Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, in his latest jab at GOP lawmakers who defected from his anti-illegal immigration agenda to side with legislative leaders, suggested he would support opponents to incumbents in the next primary election.

His comments, in an X post Thursday morning, also made clear he was personally committed to helping his successor get to the governor’s office.

DeSantis has at his disposal the Florida Freedom Fund, a political fundraising committee that he used to help defeat proposed state constitutional amendments from last year: Allowing adult-use marijuana and ensuring abortion access. Since its creation, it has raised $8.6 million and spent $6.5 million.

“The FL Freedom Fund was instrumental in raising huge sums of $ to defeat Amendments 3 and 4 in 2024,” DeSantis wrote.

“For the 2026 cycle, the FFF will raise even more resources (1) to ensure support for a strong conservative gubernatorial candidate and (2) to support strong conservative candidates in legislative primaries,” he added. “We need to elect strong leaders who will build off FL’s success and who will deliver on the promises made to voters.”

DeSantis followed up on that at a roundtable discussion in Palm Beach County Thursday morning: “Now’s the time to speak up. Now’s the time to be strong. And I can tell you … if you are running in the (2026) primary with this thing around your neck, you are dead on arrival.”

“Why should we be surprised? This has been his modus operandi. He takes no prisoners,” said Charles Zelden, a professor of history and political science at Nova Southeastern University in Broward County, who added that a threat to primary DeSantis’ antagonists was clear. “He’s playing political hardball.”

It would be a tall order for DeSantis to take on every Republican lawmaker who spurned the bills he supported.

The so-called TRUMP Act passed 21–16 in the Senate, with six Republicans voting against the leadership bill. It was OK’d in the House 82-30, with only one Republican out of the current 86 — state Rep. Mike Caruso of Delray Beach — siding with DeSantis.

Requests for comment were sent to spokespeople for House Speaker Daniel Perez, R-Miami, and Senate President Ben Albritton, R-Wauchula, who spurned DeSantis Monday by gaveling into and out of a special session he called, killing his bills, and reconvening in one they called.

DeSantis – and his online echo chamber – has made his ire known to the state’s legislative branch about their spurning of his immigration initiative, including preventing those who are in the country illegally from wiring money back home, for example.

He also has complained that the bill (SB 2-B) passed Tuesday doesn’t require “maximum cooperation from state and local law enforcement to participate in the federal deportation program,” and doesn’t “make it an enhanced crime for an illegal alien to register to vote.”

As previously reported, House Speaker Daniel Perez of Miami and Senate President Ben Albritton of Wauchula, both Republicans, quickly gaveled in and out of the DeSantis-called special session Monday morning, killing nearly two dozen DeSantis-approved bills that had been filed.

They then immediately convened their own special session to focus on their one bill, “Tackling and Reforming Unlawful Migration Policy,” or the TRUMP Act. Both lawmakers and DeSantis say they’re working to further President Trump’s aggressive anti-illegal immigration initiative. He’s yet to weigh in publicly on the Sunshine State political brouhaha, though his aides worked with legislative leaders to add stricter provisions to the bill.

But the most outrageous feature of the new legislation, according not only to DeSantis but his backers on social media, is its making the state’s agriculture commissioner, currently Trilby egg farmer and former state senate president Wilton Simpson, Florida’s chief immigration enforcement officer.

Among other things, that usurps the governor’s “supreme executive power” vested in him by the state constitution, they have said. But the two have had a rocky relationship, starting when Simpson was Senate president and DeSantis vetoed many of his budget priorities.

The governor has had three televised “roundtables” this week with supportive law enforcement officials, the latest in Palm Beach County Thursday morning, to decry what he has called the Legislature’s “weak” bill, and threaten to veto it on receipt. Lawmakers still hadn’t sent it to him as of Thursday morning.

This story contains previously published material. Jim Rosica is a member of the USA TODAY Network-Florida Capital Bureau. He can be reached at jrosica@tallahassee.com. Follow him on X: @JimRosicaFL.