First Lady Casey DeSantis, the wife of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, denied on Monday that she would seek the governorship in 2026 after he leaves office.
The Republican governor addressed rumors at a Coral Gables event regarding his wife’s political aspirations. A hypothetical Republican primary for governor would favor Casey DeSantis heavily, according to recent polls.
Asked about those polls, DeSantis smiled and told reporters, “If I had to characterize her interest in getting into the political thicket as a candidate, I would say, I would characterize it as zero. But, you know, I think it’s because she has had a front-row seat on all the nonsense that goes on when you do it.”
The governor said that the First Lady’s successful initiatives, such as Hope Florida, which assists those on government welfare in returning to work, are the reason some have suggested she run for governor.
Casey DeSantis was a regular on the campaign trail as her husband, the governor, made an ultimately fruitless effort to win the Republican nomination for 2024. Many times, political watchers and supporters said that the First Lady was the star of her husband’s events because of her charisma and motivational cancer survival story. Sometimes the couple’s small children, who ranged in age from three to seven, would go with them.
Ron DeSantis addresses rumors about his wife First Lady Casey DeSantis’ political future https://t.co/hrGZsuv04S
— Fox News (@FoxNews) May 14, 2024
In a 2023 interview with Fox News’ Harris Faulkner, DeSantis emphasized that “humility” defined her as the first lady of the Sunshine State.
“I think one who looks at the role with a lot of humility,” Casey said. “It isn’t about me. It is about being in a position to be able to do good on behalf of the people of this state and hopefully of this country.”
Gov. DeSantis made headlines last week when his state filed a lawsuit against the administration after his Department of Education issued significant new rule changes to Title IX, accusing President Joe Biden of “abusing his constitutional authority.”
DeSantis took to social media to announce the lawsuit, stating that Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina were also joining the legal action. The lawsuit challenges the Biden administration’s alterations to Title IX, which include preventing schools from prohibiting biological males from participating in women’s sports, among other provisions.
“Florida is suing the Biden Administration over its unlawful Title IX changes. Biden is abusing his constitutional authority to push an ideological agenda that harms women and girls and conflicts with the truth,” DeSantis wrote. “We will not comply, and we will fight back against Biden’s harmful agenda.”
The Independent Women’s Law Center, Independent Women’s Network, Parents Defending Education, and Speech First, Inc. are also listed as plaintiffs in the complaint alongside the states, Fox News reported.
The Biden administration changed Title IX to redefine “sex” as “gender identity” and “sexual orientation.” It also mandates that schools make sure that students use the “preferred pronouns” of their classmates. Failure to do so could result in a loss of federal tax dollars.
Under the rule, schools are also prohibited from segregating or treating individuals differently based on sex, thereby permitting locker rooms and bathrooms to be designated according to gender identity, Fox reported.
On Monday, Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr declared the lawsuit, arguing that the change poses a threat to women and would undermine women’s sports.
“The Biden administration is destroying women’s sports by gutting commonsense provisions that protect female athletes and demanding that biological males be allowed to compete against females,” Carr said in a public statement. “Today we have taken action to defend women’s rights to fair competition, and we will keep fighting until we end this absurdity once and for all.”
According to the lawsuit, President Biden is accused of exceeding his authority by attempting to bypass Congress.
“While different administrations can have different policy views, they cannot override the text that Congress enacted in 1972 or overrule the binding precedent of this circuit. The Biden rule does both—to the detriment of the states, their schools, and their students. For a host of reasons, this new rule violates the Administrative Procedure Act and should be set aside,” the lawsuit reads.
Carr has previously opposed Biden’s Title IX revision, which was initially introduced in July 2022. He urged the NCAA to safeguard women’s sports by rescinding the rule permitting biological males to compete in women’s sports. Carr has also initiated comparable legal efforts in backing Arizona and West Virginia’s “Save Women’s Sports Act.”
Meanwhile, DeSantis and the state’s most famous resident, former President Donald Trump, have reportedly mended fences following their bitter breakup during the former’s campaign for the GOP nomination, which ended earlier this spring.
According to the Washington Post, the pair met privately in Miami, “breaking a years-long chill between the presumptive Republican nominee and his onetime chief primary rival.”
