'Concocting hoaxes': Casey DeSantis hits back at charity scandal claims

First Lady Casey DeSantis on Wednesday denounced the criticism about her Hope Florida charity program in her harshest terms to date, while maintaining that she remains open about a potential run next year to succeed her husband in office.

The DeSantises appeared at a Brandon church in eastern Hillsborough County to host a roundtable discussion about the virtues of Hope Florida, the social services initiative led by the First Lady that aims to help Floridians in need.

The program itself has come under fire following reports last month from the Tampa Bay Times/Miami Herald that the Hope Florida Foundation last year quietly and quickly moved a $10 million “donation” from a settlement with a health care company that the state contracts with to two nonprofit political committees that did not have to list their donors.

Those political committees then sent $8.5 million to Keep Florida Clean, the main group opposing the constitutional amendment that would have legalized recreational cannabis in Florida — an initiative that Gov. DeSantis opposed.

Claiming that Hope Florida represents one of the “only meaningful reforms” to the welfare state since President Lyndon Johnson’s “Great Society” programs from the late 1960s, Ms. DeSantis said it was “really disheartening and very sad, but not surprising, to see these slanderous false accusations hurled at Hope Florida in an attempt to undermine all of the meaningful progress that we’ve had on so many families across the state of Florida.”

“We are not going to be dissuaded by the critics who have been captivated by willful ignorance, and we will not allow any politics to drown out the voices of families who have told us over and over for the first time that they feel a sense of hope. Hope Florida is not a program,” she said. “Hope Florida is a movement.”

The governor and his wife have held multiple press events over the past two months defending the program and assailing Florida House Republicans and news reporters who have investigated it as having a political agenda.

The House Committee investigating the allegations ended its work nearly three weeks ago and, unless the federal government intervenes, the controversy may be over for the time being.

But those news reports have done nothing to boost a potential run for governor for Casey DeSantis in 2026. That’s led to questions about how serious she actually is about entering the race. A report published earlier on Wednesday in the Miami Herald speculated that the odds of her pulling the trigger are diminishing by the day.

‘The GOAT’

With Southwest Florida U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds already on the campaign trail and raising considerable money through his main political committee, a Phoenix reporter asked her on Wednesday where she stood on a possible gubernatorial candidacy for 2026?

“I get why this is a big conversation,” she acknowledged. “But I can also say it’s more than a year away from qualifying. I mean, I think we need to be thinking about what people put people in office to do, to try to make sure that they’re delivering on the promises that they told the people that they were going to do when they first got elected.”

She labeled Ron DeSantis “The GOAT” (Greatest of all Time), adding that whomever “he ultimately decides who should be following up after him should be somebody I think was obviously there for the people of the state of Florida.”

That person “should be in the mold of a DeSantis who’s willing to get out there and fight,” Ms. DeSantis said, eliciting a huge response from the approximately 100 people who’d gathered at the ARISE Church.

The First Lady’s comments bolster the notion that the governor is seeking a candidate he can fully back next year to maintain his legacy — someone other than Donalds, who has already been endorsed by President Donald Trump.

Other potential candidates, like former Attorney General Ashley Moody and former Lt. Gov. Jeanette Nuñez, have now moved into other positions and taken themselves out of the running — DeSantis appointed Moody to replace Marco Rubio in the U.S. Senate and Nuñez is interim president at Florida International University, soon perhaps to be president in full.

Fresh reports

The Miami Herald published a story earlier on Wednesday quoting Republican consultants (not all by name) who speculated that the combination of negative publicity around Hope Florida and Donalds’ Trump-backed candidacy was making it less likely that Ms. DeSantis will run to succeed her husband.

But Ron DeSantis blasted the story, asserting that the Herald had been “concocting hoaxes” when it came to reporting about his administration during the Covid crisis, “and so I’m very skeptical of discredited outlets in terms of what they do.”

A recent public opinion survey of Republican voters initially showed Casey DeSantis in a virtual tie with Donalds in the race for the Florida GOP nomination. However, after the voters polled were informed that Trump had endorsed Donalds, he took the lead over Mrs. DeSantis by 19 percentage points.