On Wednesday’s broadcast of the Fox News Channel’s “Fox News Tonight,” 2024 presidential candidate and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) stated he would fire FBI Director Christopher Wray on his first day and argued that “Republican presidents have accepted the canard that the DOJ and FBI are ‘independent.’ They are not independent agencies, they are part of the executive branch, they answer to the elected president of the United States.” As an example, he said, “if the FBI or DOJ, whatever collude with a tech company to try to censor information, everybody involved with that would be fired immediately if I were the president.”

DeSantis said, “I would not keep Chris Wray as Director of the FBI, there would be a new one day one. I think that’s very important.”

He added, “In terms of an attorney general, you need someone that’s got a really strong backbone. You need somebody that knows that if you’re going in there and you’re taking care of business, The Washington Post is not going to like you, The New York Times is not going to like you, you’re going to get attacked by CNN, and you’ve got to wear that as a badge of honor. You can’t try to please polite society, because otherwise you’ll just get captured by the institution itself. And I think the DOJ and FBI have lost their way. I think that they’ve been weaponized against Americans who think like me and you, and I think that they’ve become very partisan.”

DeSantis continued, “Part of the reason that’s happened, Trey, is because Republican presidents have accepted the canard that the DOJ and FBI are ‘independent.’ They are not independent agencies, they are part of the executive branch, they answer to the elected president of the United States. So, as president, you have a responsibility to be involved in holding those agencies accountable, clearing out people who are not doing the job, and making sure that they’re doing the people’s business and they’re not abusing their authority. For example, if the FBI or DOJ, whatever collude with a tech company to try to censor information, everybody involved with that would be fired immediately if I were the president. And right now, I think those agencies have been able to go without any real accountability.”

Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett