How a Medicaid scandal might upend the Florida governor’s race and profit a Trump ally | EUROtoday

Ron DeSantis remains to be the governor of Florida for properly over a yr, however the query of who will exchange him within the purple-turned-red state is already one of many greatest political questions for the Republican Party in 2025.

Now, a scandal involving the state’s Medicaid funds might upend the political profession of 1 GOP rising star earlier than she even pronounces her marketing campaign.

Casey DeSantis, Florida’s first woman and a former native newscaster, has lengthy been one of many names floated as a doable successor to her husband. The hypothesis about her personal political ambitions grew after she received a “2023 Stateswoman of the Year” award from the Sarasota County Republican Party, an award that different ladder-climbing politicians have sought previously — together with the present governor.

She has denied any plans to hunt political workplace however stays the plain favourite amongst her husband’s most vocal supporters within the state.

On X, the primary woman’s supporters (a lot of whom supported her husband within the 2024 main) continuously trash not solely Republicans within the Florida legislature who defy the governor, however the Trump administration, too. Wounds from final yr’s Republican presidential main stay uncooked, and a few followers of the third-place contender in his residence state don’t have any challenge with choosing aside the chaos and dysfunction reported within the second Trump presidency.

This warfare just isn’t one-sided, nevertheless, and the president struck a blow early this yr.

In February, Trump backed Congressman Byron Donalds, floated sometimes as a contender for House management and a favourite of MAGA Republicans. The Naples-based consultant started his marketing campaign for governor with Trump’s endorsement this winter — and has scared off most would-be challenges with the president’s help. Casey DeSantis’s supporters have naturally launched an all-out social media assault.

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Now, a rising scandal over a court docket settlement involving state Medicaid funds might drive Casey DeSantis’ would-be voters to again Donalds by tanking her run earlier than it even begins.

Hope Florida, a nonprofit group run by the primary woman, was the recipient of $10 million ensuing from that settlement, finalized final fall. The settlement, $67 in whole, was hammered out after state officers accused the Centene Corporation of overcharging the state for prescribed drugs coated by Medicaid.

Though Hope Florida is a gaggle that coordinates welfare organizations and doesn’t present healthcare providers, the settlement settlement directed Centene to make the donation in 2024 — which it did, to the Hope Florida Foundation. The Foundation, a separate group, promotes the work of Casey DeSantis’s group whereas additionally supporting the state’s Department of Children and Families.

But that cash by no means made it again to serving to taxpayers in any type. Instead, it was funneled by the Hope Florida Foundation to 2 political motion committees (PACs), which then, in accordance with Alex Andrade, a state Republican lawmaker investigating the cash, donated the very same sum to a 3rd PAC managed by Ron DeSantis’ former chief of employees James Uthmeier. That last PAC would go on to battle a poll initiative geared toward legalizing marijuana within the state final fall.

The convoluted chain of cash transfers had been “probably illegal,” in accordance with state Representative Alex Andrade, a Republican whose district consists of Escambia and Santa Rosa. He grilled high officers from the company overseeing the state’s Medicaid funding, the Agency for Health Care Administration (AHCA), at a listening to within the legislature earlier in April.

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Earlier this month the governor repeated a denial that any wrongdoing had occurred, whereas laying blame for question-raising story on Democrats, the media, and particularly opponents of his spouse’s potential bid within the upcoming main. A conservative tradition warrior, DeSantis has leaned closely on GOP distrust of established media shops in his state, just like the Miami Heraldas he seeks to color the quite a few Republicans elevating issues concerning the basis as liberal operatives.

“Some people feel threatened by the first lady. Let’s just be clear about that,” mentioned the governor in early April at a press convention in Sweetwater. “[I]f you’re looking at 2026 and you’ve got some horse [in the race]you don’t want her anywhere near that.”

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The governor additionally held to the protection that the $10 million allotted within the settlement was not tied to Medicaid prescription drug overcharging. DeSantis known as it a “cherry on top,” whereas the AHCA’s counsel would go on in his personal letter to assert the $10 million coated “other” damages and was meant to incentivize a settlement.

That rationalization took a severe blow on Tuesday. Local media shops in Florida together with the Herald and the Tampa Bay Times reported on a three-year-old draft of the settlement settlement figuring out the complete $67 million whole as over-billed Medicaid costs.

Andrade, in an interview with The Hill on Tuesday, blasted the primary woman as “incompetent” with Hope Florida’s funds.

“The fact that AHCA knew they were steering $10 million in Medicaid funds to this foundation is a serious issue,” Republican state Representative Alex Andrade advised The Hill.

He added of Uthmeier, now the state’s legal professional normal (after a DeSantis appointment): “It’s just galling. It’s shocking to me that he was that sloppy and that brazen to do what he did with that money.”

There are loads of questions remaining because the legislature’s investigation into Hope Florida continues, together with how a lot information Casey DeSantis had of Hope Florida Foundation’s dealings — provided that she was not listed as an officer on the nonprofit, as first flagged by the investigation.

But one factor is for certain: she and her husband are buying and selling insults with the identical Republicans she’ll have to win over if she does enter the governor’s race subsequent yr. That consists of Florida state House Speaker Daniel Perez, who endorsed DeSantis for president in 2024 however now says that the settlement settlement involving his spouse’s charity as one which “could be illegal.”

The governor realized the implications of not making ample allies in his residence state final yr.

The 2024 main was a Trump landslide made no more durable by the truth that many Floridian members of Congress endorsed the former-and-current president over DeSantis. Should the governor’s mud-slinging proceed, Florida could possibly be in for an encore.