DeSantis at Defense? What would a Pentagon run by the Florida governor look like?Over his political career, Gov. Ron DeSantis has sought to use force against Mexican drug smugglers, opposed attacking Syria, supported and opposed sending arms to Ukraine, been aggressively supportive of Israel and vowed to eliminate “wokeness” in the military.
If Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick as Secretary of Defense, fails to gain enough Senate support amid an array of publicized sex and drinking scandals, DeSantis might get the chance to put those policies into place.
The pick would be an unlikely one for the one-time allies turned political rivals. DeSantis was pilloried repeatedly by Trump and his backers when he ran against his former political patron during the GOP primary and dropped out early in the contest.
The icy relationship has thawed somewhat, though, since Trump’s victory last month.
DeSantis is a former judge advocate general (JAG) officer in the U.S. Navy, and served in Iraq and at Guantanamo Bay. He won a U.S. House seat in 2012 and was there till 2018, when he first won the race for governor.
While running for the White House last year, DeSantis argued he favors a middle ground posture between the Bush-era, pro-interventionist Iraq War ethos and Obama’s “weakness.”
“I also believed as I arrived in Congress that neither post 9/11 neo-conservatism, which represented a departure from traditional Reaganesque peace-through-strength policies, nor the fecklessness of the Obama administration, which merely invited hostility from America's adversaries, were desirable vessels for a successful national security strategy,” DeSantis said in October 2023, at an event held by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank.
Should he become Secretary of Defense, DeSantis would carry out policy set by Trump, but he would also be a key advisor in the Cabinet......
https://www.tallahassee.com/story/news/local/state/2024/12/06/desantis-secretary-of-defense-trump-pentagon-florida/76795455007/
