TALLAHASSEE — Florida officials continued to bring home U.S. citizens and send donated supplies to Israel on Wednesday, with Gov. Ron DeSantis and his presidential campaign team touting the missions on social media.
But the DeSantis administration remained tight-lipped about the details of the flight costs, other than a comment that one cost about $4 million in taxpayer dollars. They also have not disclosed much about the passengers or arrangements with the volunteer rescue organization that helped organize the flights despite repeated requests for more information.
“It seems clear that the governor sought to distinguish himself from the other candidates through his actions as governor, attract media attention and provide fodder for his campaign,” said Gregory Koger, a professor of political science at the University of Miami. “Not surprisingly the campaign has highlighted his actions.”
Koger compared the airlift with the state’s flying of migrants from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard also using taxpayer money, in that case unspent COVID-19 relief from Washington.
“Of all the things they spent money on in the last six years, this doesn’t upset me the most,” Koger said.
DeSantis signed an executive order Thursday to evacuate Floridians from the war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip. He declared a state of emergency and ordered state officials to tap into a $1.5 billion Emergency Preparedness and Response Fund to pay for evacuation operations.
“Wheels Up!” DeSantis wrote on his campaign website that day reposting an image of a mockup logo for “DeSantis Air.”
The state partnered with Project Dynamo, a nonprofit rescue organization run by military veterans on private donations that has conducted 620 rescue missions.
Its CEO, Bryan Stern, a U.S. Army and Navy veteran, said it has never received government or corporate funds. “We didn’t expect to get paid going into this,” he said in an interview Wednesday.
Stern and his team were already on the ground in Israel compiling passenger lists of people who had requested a flight home and trying to figure out how to raise the money to do it. That’s when his friend Sen. Jay Collins, R-Tampa, offered to put Stern in touch with the state’s emergency management team, he said.
Florida officials agreed to use Stern to help coordinate the operation.
The first plane landed Sunday night at Tampa International Airport with much fanfare. DeSantis and first lady Casey DeSantis greeted the 270 passengers, including 91 children, who stepped off the charter jet from Tel Aviv.
Only about 40 of the 270 passengers were Florida residents, and the rest were from all over the country, Stern said in an interview Wednesday. Seven people were moved from Tampa to Orlando.
Throughout the week, DeSantis’ team used his campaign account on X, formerly Twitter, to announce the mission’s progress. Never Back Down, a Super PAC backing DeSantis for president, also reposted news of the homecoming.
On Tuesday, DeSantis sent out a news release saying that two cargo planes were headed to Israel with 85 pallets of donated items. The manifest included medical supplies, clothing items, hygiene products and children’s toys, the release said. They both landed in Tel Aviv on Wednesday, flight tracking data showed.
Without any prior notification, another passenger jet with 48 passengers landed in Tampa on Wednesday.
Earlier in the day, DeSantis posted on social media: “A second flight bringing more Americans who were stranded in Israel back home has arrived. Florida has stepped up to assist our citizens in need.”
