Ron DeSantis trashed Donald Trump’s endorsement to succeed him as Florida’s governor—a shocking rebuke of the president as rumors swirl that his wife, Casey, is teeing up a gubernatorial run of her own.
DeSantis claimed Monday that Rep. Byron Donalds has spent more time campaigning out of state than he has delivering results for Floridians.
“You got a guy like Byron, he just hasn’t been a part of any of the victories that we’ve had here over the left over the last (sic) years,” DeSantis said. “He’s just not been a part of it.”
DeSantis specifically called out the lawmaker for not being in the Capitol when Trump needed his vote for the Protecting American Energy Production Act, part of his “drill, baby, drill” agenda. That absence from this month—in which Donalds voted by proxy against House rules—was so he could appear on Bill Maher’s show in Los Angeles.
”Donald Trump just got into office. I want these congressmen focused on enacting his agenda," DeSantis said Monday. “They haven’t done very much yet. They’re not putting his executive orders into place. We’ll see what they do on the spending, but we have such a narrow majority that to be trying to campaign other places and missing these votes, I think, is not something that’s advisable at all.”
DeSantis was himself the beneficiary of Trump’s endorsement in 2018 that elevated him to defeat the state’s then-agriculture commissioner in a primary before he went on to edge out Andrew Gillum in the general election. The 46-year-old will be termed out as governor after 2026.
Florida, driven partially by an influx of conservatives who moved south during the pandemic, has shifted further to the right under DeSantis’ leadership and is considered to be a safe red state. That means whoever wins the GOP primary will likely replace him in Tallahassee, barring a radical change in the state’s politics in the next two years.
It appears DeSantis doesn’t want to leave the governor’s mansion just yet, though. He has teased that his 44-year-old wife Casey should follow in his footsteps, and he propped her up again Monday in a press conference that announced Florida was creating its own version of the Department of Government Efficiency.
“She’s somebody that has, I think, the intestinal fortitude and the dedication to conservative principles,” DeSantis said of his wife. “Anything we’ve accomplished, she’d be able to take to the next level.”
The former Republican lawmaker Matt Gaetz, who resigned from Congress in November amid another sex scandal he denies, has also hinted that he might run for governor. He congratulated Donalds on the Trump endorsement last week, but suggested he thinks the president’s endorsement may eventually change in his favor.
“Byron is a great friend,” Gaetz told CNN. “I congratulate him for getting President Trump’s initial endorsement in the race. I’d also like to thank the 33 percent of Floridians who responded to a UNF poll with a favorable view of me. I think Byron was at 27 percent.”
Gaetz, 42, is a close ally to Trump and was briefly his attorney general pick before he was rebuffed by Senate Republicans who signaled they would not vote to confirm him.
Gaetz, if he hopes to overtake a Trump-endorsed Donalds, may need Trump to—at the very least—stay quiet about the gubernatorial race in his adopted home state.
For now, however, Donalds holds the advantage.
“Byron Donalds would be a truly Great and Powerful Governor for Florida, and, should he decide to run, will have my Complete and Total Endorsement,” Trump wrote last week on Truth Social, adding, “RUN, BYRON, RUN.”
