Ron DeSantis, a onetime rival of Donald Trump, has shown he’s willing to go to extraordinary lengths to get back into—and stay in—the president’s good graces, including forking over free state land.
The Florida governor, who briefly mounted his own 2024 presidential bid against Trump, has emerged as a key player in the push to have the president build a sprawling presidential library on a $67 million prime piece of Miami land.
“We gave away very valuable land to a billionaire for free,” Eileen Higgins said, according to the Washington Post. Last week, Higgins became the first Democrat elected mayor of Miami in 30 years. “That doesn’t make sense to me,” she added.
In September, a plan approved by DeSantis, 47, led the Miami-Dade College Board of Trustees to greenlight converting 2.6 acres of college-owned land into a fawning monument celebrating Trump’s time in office. The vote reportedly took less than five minutes, with the public only informed beforehand that the board would “discuss potential real estate transactions.”
DeSantis’s backroom deal took many by surprise, including some members of the college board of trustees themselves, the Post reported Sunday.
Roberto Alonso, vice chair of the Miami Dade College Board of Trustees, told the outlet that the governor’s office sent a letter asking for the land—currently used as a parking lot—without any explanation. Because Miami Dade is a state college, the board felt they had to comply.
“When I found out that this was exactly what the state wanted, it was literally right after we voted,” Alonso said.
Less than two years ago, Trump, 79, mounted a deeply personal and humiliating campaign against DeSantis, who was then viewed as a rising star in the Republican Party.
In January 2024, Trump slung baseless claims at a campaign rally that DeSantis wore heels and was perhaps gay or a pedophile, the New York Times reported.
Trump’s campaign spokesman Steven Cheung—now the White House communications director—doubled down on the escalating attacks. He once wrote in a news release that the former naval officer walked like “a 10-year-old girl who had just raided her mom’s closet and discovered heels for the first time.”
Many of Cheung’s attacks carried sexual undertones. He likened DeSantis to a “desperate eunuch,” at another point declared he had “cuck[ed] himself” in front of the entire country—sexual slang implying submissiveness—and accused him of searching for “new sugar daddies” to fund his campaign, the Times reported.
For his part, DeSantis was widely criticized at the time for his lackluster response. He dismissed Trump’s jabs as “juvenile,” insisting voters didn’t appreciate them—until those same voters forced him out of the race.
Now, DeSantis has seemingly reverted to full lackey mode, assuring constituents outraged by the land transfer that the proposed presidential library would be “good for the city of Miami.”
Ever the pushover, DeSantis said in September that he had tried to persuade Trump’s team to erect the library at Florida Atlantic University in Palm Beach County, about 30 miles from Mar-a-Lago, to no avail.
“But their preference was for this land, next to the Freedom Tower. So you’re going to have a presidential library in the state of Florida, which I think is good for the state of Florida,” he said, according to local news reports.
In October, a local historian sued the Miami Dade College board, alleging it failed to inform the public of the land’s intended use before approving the transfer. An elected, nonpartisan judge halted the project and moved to set a trial date for 2026. Still, last week, trustees again voted unanimously in favor of the library in an effort to invalidate the case.
Trump may follow Barack Obama’s model by establishing a private foundation for his library, shielding it from governmental review, the Post reported. He has said the project would be funded through private donations, including settlement money from lawsuits against media companies such as CBS, ABC News, and Meta, as well as leftover inauguration funds.
While DeSantis’ capitulation to Trump has yet to pay public dividends, there have been near misses. Last year, Trump reportedly considered replacing Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth with the Florida governor amid allegations of sexual assault, infidelity, and alcohol abuse ahead of Hegseth’s Senate confirmation.
The Daily Beast has reached out to the White House, the Trump Organization, and DeSantis’ office for comment.
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