President-elect Donald Trump is reportedly considering replacing Pete Hegseth as his nominee to lead the Pentagon with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
According to a Tuesday evening report in The Wall Street Journal, Mr. Hegseth, a former Fox News host, is still Mr. Trump’s choice, but Trump allies fear the Hegseth nomination might not survive much longer.
The Trump team “considers the next 48 hours to be crucial” to the Hegseth nomination, which has been rocked by mounting reports about sexual misconduct, drunkenness and other personal matters.
The Journal; cited “people familiar with the discussions.”
“The discussions are in their early stages, one of the people said, adding that Trump has floated DeSantis’s name in casual conversations with guests at Mar-a-Lago, his private Florida club,” The Journal wrote.
Picking Mr. DeSantis would be a major about-face for Mr. Trump, who derided the Florida governor for months as “Ron DeSanctimonious” for challenging him for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. Some in Mr. Trump’s inner circle strongly dislike Mr. DeSantis, despite the two men having buried the hatchet publicly, The Journal reported.
Mr. DeSantis also publicly said he was not interested in being Mr. Trump’s vice-presidential nominee, saying he’d rather serve out his remaining two years as governor of the nation’s third-largest state.
But like Mr. Hegseth, Mr. DeSantis would bring to the Pentagon chief post both a strong service record and a conservative desire to work against woke trends in the U.S. military.
The DeSantis team did not immediately return a request for comment from The Journal.
• Victor Morton can be reached at vmorton@washingtontimes.com.
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