MAGA supporter and U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL) received the “total endorsement” of President Donald Trump on Thursday if the congressman decides to run for Governor of Florida in 2026 — to replace incumbent Republican Ron DeSantis, who is term-limited.
President Trump is Making America Great Again.
I’m committed to working with him to Keep Florida Great.
Announcement coming soon! pic.twitter.com/Bimj712vIL
— Byron Donalds (@ByronDonalds) February 21, 2025
Gov. DeSantis and Rep. Donalds, the only Black Republican in Florida’s congressional delegation, have clashed over the years, most notably about the teaching of Black History in the state’s public school system.
In July 2023, the then-GOP presidential candidate DeSantis accused Donalds (who had endorsed Trump over DeSantis) of aligning himself with Vice President Kamala Harris by critiquing the state’s new standards for teaching Black history.
Donalds wrote that the new standards were “good, robust, & accurate,” with the exception of a new requirement that said students were to be taught that slaves learned skills during their enslavement that they later benefited from, which Donalds contended was “wrong & needs to be adjusted.”
While MAGA politicians including former Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz celebrated Trump’s endorsement of Donalds, Ron and Casey DeSantis unveiled a statue of America’s first president George Washington at the Florida Capitol building.
Note: It’s been reported that DeSantis’s wife, Casey DeSantis, is also considering a run for governor.
With the photos below, Mrs. DeSantis wrote: “In Florida, we proudly display statues to honor our nation’s history and teach the importance of our founding principles. Thanks to Mount Vernon for allowing the state to borrow this George Washington statue for the next year as we create our own.”
In Florida, we proudly display statues to honor our nation’s history and teach the importance of our founding principles.
Thanks to Mount Vernon for allowing the state to borrow this George Washington statue for the next year as we create our own. pic.twitter.com/DMTpfALQjG
— Casey DeSantis (@CaseyDeSantis) February 20, 2025
DeSantis supporters are replying with encouragement to the First Lady (“Run, Casey, Run!”), while others are objecting to the choice of statue in light of the Governor’s push to, as critics say, erase Black history.
Referencing the choice of Washington, as opposed to, say, Franklin or Hamilton, one replied: “Because he had slaves?”
Mount Vernon, the estate of George Washington which provided the statue of Washington to Florida, reports that the president’s home was “also home to hundreds of enslaved men, women, and children who lived here under Washington’s control.”
According to Mount Vernon: “As a young man, Washington accepted slavery, but after the Revolutionary War, he began to question it…In his will, Washington ordered that his enslaved workers be freed at his wife’s death. Unfortunately, this applied to fewer than half of the people in bondage at Mount Vernon…At the time of George Washington’s death, the Mount Vernon estate’s enslaved population consisted of 317 people.”
Below is a video produced by Mount Vernon, made possible by an anonymous donor, which it’s safe to say will not be shown in the public school system in Florida while either DeSantis is governor.
Note: Mount Vernon is owned and maintained for the people of the United States by the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association of the Union, a private, non-profit organization (501c3) founded in 1853 by Ann Pamela Cunningham. It does not accept grants from federal, state, or local governments, and no tax dollars are expended to support its purposes.