Jeanette Núñez, Florida's lieutenant governor, will likely replace Governor Ron DeSantis if he joins President-elect Donald Trump's administration as the next Department of Defense (DOD) secretary.
While the president-elect has already nominated former Fox News host Pete Hegseth to lead the DOD, allegations of sexual assault and drinking on the job have raised serious doubts over his ability to gain Senate confirmation. On Tuesday night, The Wall Street Journal reported that Trump was considering DeSantis as a potential replacement for Hegseth.
DeSantis, who served for many years as an officer and lawyer in the Navy and Navy Reserve, would likely face a far easier path to Senate confirmation. However, accepting a position in Trump's Cabinet would require him to resign as Florida governor.
Florida's line of succession dictates that the Sunshine State's lieutenant governor is next in line to fill the chief executive role. Núñez, lieutenant governor since January 2019, would serve as governor at least until the end of DeSantis' current term in January 2027.
Núñez would also appoint her successor for the lieutenant governor post if she becomes governor. Should Núñez be unable to replace DeSantis if he leaves office, the next person in line to become Florida's governor would be the state's attorney general, Ashley Moody.
If DeSantis is nominated as Trump's defense secretary and accepts the nomination, he would still go through the same vetting process that Hegseth will likely face if he remains the nominee, including a possible FBI background check and a public Senate confirmation hearing.
While DeSantis joining the Trump administration could bolster his standing among Trump supporters nationally, it would also take him away from a state where he already enjoys significant popularity and it is unclear whether the move would help or harm a potential 2028 presidential run.
Neither DeSantis nor Trump have publicly commented on The Wall Street Journal's report about the DOD secretary nomination, although Trump did complain that the paper was becoming "more and more obnoxious and unreadable" in a Truth Social post on Wednesday.
Newsweek reached out for comment to the office of DeSantis via email on Wednesday.
Several other outlets have since independently reported that DeSantis is under consideration, including the Associated Press, which said on Wednesday that three anonymous sources said DeSantis was "an option if Hegseth's nomination does not move forward."
Hegseth told reporters after meeting with lawmakers in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday that Trump still supports him "fully," insisting that he was "not going anywhere" and would not back out of the nomination.
Hegseth also denied reports that he had been summoned to Mar-a-Lago for a sudden face-to-face meeting with Trump.
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