The controversial Florida governor taking on Mickey Mouse and Donald Trump – five things to know about Ron DeSantis
From a little league baseball star to the Republican Party’s culture warrior-in-chief, the rise of Ron DeSantis is impossible to ignore. Now, showdowns with Disneyland and Donald Trump loom on the horizon.
He has now entered the race to be the next US president, filing a declaration of candidacy with the federal electoral commission on Wednesday.
Under his watch, Florida has become a hotbed for so-called anti-woke laws such as the heavily-criticised “Don’t Say Gay” bill and a ban on teaching critical race theory.
The Sunshine State has also introduced restrictions on abortion following the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down Roe v Wade, enacting a ban on abortion after six weeks.
With DeSantis set to face off against Trump in the contest to be the Republican nominee, Sky News takes a look at five things you might not know about the politician who was once stationed at the notorious Guantanamo Bay detention camp.
He’s descended from Italian immigrants
DeSantis, 44, is Italian-American – in fact, all eight of his great-grandparents were born in Italy.
His mother’s grandfather was known as Antonio Rogers in America, but back in Italy he was Antonio Ruggiero – he changed his name after entering the US.
When it comes to immigration policy as governor, DeSantis has taken a hardline approach and has repeatedly and publicly clashed with President Biden.
Perhaps his most high-profile immigration decision was the state paying for 50 mostly Venezuelan immigrants to be flown from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts to, he claimed, highlight the crisis at the southern border.
Can DeSantis beat Trump? Pic: AP
He was a talented baseball player before joining the Navy
DeSantis was part of the Dunedin team in Florida that made it to the Little League World Series in 1991 – a version of Major League Baseball’s World Series for children aged 10 to 12 years old.
He then went on to captain the Yale University varsity team where he played as an outfielder and led the team in batting average.
Any designs on turning pro were shelved, however, when he attended Harvard Law School and went on to join the US military as a navy lawyer.
While his service records were redacted upon release to the public, it is known that he worked with detainees at Guantanamo Bay.
One detainee has since alleged that DeSantis was present while he was restrained and force-fed.
DeSantis denied authorising force-feedings of prisoners who were on hunger strike – something he said he did not have the authority to do – in a recent interview with Piers Morgan.
In 2018 he reflected on his time at Guantanamo Bay, saying: “Everything at that time was legal in nature, one way or another.”
Ron DeSantis while on deployment in Iraq
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He signed a ‘No Climate Tax Pledge’
It might be the biggest challenge of our time, but when it comes to climate change DeSantis has been inconsistent.
In 2013, shortly after he became a member of the US House of Representatives, DeSantis signed a pledge to “oppose legislation relating to climate change that includes a net increase in government revenue”.
Fast forward eight years and the now-governor of Florida unveiled a plan for the state to start addressing the effects of rising global temperatures, beefing up things such as coastal defences.
Ron DeSantis speaks during a tour of an area impacted by Hurricane Ian with President Biden. Pic: AP
Discussing the plan, he said: “What I’ve found is when people start talking about things like global warming, they typically use that as a pretext to do a bunch of left-wing things that they would want to do anyways.
“And so we’re not doing any left-wing stuff.”
And while he has assigned large amounts of cash towards dealing with the effects of rising temperatures, some point out that he is not doing enough to tackle the root cause: human-caused climate change.
He’s in a feud… with Disney
On 26 September, 2009, DeSantis married his wife, former newsreader Casey Black, at Disney’s Grand Floridian resort. Now Disney World is suing the Florida governor (for reasons unconnected to his wedding).
The feud has been going on for more than a year after Disney, in the face of significant pressure, publicly opposed the state’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill concerning discussion of sexuality and gender identity in classrooms.
DeSantis said Disney, which is one of his state’s biggest employers and its single biggest taxpayer, was a purveyor of “woke” ideology that shows inappropriate material to children.
Ron DeSantis throws marker pens into the audience after signing various bills. Pic: AP
As punishment for its opposition to the bill, DeSantis took over Disney World’s self-governing district that it used to run its Florida theme park, through legislation passed by lawmakers and appointed a new board of supervisors.
Disney is now suing DeSantis, claiming that he waged a “targeted campaign of government retaliation” and that the company’s free speech rights were violated.
He’s famed for stoking culture wars – and his ‘anti-woke’ agenda is having an impact
DeSantis’s crusade against all things “woke” has included banning public colleges from using federal or state funding on diversity programs as well as curtailing education about critical race theory, a way of thinking about US history through the lens of racism.
