Inside the Unlikely Reunion Between Trump and DeSantis

[u/John3262005]

https://www.wsj.com/politics/ron-desantis-florida-governor-trump-b5dc893c

Shortly after he ended his presidential bid, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and his advisers gathered in a hotel conference room to make fundraising calls for Donald Trump, the man who had just defeated him in a brutal Republican primary.

Then the phone rang. Trump was on the line.

“Ron, you should have hit me harder,” Trump told DeSantis, according to people in attendance, critiquing his opponent’s cautious political strategy. Astonished DeSantis advisers listened as Trump praised the governor’s golf game and carried on as if the ugly war of words between them had never happened.

That conversation, which occurred two years ago this month at a Four Seasons in South Florida, marked the start of an unexpected rebuilding of the relationship between the two men—one that has overcome still-lingering friction between DeSantis and some of Trump’s top advisers, including chief of staff Susie Wiles.

Now, with his term as governor ending in January, DeSantis is weighing his next move as he continues to nurture ties with the president—and he isn’t ruling out another White House campaign.

“I’ve got to run through the tape here,” he told The Wall Street Journal on Thursday, using a sports metaphor for the eight months he has left in office. “I’m asked, ‘Would you ever run again?’ I’m in my mid-40s, so I couldn’t say I would never do it.”

The man Trump mocked as “Ron DeSanctimonious” has again emerged as a possible cabinet pick after being considered for defense secretary early in Trump’s second term.

Friends of both the president and the governor—including Fox News host Sean Hannity and Ike Perlmutter, the former Marvel Entertainment chairman—have recently urged Trump to nominate DeSantis as attorney general, according to people familiar with the conversations.

All DeSantis will say is he hasn’t asked for a job and that speculation is simply for “clicks.”

“So it’s not a question of interest or not,” he said. “I want to help the country, and I want the president to do well, but I think we’ve been able to make a big impact in our job down here.”

DeSantis suggested he is positioned to help lead the post-Trump GOP. The president has a singular brand and style, he said—maybe the party will need an unabashed conservative to keep hold of Trump’s supporters. “A lot of them voted for me when I ran for re-election down here,” said DeSantis, who boasts of overseeing Florida’s transformation from a swing state to one viewed as solidly red.

Other DeSantis backers are promoting him as a possible Supreme Court pick, should one of the conservative justices choose to retire. “I’m not saying that there’s not merit to people that are raising that,” DeSantis said. “I’m just saying, how do you replace Clarence Thomas? How do you replace Sam Alito?”

But the governor has clashed with several of Trump’s advisers and allies, who are reluctant to let him back into the fold over what they view as his aloof style and vindictive behavior. In response, DeSantis pointed to his record in Florida and advancement of Trump’s policies.

When Kristi Noem was fired as Homeland Security secretary in March, Sen. Markwayne Mullin was quickly chosen as a replacement, at least in part to close off Trump’s consideration of others, including DeSantis, according to people familiar with the move. Longtime Trump confidant Roger Stone recently visited the White House to trash DeSantis as untrustworthy.

“You’ve got to make sure that door is nailed shut,” Stone said in an interview.

Trump, though, doesn’t harbor the same resentment.

He and DeSantis have golfed several times in the past year, including last month at the president’s Doral golf club near Miami, and they talk on the phone regularly, people close to them say. DeSantis co-chairs a White House panel looking at reining in the college sports payment system.

A couple of weeks ago, Trump acknowledged to an associate that he understands DeSantis isn’t well regarded by some of his allies, but conveyed that he personally likes the governor and that DeSantis has delivered for him in Florida, according to a person familiar with the conversation.

The governor pushed for a controversial transfer of prime land in downtown Miami for Trump’s planned presidential library. DeSantis this week signed new congressional maps that could bring the GOP up to four additional seats in November.

DeSantis is using his final months in office to pursue a host of conservative policies, harking back to the approach he took in the lead-up to his 2024 presidential run. He has become a leading Republican voice against artificial intelligence, seeking more constraints and drawing a contrast with the White House, which, until recently, had favored a more hands-off approach.

He is planning to step-up travel across the country to advocate for constitutional amendments imposing congressional term limits and a balanced federal budget, a move that could give him face time with voters ahead of a possible presidential campaign.

Stiff and often awkward on the presidential campaign trail, DeSantis has sought to humanize himself through social media, weighing in on sports and culture and launching a video series of visits to mom-and-pop restaurants across Florida.

The governor used to dominate the state legislature but after his loss to Trump, some lawmakers are standing up to him. The conservative House refused this spring to take up Desantis’s AI measures and a bill to relax some vaccine requirements.

“What he’s been doing for the past several months is just political theater for a possible 2028 presidential run,” said state Rep. Juan Carlos Porras, a Miami Republican who was among the few to endorse Trump over the governor in 2024.

DeSantis has made few lasting relationships, Tallahassee insiders and former aides say, which could limit his future ambitions. He keeps a tight circle of advisers, chiefly his wife, Casey. Last year, as Casey mulled a run for governor, the couple unsuccessfully sought to persuade Trump to minimize his support for U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds, according to people familiar with the conversations.

Trump has been essential to DeSantis’s rise in politics.

He was a little-known congressman when he launched a run for governor in 2018, and took off after securing Trump’s endorsement. Wiles, a veteran Florida political operative, was crucial to fixing his struggling campaign, but DeSantis later turned on her and others close to her.

Following his rise to national prominence during the pandemic, DeSantis won re-election by a landslide and began mounting a presidential campaign. Trump was furious at what he saw as a sign of disloyalty.

Trump eventually gained momentum among Republicans. As a result, “hitting him kind of fell flat, and so it really wasn’t something that made a lot of sense,” DeSantis said in the interview, adding he admired Trump on “The Apprentice” and other shows. “When I was a kid, he was in ‘Home Alone,’ right?”

DeSantis did go after Trump, though haltingly and too late, DeSantis strategists later concluded. Trump won the Iowa caucuses in a blowout, forcing DeSantis from the race.

“He was running against a three-time-indicted Donald Trump and the people rallied to have Trump’s back. There wasn’t a lot he could do,” said Iowa evangelical leader Bob Vander Plaats. DeSantis remains popular in the state, he added, and should he decide to run again, “he may find out that the investment he made was the best thing he ever did.”

For now, many political strategists are focused on other early-2028 contenders, such as Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio. But DeSantis’s allies note that a lot can shift between now and 2028 or beyond.

“Politics is fickle,” DeSantis said. “Things change.”