Even a speech loaded with familiar tropes can sometimes bring a novel insight.
In a rare window into his hiring process, Gov. Ron DeSantis says his personnel decisions are driven by people being “committed to the cause,” not necessarily committed to him personally.
“People come in and they’ll interview for something and they’ll be like saying … I’ll be loyal to you, loyalty and all this stuff. And I’d rather have that than someone say, I’m going to be disloyal to you, but that’s not really what I look for. To me, that personal loyalty can be fleeting, right? I could be best friends with you one day, and then something happens that I’m not,” DeSantis said Saturday in Washington, D.C., at the 2026 David Network Annual Summit.
“What I look for is loyalty and commitment to the broader mission and the cause. And if they have a pre-existing commitment to that, if they have the same fundamental values that I do, then I don’t really have to do much guesswork about what they’re going to do because their response to different issues that they have to deal with, subordinate to me, is going to probably be similar to the response that I would have. And so when they’re already committed to the cause, you know you put them in there and you know they’re going to get the job done. And that’s been very successful for us,” DeSantis added.
DeSantis’ insights here are worth watching especially given that a number of his appointees are running for statewide office. His words suggest that his political backing is not contingent on praise, but instead on ideological alignment.
Most of the speech dealt with DeSantis’ record and legacy in Florida.
The David Network describes itself as a “community of 4,000 professionals, alumni, and 2,000 students from 10 of America’s top universities interested in the values and policies that lead to human flourishing and freedom.” It includes Ivy League schools, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Stanford University.
