- Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida is in the hot seat for how he’s handling the coronavirus pandemic.
- Critics have said he’s been to slow to enforce measures to curb the spread of coronavirus, as he has refused to shut down beaches or implement a statewide stay-at-home order.
- DeSantis is an experienced politician with a legal and military background, having served as a prosecutor, congressman, and now, governor.
- Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.
Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida is under fire for his handling of the coronavirus pandemic.
The backlash began as spring breakers were spotted crowding Florida’s beaches. DeSantis refused to shut the beaches down, leaving the decision up to local governments. As of Monday morning, Florida is nearing 5,000 identified cases of coronavirus and DeSantis has yet to issue a stay-at-home order. For comparison, the governors of Ohio and Illinois respectively issued similar mandates for their home states at significantly lower confirmed case numbers.
On Monday, DeSantis said that he would sign a “Safer-at-Home” order for four counties, three of which have been hardest hit by the pandemic. But critics have said the restrictions still aren’t enough. DeSantis’ response is in tune with his party’s pro-business, small government stance – his way of trying to keep Florida’s economy strong in a time when a pandemic has sparked nationwide shutdowns, already crippling the economy.
In less than a decade, DeSantis, who has a military background, has served as a House representative, attempted to run for US Senate, and become governor, according to a Miami Herald profile of the politician.
A representative for DeSantis did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment. Here's a look at how DeSantis, who is backed by Trump, rose to political prominence in Florida.
Ron DeSantis, age 41 and a native Floridian, grew up in the Tampa metro area in a working class family.
"He was bright. He was very, very attentive," Dee Centinaro, DeSantis' first grade teacher told Emily L. Mahoney of The Miami Herald. "I knew he would do his work, I knew he would pay attention, and I knew I could trust him."
He went on to study history and political science at Yale before attending Harvard Law School, where he graduated with a JD in 2005.
DeSantis was captain of the baseball team while at Yale. He reportedly considered becoming a history teacher in Georgia before heading off to law school.
While at Harvard, DeSantis earned commission in the US Navy as a JAG officer. He remained in active duty after graduation, working as a lawyer in Guantánamo Bay and Iraq.
DeSantis advised troops on their legal parameters when handling prisoners, reported Mahoney. According to DeSantis' official website, he served as an adviser to a US Navy SEAL commander in Iraq in support of the SEAL mission in Fallujah, Ramadi.
His honors include the Bronze Star Medal for Meritorious Service and the Iraq Campaign Medal.
After leaving active-duty service in 2010, DeSantis stayed in the reserves as a lieutenant commander and served as a federal prosecutor on "sensitive military cases," according to the Miami Herald.
DeSantis advised active duty military lawyers on cases ranging from drug use to rape allegations, according to Mahoney.
In 2010, he married his wife, television host Casey DeSantis. The two live in Ponte Vedra, Florida, with their children.
They met on a driving range, according to First Coast News. "He's always been a guy that's been pushing me in the right direction to succeed," Casey told the local outlet.
They have a daughter, Madison, and a son, Mason, who are both toddlers. On March 30, they announced the birth of their third child, daughter Mamie.
Those who know DeSantis have described him as hardworking and efficient, although not the most personable.
"Former colleagues on Capitol Hill describe a hardworking but aloof congressman who walked through the halls with earbuds, effectively shielding him from interaction," wrote Mahoney. "Even when he's meeting with other politicians who might be prospective supporters, he'll scan emails and texts on his phone in mid-conversation."
She added: "Former coworkers have described a military-like efficiency and restraint as being core to his character, qualities that perhaps don't help him ooze charisma or connect with strangers."
But Casey is said to soften his "aggressive" demeanor.
Mahoney wrote that Casey's natural ability on camera has given "affability and eloquence" to her husband, telling stories about him and making him appear more relatable to the public.
In 2011, DeSantis wrote a book on American politics. His wife said it inspired him to run for office.
