Gov. Ron DeSantis, R-Florida, announced at a press conference Thursday that he will appoint Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody to fill the seat vacated by Sen. Marco Rubio, who President-elect Donald Trump has nominated to serve as his secretary of state.
Rubio, a conventionally hawkish Republican and supporter of NATO, is less controversial than some of Trump's other picks and is expected to easily win confirmation with Democratic support.
"I'm ready to show up and fight for this nation and fight for President Trump to deliver the America first agenda on day one," Moody said Thursday, CBS News reported.
As his state's chief executive, DeSantis is responsible for appointing Rubio's replacement until a special election is held in 2026, the winner of which will serve out the remainder of the term, which ends in 2029. Earlier in the process there were reports that Trump was pressuring DeSantis to choose his daughter-in-law and former Republican National Committee chair Lara Trump, but she took her name out of consideration in December.
Moody first entered public office in 2006, when she was elected to the Thirteenth Judicial Circuit Court of Florida. She resigned in 2018 to run for Florida's attorney general and won re-election in 2022. During her tenure, Moody supported efforts to overturn the Affordable Care Act, opposed the legalization of recreational marijuana and joined a lawsuit that supported Trump's efforts to subvert the 2020 election results.
