Rising star of the Republicans, Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida, has made his state a laboratory for conservative ideas. Particularly tough on issues of immigration, gender or even abortion, the forty-year-old traces his path with the main objective of conquering the White House in 2024.
He should also announce his candidacy for the US presidential election in 2024 this Wednesday, May 24 during a live conversation on Twitter with Elon Musk, a source close to AFP told AFP on Tuesday. This information was quickly confirmed by the boss of the social network. "I'm going to interview Ron DeSantis and he has a hell of an announcement to make," he said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal. The conversation between the two men is scheduled for Wednesday at 6 p.m. Washington time (2200 GMT), and will be moderated by Republican businessman David Sacks.
This declaration would be made to the chagrin of Donald Trump. The 44-year-old former naval officer, who shares the billionaire's ideas but not the excesses, is the former president's main obstacle on his road to the Republican nomination. Triumphantly re-elected as head of Florida, Ron DeSantis makes the headlines almost daily in American newspapers, caught up in his fight against supposed "well-thinking".
Born into a middle-class family of Italian origins, Ron DeSantis graduated from the prestigious Yale University – where he also distinguished himself on the baseball team – and from the demanding Harvard Law School. He practiced law in the military, serving as an adviser at the Guantanamo base and to elite troops in Iraq. Quite quickly, he positioned himself as a pure and hard conservative. In 2011, he published The Dreams of Our Founding Fathers – in reference to Barack Obama's autobiography, My Father's Dreams. Ron DeSantis criticizes the Democratic president for having broken, because of his "progressive" vision, with the Constitution.
In 2012, Ron DeSantis won a seat in the House of Representatives, to which he was re-elected twice. In 2018, he became governor with a slim majority after having multiplied the signs of allegiance to Donald Trump. In a campaign clip, he climbs a wall of colored cubes with his daughter, in reference to the Republican president's project on the border with Mexico. Almost unknown to the battalion before this surprise victory, he made a name for himself on a national scale during the Covid-19 pandemic with a discourse hostile to health measures.
Ron DeSantis also recently joined the Republican governors of Texas and Arizona in sending migrants to Democratic cities in the north and east of the country. A radical positioning, therefore, but no personal exuberance. With his wife Casey, a former television presenter who advises him closely, and their three children Madison, Mason and Mamie, he strives to soften a cold image. "The problem with DeSantis is that he would need to have personality transplanted," Donald Trump recently mocked on his network, Truth Social.
An anecdote comes up in the press to illustrate his penchant for solitude: Ron DeSantis, at the Capitol, roamed the halls with wireless headphones pushed into his ears, to discourage any impromptu conversation. Stiff, aloof… but pragmatic, plead his supporters, taking as an example his handling of a catastrophic hurricane in his state, Ian.
Brilliant student, offspring of the middle class who made himself, devoted husband who supported his wife in the face of breast cancer, decorated veteran… The glowing portrait of Ron DeSantis by his supporters has everything to exasperate Donald Trump. The former president, follower of vexing nicknames, wanted to launch against the Catholic governor of Florida that of "Ron DeSanctimonius", which can be translated as "Ron-la-Morale" or "Ron-choirboy" . No big response so far.