When he promoted the book, "Dreams of Our Founding Fathers," people told him to run for office, Casey told Mahoney. "And so lo and behold, an open congressional seat opened up in our backyard."
But not everyone was a fan of the book. Critics said that the book excused slavery and complained about women's rights.
In 2012, DeSantis was elected to Congress for Florida's sixth district after winning a seven-way Republican primary.
While there, "he quickly cultivated an image on Capitol Hill of sticking to a strict ideology," Mahoney wrote, citing DeSantis' fight for term limits, habit of sleeping in his office, and rejection of Congressional pension and health insurance plan as examples.
According to DeSantis' website, he refused the latter because he's "against special deals for politicians." His website also states that he fought to cut taxes, sponsor legislation that makes it easier for the military to prosecute sexual assault, and wrote a bill to end a secret Congress slush fund funded by taxpayers to make hush payoffs for sexual harassment.
He also fought for the No Budget/No Pay Act, which provided that Congress members wouldn't receive a salary unless Congress passed a budget by October 1, 2012.
As a US Representative, he regularly appeared on Fox News and became a familiar face to the channel's conservative viewers.
He was later endorsed by Fox hosts Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham during his race for governor, according to Segers.
While in Congress, DeSantis established a reputation as one of Florida's most conservative representatives.
In 2015, DeSantis helped found Freedom Caucus, a conservative congressional caucus in the House. Its ideology has roots in the Tea Party movement, and it opposed the Obama Administration's policies, threatening a government shutdown the year it was founded, according to TIME.
But according to the Pew Research Center, not all members of the Freedom Caucus are on the rightmost end of the spectrum. The caucus was established to help push House GOP leadership rightward on certain fiscal and social issues. It wanted to give committees more power on which bills could move forward.
In 2015, DeSantis announced he would run for Marco Rubio's Senate seat. When Rubio changed his mind about forgoing his re-election bid, DeSantis decided to run for re-election in the House.
"America needs a new generation of leaders to address the big issues facing the country," DeSantis had said in a statement announcing his Senate candidacy.
Rubio originally wasn't going to run for re-election but had changed his mind two days prior to the filing deadline for the primary ballot.
In January 2018, DeSantis announced his candidacy for Florida governor. By September, he had resigned from Congress to focus on his campaign.
He said it would be "inappropriate" to earn his $174,000 annual salary while on the campaign trail and missing out on congressional business, and thus resigned and gave up his Congress salary. The move was in line with DeSantis' "fiscally conservative persona," wrote Matt Dixon for Politico.
Trump endorsed DeSantis during his race for governor, calling him "a warrior." DeSantis, in turn, has become one of Trump's biggest supporters.
DeSantis supported Trump in an effort to unite the Republican Party to defeat Hillary Clinton, Segers wrote. He has since voted with Trump 94% of the time.
Trump tweeted his support for DeSantis and hosted a July 2018 rally for him in Tampa. DeSantis often used the endorsement as a talking point, Dixon wrote. His website during the campaign reportedly read: "Iraq Veteran. #1 Conservative in FL. Endorsed by President Trump."
DeSantis was also backed by GOP mega-donors like Las Vegas casino mogul Sheldon Adelson and Marvel Chairman Isaac "Ike" Perlmutter, according to Mahoney.
DeSantis supported the president during the Mueller investigation, often calling for its end.
DeSantis proposed an amendment to the 2018 spending bill that would defund Mueller's investigation in 2017 and pushed to impeach Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who oversaw the investigation, Segers reported. DeSantis reportedly "grilled" him in a congressional hearing.
But in January 2019, DeSantis signed an NDA with the FBI in exchange for a briefing on Russian hacking into Florida voter systems, which was revealed in the Mueller report, reported Marc Caputo for Politico. The about-face, wrote Caputo, didn't sit well with fellow Republicans, who called DeSantis' signing of the NDA a "misstep" and "cover-up."
