Tallahassee, Florida - Florida Governor and presidential hopeful Ron DeSantis is under fire after he defended a previous vow he made to "slit the throats of federal bureaucrats" if he wins the 2024 election.

On Thursday, DeSantis sat down for an interview with Willie Geist of MSNBC, who pressed the Florida governor about a promise he made to his supporters in August to "start slitting throats on day one" of "all of these deep state people" in government if he is elected.

When asked if he had "any regret" about his language, DeSantis doubled down on the comments, which he described as "colorful" and "a figure of speech", arguing that the US needs "to bring in serious accountability."

"Obviously, we're going to do that within the context of the rule of law in the Constitution," he continued, "But I want to make very clear to voters that I’m not just going to go up there and be nice about it."

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DeSantis' promise comes as he has made rooting out corruption within the federal government a key issue of his presidential campaign.

When he first announced he would be joining the 2024 race back in May, he was considered by many to be the only candidate that could successfully beat the party's front-runner Donald Trump.

DeSantis' campaign since has failed to gain traction with voters, and his second place position has been overtaken by former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley in recent polls.