DeSantis’ actions in Florida served as an audition to be Trump’s defense secretary | Opinion

Donald Trump’s consideration of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to be his defense secretary offers a glimpse into the type of person the president-elect wants to lead the Pentagon: someone who’s willing to break with norms and use extraordinary force to deal with the nation’s problems.

As the Miami Herald and other news outlets reported on Wednesday, DeSantis has discussed with the Trump transition team the possibility of replacing Pete Hegseth, a Fox News television personality plagued by sex and drinking scandals, as the nominee for defense secretary. Trump is said to also be considering U.S. Rep. Michael Waltz, also of Florida, as an alternative, the Washington Post reported.

DeSantis’ record in Florida and his unsuccessful presidential campaign offer ample evidence of what he might be like as the top authority over the U.S. military, second only to the president.

As governor, DeSantis created his own militia-style Florida State Guard, and the Legislature gave him broad power to deploy it — outside of the state, all the way to the Texas border. He has long talked about problems at the U.S. southern border, and during his presidential bid, he advocated for sending troops to the U.S. southern border and using lethal force to shoot drug smugglers “stone cold dead” if they tried to cross into the country. The details of his plan were scant and he never fully explained how the military would differentiate between drug dealers and migrants. He also flew 50 Venezuelan migrants from the southern border to Martha’s Vineyard in 2022 in a stunt that caused a firestorm of publicity.

As part of his “Never back down” bus tour during the campaign, he said he would send U.S. Special Forces into Mexico “on day one” to fight drug cartels, something that could easily trigger a diplomatic crisis.

DeSantis has also vowed to end what he calls “woke” policies that promote diversity in the military, which Republicans have blamed for making the military weaker despite little evidence of that.

DeSantis’ tough stances are perfect for Trump, who helped the young governor get elected in 2018 before they became rivals in the Republican presidential primary and then apparently patched things up. That also likely means that we cannot expect DeSantis to be a check on the president-elect’s worst impulses. Would DeSantis push back, for example, on Trump’s suggestion to send the military after his political opponents — people he’s called the “the enemy within?”

“We have some very bad people. We have some sick people, radical left lunatics. And I think they’re the big — and it should be very easily handled by, if necessary, by National Guard, or if really necessary, by the military, because they can’t let that happen,” Trump said during his presidential campaign.

According to audio obtained by NBC News earlier this year, DeSantis expressed worries about whether Trump would have enough people around him to push back on potentially bad decisions.

“I think that how he staffs the White House, how he staffs the administration, will be really, really significant,” DeSantis said, on a call to supporters in February after the end of his presidential bid. “I think he likely is going to find people that are going to be more kind of yes men, rather than folks that are going to be pushing back.”

Trump has filled his Cabinet positions with loyalists ahead of his second term, not the traditional, establishment Republicans he nominated after his 2016 election, many of whom didn’t last through his administration.

This time around, Trump doesn’t appear to expect anything less than a strong allegiance to him and his MAGA ideas. DeSantis handled that role very well when he was a little-known congressman who won Trump’s endorsement to help him win the 2018 Florida gubernatorial Republican primary.

But now DeSantis has gotten used to having executive power and calling the shots in the third most populous state in the nation. Being defense secretary in a Trump administration means being at the mercy of the whims of a president who thrives amid chaos.

Back in February, he was concerned about too many “yes men” around Trump in a second term. It remains to be seen whether he will be one of them.

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