DeSantis pointed his governor campaign toward Trump supporters. It received national attention for a TV ad that featured his toddler daughter building a wall with cardboard blocks. "Build a wall," he said in the ad.
The ad was an attempt to gain Trump supporters, according to Dixon.
In the ad, DeSantis is also shown reading Trump's book, "Art of the Deal" to another child and reading "Make America Great Again" to his daughter.
After winning the Republican primary for governor, DeSantis took a lot of heat for saying that Floridians shouldn't "monkey this up," which many viewed as a racist remark.
"The last thing we need to do is to monkey this up by trying to embrace a socialist agenda with huge tax increases and bankrupting the state. That is not gonna work. That's not gonna be good for Florida," he had said in an interview on Fox News.
Critics called out DeSantis, saying the phrase "monkey this up" was a racist comment toward his opponent, Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum, who would have been Florida's first black governor, according to Vox.
His campaign released a statement calling the accusation "absurd," Mahoney wrote.
DeSantis took the governor's seat in 2019. During his first three months on the job, he appointed three justices to the Florida Supreme Court — Barbara Lagoa, Robert Luck, and Carlos Muniz.
The new appointments secured a conservative majority on the court, a lack of which had "long been a source of frustration for Republicans," according to the Pensacola News Journal.
During his first year as governor, DeSantis made efforts to improve Florida's education and healthcare systems.
He formed four advisory committees: economy, education, environment, and public safety.
According to the list of accomplishments on the Florida government website, DeSantis has helped make record investments in the state's education system and created the Family Empowerment Scholarship Program for children of families with limited financial resources.
In healthcare, he legalized smoking medical marijuana, created the Patient Savings Act to help lower healthcare costs, took steps to lower the cost of prescription drugs in the state, and established the Opioid Task Force while securing over $120 million to fight the opioid epidemic.
DeSantis has been praised for his environmental efforts, especially for Everglade protection.
In November 2019, DeSantis proposed a $91.4 environmental billion budget. That includes $2.5 billion over the next four years to preserve the Everglades - a $1 billion increase in spending over the past four years and a record high level of funding for restoration.
The Everglades Foundation praised his proposed budget, but Aliki Moncrief, executive director of Florida Conservation Voters, said it needed more action "to invest in climate solutions," according to CBS Miami.
DeSantis has also established two environmental committees: the Blue-Green Algae Task Force and Office of Environmental Accountability and Transparency.
He's also received praise from disaster experts for his storm response, a contrast to previous Republican Gov. Rick Scott's response.
DeSantis provided televised briefings twice daily, avoided pushing for early evacuations, and reached out and listened to local emergency managers during Hurricane Dorian, according to local outlet Daytona Beach News Journal.
Scott had closed daily conference calls with disaster managers to the media, but DeSantis opened them back up to reporters.
DeSantis has held a stricter stance on gun rights than other Republican state lawmakers after the Parkland shooting, according to The Miami Herald.
DeSantis has said he wouldn't have signed the Florida Legislature's post-Parkland gun bill into law, which Scott did. It was Florida's first gun control measure in nearly a decade, according to The Herald. It implemented a three-day waiting period to buy gun buys and raised the purchase age from 18 to 21.
During Trump's 2019 impeachment trial, DeSantis established the Presidential Protection Fund — which was essentially a fundraiser for Trump.
"When I served in Congress, I fought back against the Democrats' witch hunts every single day," DeSantis wrote in an email blast, according to The Miami Herald. "I REFUSED to let them overturn the 2016 election and erase your vote from history. Now the Democrats are officially moving to impeach our duly elected president, my duty to protect him isn't over."
He added: "As Governor of Florida, I want the president to know that we have his back in this fight 100%, so today I'm issuing the Presidential Protection Fund to fight back against this disgusting attempt to overturn a legitimate U.S. election."
DeSantis is well liked by Floridians. As of February 2020, he had a 65% approval rating in the state, which extended across party lines and races.