He chose to sign the funding bill into law at New College of Florida, a small, traditionally-progressive school in Sarasota.
A small group of protestors gathered outside the signing ceremony. DeSantis, as well as most of the speakers at the event, ridiculed them.
Laws limiting drag performances in Florida have been met by protest. Pic: AP
“You know, I saw some of the protestors out there. I was a little disappointed. I was hoping for more,” DeSantis said with a smile as his supporters clapped.
In May, the NAACP civil rights organisation issued a travel advisory for Florida over what it said was DeSantis’s “aggressive attempts to erase black history and to restrict diversity, equity and inclusion programs”.
Dr Bernice King, daughter of celebrated civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr, said her father would be “deeply concerned” about the “harmful, discriminatory legislation in Florida”.
The governor also signed a bill that will bar trans people from using public facilities that align with their gender identities and another that will restrict “adult” performances in front of minors. He said the latter measure was intended to limit drag performances.
DeSantis during a visit to New Hampshire. Pic: AP
But… does he have a chance at the White House?
It’s often said that the path to the US presidency runs through Florida (due to the state’s hefty weighting in the electoral college). But will it run directly from Florida to Washington DC in November 2024?
Recent polling has DeSantis consistently trailing former President Trump, with some indication that the gap is growing.
This is despite Trump’s various legal problems, including a jury in a civil case finding him liable for sexually abusing a woman in a department store changing room in the 1990s.
In one recent poll by the Harvard CAPS/Harris firm, Trump leads DeSantis 65% to 35% in a hypothetical primary matchup.
“DeSantis is announcing in a much more difficult environment than a few months ago but most voters believe he can still mount a serious challenge to…Trump,” Mark Penn, the co-director of the poll, told The Hill.
DeSantis reportedly told top donors that only he, Trump and President Biden are “credible” candidates to be commander-in-chief.
“And I think of those three, two have a chance to get elected president – Biden and me, based on all the data in the swing states, which is not great for the former president and probably insurmountable because people aren’t going to change their view of him,” DeSantis said, according to the New York Times.
Donald Trump has said he wants to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Un again.
Speaking at the White House as he held talks with the new South Korean president Lee Jae Myung, Mr Trump told reporters: “I’d like to meet him this year… I look forward to meeting with Kim Jong Un in the appropriate future.”
“I’d like to have a meeting. I got along great with him,” President Trump said, adding they “became very friendly” during his first term in office.
“We think we can do something in that regard,” he said, adding that he would like to help the relationship between the two Koreas.
Trump and Kim at the demilitarized zone in June 2019. Pic: Reuters
Mr Trump and Mr Kim held three meetings between 2018 and 2019 during Mr Trump’s first term and exchanged a number of, what the president called, “beautiful” letters.
In June 2019, Mr Trump briefly stepped into North Korea from the demilitarized zone (DMZ) with South Korea.
The US president on Monday responded to a question about whether he would return to the DMZ by fondly recalling the last time he did so.
“Remember when I walked across the line and everyone went crazy?” especially the Secret Service, Mr Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.
But “I loved it”, Mr Trump said. He added he felt safe because he had a good relationship with Mr Kim.
Mr Trump met South Korea’s Lee Jae Myung at the Oval Office on Monday. Pic: Reuters
Mr Trump became the first sitting American president to set foot on North Korean soil six years ago.
However, little progress was made in curbing North Korea’s nuclear programme, and Mr Trump acknowledged in March this year that Pyongyang is a “nuclear power”.
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Since Mr Trump’s first-term meetings with Mr Kim ended, North Korea has shown no interest in returning to talks.
The White House said in June that Mr Trump would welcome communications with Mr Kim.
The attempts at rapprochement come after the election in South Korea of Mr Lee, who has pledged to reopen dialogue with North Korea.
As a gesture of engagement in June, Mr Lee suspended South Korean loudspeakers blasting music and messages into the North at the DMZ along their shared border.
Analysts say, however, that engaging North Korea will likely be more difficult for both Mr Lee and Mr Trump than it was in the president’s first term.
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Since then, North Korea has significantly expanded its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programmes.
And it has developed close ties with Russia through direct support for Moscow’s war in Ukraine, with Pyongyang providing both troops and weaponry.
Mr Kim told Russian President Vladimir Putin that his country will always stand with Moscow, state media reported in June.
