Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody will head to Washington, D.C., serving in the U.S. Senate.
Gov. Ron DeSantis announced the U.S. Senate appointment Thursday morning. Moody will succeed Marco Rubio, who was tapped by President-elect Donald Trump to serve as Secretary of State.
The governor said the 49-year-old Plant City native has not once let him down in her six years as Florida’s Attorney General. He lauded her work on immigration and “putting Americans first,” her approach on resisting China and supporting Israel and her commitment to combating President Joe Biden’s administration through lawsuits on border policies, the environment, and social and governance rules.
DeSantis said his pool of options, which included U.S. Rep. Kat Cammack, R-Gainesville, and Republican National Committee co-chair Lara Trump, was an intriguing bunch, but he needed an appointee with Moody’s extended record of results.
This record includes her aid in the state GOP’s successful defeat of 2024 state constitutional amendments that would legalize recreational marijuana and expand abortion rights. Neither garnered the 60% approval needed by Florida law to pass.
The governor also applauded her response to COVID-19 mandates.
“When COVID was raging, few across this country were willing to stand up,” he said. “We in Florida established our state as a beachhead of liberty – as the free state of Florida – and she was with us every step of the way.”
Moody, who had only known about the appointment since Wednesday evening, said she is ready to back President-elect Donald Trump from the moment she is sworn in.
“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,” she said at Thursday’s press conference in Orlando’s Rosen Plaza Hotel.
She once became the youngest state circuit court judge, after a 2006 election victory in Hillsborough County. She became Florida’s Attorney General in 2019.
She has grown as a key player in protecting the DeSantis administration’s conservative agenda and joined other red states in challenging the Biden administration – suing over student forgiveness and vaccine mandates for federal contractors.
Now, she heads to the nation’s capital with an urge to lessen federal government spending, push bureaucrats further away from decision making, and according to DeSantis, vote to defund the United Nations.
"The only way to return this country to the people – the people who govern it – is to make sure we have a strong Congress doing its job, passing laws and actually approving the regulations that these unelected bureaucrats are trying to cram down on the American people," she said.
Moody promised to have the backs of the American people, Trump and the Department of Government Efficiency, which is led in part by billionaire Elon Musk.
Just the second woman to represent Florida in the U.S. Senate, Moody will join a national scene stamped by the state’s presence. Her Florida attorney general predecessor Pam Bondi is Trump’s pick for United States attorney general, and her Senate predecessor Marco Rubio is slated as secretary of state.
The governor hinted that Florida’s next attorney general will be his Chief of Staff James Uthmeier
“I think he’s got big shoes to fill, but I think he’ll do a good job,” he said of Uthmeier.
Moody’s Senate seat will be on the ballot in 2026.
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