Donald Trump is reportedly considering replacing his current nominee for defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, with Ron DeSantis – marking the latest extraordinary twist in the rocky relationship between the president-elect and the Florida governor.
Hegseth, a former Fox News weekend anchor, has been hit by a damaging series of allegations about his past since being tapped for the role in November 2023, from a sexual assault allegation to alcoholism to Islamophobic slurs and the mismanagement of a military veterans’ organisation. Hegseth has denied the allegations.
But with Republican senators expressing disquiet about his candidacy and Hegseth’s mother putting in an appearance on Fox and Friends in a last-ditch bid to clear his name, Trump is said to be looking elsewhere to none other than his ally turned sworn rival turned ally again.
Trump and DeSantis were close allies during the Republican’s first term in the White House. Trump campaigned for DeSantis’s ascent to the governor’s mansion in 2018 and later took credit for his victory, only to then take against him once his star rose during the Covid-19 pandemic and he became a conservative favorite for challenging lockdown restrictions.
That tension erupted into open hostility and bitter taunts in 2024 when DeSantis ran against Trump for the GOP presidential nomination, only to crash out early in the primaries after failing to connect with voters.
Here is a timeline of their on-again-off-again relationship:
17 November 2018
DeSantis is elected governor of Florida, defeating Democrat Andrew Gillum.
Trump, who campaigned for DeSantis in person and on Twitter, loudly celebrates his victory as the latest demonstration of his own power and influence.
March-December 2020
While Trump bungles the federal response to the Covid outbreak – making empty promises about reopening early and speculating about injecting household bleach to fight infection – DeSantis recognizes that opposition to masks and social restrictions is becoming a culture war flashpoint and uses the mood to his political advantage, greatly enhancing his national profile by speaking out against lockdowns.
January 2021
Trump leaves the White House disgraced, twice-impeached and banned from social media in the aftermath of the Capitol riot, returning to his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach.
DeSantis, meanwhile, continues to make a name for himself, capitalizing on his pandemic popularity among Republicans by taking on LGBT+ rights and the local might of the Walt Disney Corporation, cheered on by a MAGA movement at that point looking for a less compromised alternative to Trump.
