Not long ago, Ron DeSantis controlled the state of Florida, wielding King-like powers in what on paper was a democracy. He had a supermajority Republican state legislature anxious to do his bidding, and a State Supreme Court, most members appointed by DeSantis, apparently afraid to get in his way.
DeSantis had set his sights on the presidency but soon found out he was no match for Trump when seeking the Republican nomination. He and Trump relied on much of the same base, but their loyalty was to Donald. MAGA didn’t take kindly to even mild criticism of Trump, and DeSantis was put in the corner when Florida politicians turned out to be more afraid of Trump than DeSantis and gave their support to Donald.
DeSantis is in his second term as Florida governor and is term-limited from running again. He was forced to consider his political future after Trump's victory in the 2024 presidential election. Trump dangled the Secretary of Defense position before DeSantis before ultimately selecting someone with a known alcohol problem who likes sharing secrets on Signal chats. Trump created a US Senate vacancy when he made Senator Marco Rubio his Secretary of State. The remainder of Rubio’s term would be filled by an appointment by DeSantis, who could have appointed himself. After weeks of contemplation, DeSantis ultimately picked his state attorney general, Ashley Moody.
Congressman Byron Donalds announced he would run for Governor in 2026 to replace DeSantis. There is no love lost between the pair, as Donalds was the first member of the Florida congressional delegation to endorse Trump over DeSantis during the presidential primaries. Donalds badmouthed DeSantis loud and often, and the thought of Donalds sitting in the governor's chair must annoy DeSantis to no end. I probably should bring up Donald's past as a drug dealer, but Republicans don’t seem to mind.
Let’s talk about the DeSantis streak of bad news. It seems that since they found out he wasn’t going to be president, the Florida Legislature stopped doing his bidding and began treating him like a lame duck. They refused to enact some bills DeSantis wanted and balked at a special session on immigration. In their mind, DeSantis would soon be gone and they would still be there.
DeSantis decided the best candidate to fill the upcoming vacancy as governor would be his wife, Casey. He thought he would kickstart her campaign with a $10 million donation to her Hope Florida foundation. That money was part of a $67 million settlement where Florida had overpaid for prescription drugs. In theory, there is no way a refund to the state should end up in private hands, but here we are. DeSantis tried to bully those involved into seeing this as a non-issue, but it’s only picking up steam.
More bad news for DeSantis came when his former communications director, Frederick Piccolo, Jr., was found to have been sort of arrested on three charges of indecent exposure. Piccolo had been hired as the communications director for New College, the state school DeSantis was trying to mold in his image.
While still working for the State of Florida, Piccolo was charged in October 2024, in Sarasota County by 12th Circuit State Attorney Ed Brodsky. They stemmed from incidents in August and September at the University Town Center Mall, where female employees at Banana Republic and Dillard’s alleged that Piccolo exposed himself and, in one case, was seen masturbating in a fitting room. Rather than arresting Piccolo, the Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office filed non-arrest affidavits. Because those charges did not involve arrests or fingerprints, the FDLE background search did not pick them up — a limitation acknowledged on FDLE’s website, which states that results may return “no record” if the person “has never been arrested or fingerprinted for a serious offense in Florida.”
Piccolo was fired from New College on April 16, one day after his arrest by the Manatee County Sheriff’s Office on exposure of sexual organs, after a second subsequent offense — a third-degree felony. That charge stemmed from a March 28 incident in which he allegedly stopped his vehicle while wearing nothing but a T-shirt and exposed himself to a Manatee County woman after asking her for directions.
Piccolo came to New College with recommendations from Florida State University System Chancellor Ray Rodriguez, New College President Richard Corcoran and state Rep. Danny Burgess, R-Zephyrhills. DeSantis is currently deflecting questions about his knowledge of Piccolo’s activities and whether the state helped to prevent earlier arrests and fingerprinting, which would affect future employment prospects.
The Ron DeSantis strategy to stay relevant seems to rely on sucking up to Donald Trump. He created his own DOGE for Florida and is going hard on deporting immigrants. State troopers recently arrested an American with a Georgia birth certificate, apparently for crossing the state line to work while looking like an immigrant. Even after proving his citizenship, Lopez Gomez spent days in custody because of a 48-hour ICE hold not supposed to apply to citizens. DeSantis was exposed as troopers were making arrests under a law a federal judge had put on hold, which DeSantis apparently ignored.
“No one should be arrested under that law, let alone a U.S. citizen," said Alana Greer, Florida Immigrant Coalition. "They saw this person, he didn’t speak English particularly well, and so they arrested him and charged him with this law that no one should be charged with.”
It seems in the case of Ron DeSantis, if it wasn’t for bad news, there would be no news at all. It couldn’t happen to a more deserving person.