That's according to a Mason Dixon poll. Hispanic, African-American, Independent, and Democrat voters showed approval in the poll, according to local news outlet Venice Gondolier.
But DeSantis has recently received criticism for being slow and reluctant to enforce strict measures during the coronavirus pandemic — particularly for not shutting down Florida's beaches during spring break.
"The message I think for spring breakers is the party is over in Florida," DeSantis told "Fox and Friends" mid-March. But DeSantis didn't make an official order, leaving the decision to close beaches in the hands of local governments.
After public backlash over the crowded beaches, DeSantis signed an order that will limit beach parties to 10 people per group and closed all bars and nightclubs in the state for 30 days. He eventually issued an executive order closing all beaches and businesses in Broward and Palm Beach counties, which are among the largest andhardest hit by pandemic, until March 31. But his office said governments will have the ability to enforce, relax, modify, or remove these closures as they see fit.
The New York Times has suggested that DeSantis is hesitating to enforce measures that may hurt the state's $86 billion tourism industry.
As of March 30, he has yet to issue a shelter-in-order place for Florida, saying, "This is not a virus that is impacting every corner of the state."
In a news conference on March 24, DeSantis called a potential shelter-in-place order "a very blunt instrument."
"When you are ordering people to shelter in place, you are consigning a number - probably hundreds of thousands - of Floridians to lose their jobs," DeSantis said. Florida's population tops 20 million.
"We have 20 counties that have zero cases at all and about 25 counties that really only have a few cases," he added. As of March 30, the number of counties in Florida without coronavirus cases has dropped to 16.
Ten Democratic members of Florida's congressional delegation sent DeSantis a letter asking for a shelter-in-place order, reported The Hill. One Florida attorney is even suing him for not closing public beaches statewide to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. Even some Florida citizens are angry, implying his lack of decision-making is leading to coronavirus deaths.
But Trump and the Florida Medical Association have both praised DeSantis for his coronavirus response.
In a news conference, he also slammed "reckless" New Yorkers for bringing the coronavirus to Florida.
In a news conference, DeSantis called out New Yorkers for getting on flights out of the city even though the state is under a shelter-in-place order, Business Insider's Taylor Borden reported.
"You're having people be reckless and cause problems for other communities," DeSantis said. "Tens of thousands have defied [state directives in New York] and so we're ending up in a situation where we're having to pick up some of those pieces.
DeSantis issued an executive order requiring everybody arriving from the New York, New Jersey, or Connecticut area to self-quarantine for 14 days. He said the National Guard would be stationed in major Florida airports and would ask passengers of flights coming from the New York area to self-isolate on arrival.
He later ordered the same restrictions for travelers from Louisiana. He's having the Florida Highway Patrol set up a checkpoint onthe interstate to intercept drivers, reported Mary Ellen Klas for The Miami Herald.
DeSantis barred the Miami Times and Tampa Bay Herald from attending a coronavirus press conference on Saturday.
Mary Ellen Klas, the Herald's bureau chief for the Miami Herald/Tampa Bay Times Tallahassee Bureau, said she was refused entry to a press briefing on March 28, reported David Smiley for the Miami Herald.
Klas she was told she was being refused access because she had requested "social distancing"at the governor's briefings. "I asked for social distancing. I didn't ask to be excluded," Klas said.
While a reporter from the Orlando Sentinel was admitted, reported Smiley, the decision to bar Klas elicited condemnation among media folk and some state lawmakers for "limiting access to information during a time of crisis."
On March 30, DeSantis said he would sign a Safer at Home executive order for Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach, and Monroe counties.
DeSantis said 60% of all COVID-19 cases in the Sunshine State are currently in southeast Florida, reported local station Local10.
"It gets all four counties operating under the same sheet of music," he said.
The order encourages people to stay inside and practice social distancing to help slow the spread of coronavirus, reported local station WPTV, but specific details of the initiative weren't immediately announced.