five Taliban detainees previously held in the facility that you served at, and the man that we’ve extracted as a result of turning them loose.

Rep. Ron DeSantis: It was shocking to me that the administration and the President were willing to replenish the Taliban with this “terror dream team.” These guys are some of the worst of the worst. When I was in Gitmo, and this was during the Bush Administration, there were always reviews of different detainees. There were a number of detainees that were released then and have been released since, [whom] the military will look at and say, “You know what, we think these people probably aren’t threats.” And even of that group, you still have 30% of them who go back and join the jihad and fight after their release. Those are the people we think may not be bad anymore. These people, everybody acknowledges that they’re hardened terrorists and they’re going to rejoin the fight. So I think it’s bad for national security, and I think it just reflects this President–he just has a skewed view of the world. He thinks that by removing troops that we can simply declare the war over. Well, you know, the Taliban, Al Qaeda, Haqqani—these guys may have something to say about that.

FG: What do you make of the characterization of this former captive, shall we say, of the Taliban–or the Haqqani Network more specifically—now Sergeant Beau Bergdahl. He has been characterized by Susan Rice, the national security advisor to the president, as a man who served with honor and distinction. Would you say that?

RD: First of all, you can put [Susan Rice] out after the credibility that she does not have with so many Americans because of her misstatements about Benghazi. But for her to say that he served with honor and distinction, and then to see all these people who served with him say that he deserted him. Then, also, she also said more than just that he served with honor and distinction. She said that he was captured on the battlefield. Well, it turns out that he voluntarily left his post and sought out, perhaps, the Taliban. I think the administration made a huge mistake to try to pretend that this was an American hero, and I know a lot of military people have contacted me and they’ve very, very distressed with that because, at a minimum, before you’re even a hero you [have] to do honorable service. They don’t think that he’s done that. I’ve actually talked to a couple people who were POWs in Vietnam, and they’re kind of split on when you desert, what does that mean. But at a minimum, I think they were all in agreement that this is not something that you should be celebrating when you give up five terrorists for someone who may have left his post.