US rapper Lil Nas X has pleaded not guilty after being charged with assaulting a police officer while walking in downtown Los Angeles in his underwear.
The musician, real name Montero Lamar Hill, was taken to hospital and arrested after police responded to reports of a naked man shortly before 6am on Thursday.
The district attorney’s office said on Monday that Lil Nas X faces three counts of battery with injury on a police officer and one count of resisting an executive officer.
He was being held on a $75,000 (£55,457) bail, conditional on attending drug treatment. It is not immediately clear whether he had posted it and been released yet.
He is set to return to court on 15 September for his next pre-trial hearing.
Pic: AP
During the hearing on Monday, Hill’s lawyer Christy O’Connor told the judge he had led a “remarkable” life, adding: “Assuming the allegations here are true, this is an absolute aberration in this person’s life.
“Nothing like this has ever happened to him.”
A law enforcement source told Sky’s US partner network, NBC News, on Thursday that the Old Town Road and Industry Baby hitmaker punched an officer twice in the face during the encounter.
The source added officers were unsure whether he was on any substances or in mental distress.
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NBC News cited TMZ footage where Hill was seen walking down the middle of Ventura Boulevard at 4am on Thursday in a pair of white briefs and cowboy boots.
In the videos, Hill tells a driver to “come to the party” in one clip and in another tells the person: “Didn’t I tell you to put the phone down?”
“Uh oh, someone’s going to have to pay for that,” Hill says as he continues to walk away.
In some clips, Hill struts as if he’s on a catwalk, posing for onlookers, and at one point he places an orange traffic cone on his head.
A man who was wrongly deported from the US to El Salvador has been detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) again.
Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a 30-year-old originally from El Salvador, handed himself into the ICE field office in Baltimore, Maryland, for a check-in on Monday.
The visit was a mandatory condition of his release from federal custody earlier this weekend. However, in a court filing on Saturday, his lawyers said they expected Garcia would be detained again upon attending.
Garcia is charged in an indictment, filed in federal court in Tennessee, with conspiring to transport illegal immigrants into the US.
An emotional Kilmar Abrego Garcia appears outside the ICE Baltimore field office on 25 August 2025. Pic: Reuters
According to a court filing by his lawyers, immigration officials made an offer to Garcia to be deported to Costa Rica in exchange for pleading guilty to the charges.
Otherwise, they would seek to deport him to Uganda.
Pics: Reuters
Speaking at a news conference outside the ICE office on Monday morning, Garcia said via a translator: “This administration has hit us hard, but I want to tell you guys something: God is with us, and God will never leave us.
“God will bring justice to all the injustice we are suffering.”
Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, one of Garcia’s lawyers, also said: “There was no need to take him into ICE detention… the only reason they took him into detention was to punish him.”
A judge later ruled Garcia could not be deported after he filed a challenge asking to be allowed due process to fight any removal attempt.
Judge Paula Xinis ruled the 30-year-old must remain detained in the US until she can hold an evidentiary hearing – set for Wednesday.
She added there appeared to be “several grounds” for her to have jurisdiction to exercise relief, including that Uganda has not agreed to offer Garcia protections, such as being able to walk freely, being given refugee status, and not being re-deported to El Salvador.
After initially being detained in Maryland – where he lived with his American wife and children – by ICE in March, Garcia was sent to El Salvador, where he was then imprisoned in the country’s maximum security Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT).
This was despite an immigration judge’s 2019 order granting him protection from deportation after finding he was likely to be persecuted by local gangs if he was returned to his native country.
Garcia was first detained by ICE in March. Pic: CASA/AP
The Trump administration admitted deporting Garcia was an “administrative error”, but said at the time they could not bring him back as they do not have jurisdiction over El Salvador.
After eventually returning him to the US in June, the Trump administration detained Garcia on criminal charges that were filed in May.
The criminal indictment alleges Garcia worked with at least five co-conspirators to bring immigrants to the US illegally and transport them from the border to other destinations in the country.
Minutes after his release on Friday, officials notified Garcia they intended to deport him to Uganda.
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Homeland Security secretary Kristi Noem, US President Donald Trump, vice president JD Vance and other officials claim Garcia was a member of MS-13 – an international criminal gang formed by immigrants who had fled El Salvador‘s civil war to protect Salvadoran immigrants from rival gangs.
Garcia’s lawyers strongly deny the claims.
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