Ron DeSantis just can’t seem to drop the wannabe Trump routine.
The Florida governor will stage an Apprentice-style “extensive vetting” process to determine a replacement for Senator Marco Rubio, who is expected to serve as Donald Trump’s secretary of state pending confirmation.
“We have already received strong interest from several possible candidates … with a selection likely made by the beginning of January,” DeSantis wrote on X. “Florida deserves a Senator who will help President Trump deliver on his election mandate, be strong on immigration and border security, take on the entrenched bureaucracy and administrative state, reverse the nation’s fiscal decline, be animated by conservative principles, and has a proven record of results.”
DeSantis’s pick will serve until 2026. Trump’s daughter-in-law Lara Trump, Lieutenant Governor Jeanette Nuñez, Attorney General Ashley Moody, former Florida House Speaker Jose Oliva, and chief of staff James Uthmeier have all been floated as possible replacements for Rubio.
This is yet another example of DeSantis’s weak Trump impersonation, a futile attempt to sell himself to the MAGA base. He took the same position on Ukraine as Trump, has railed against critical race theory and transgender children, claimed that slavery was beneficial to personal development, and even tried standing like the president-elect.
And yet DeSantis has received nothing for his mimicry, not even Cabinet position. The governor continues to fade into the GOP ether as conservatives continue to choose the real thing.