‘Doing very well’: Trump ral­lies behind defense sec­re­tary pick Hegseth but invites DeSan­tis to Army-Navy game

Repub­li­can Gov. Ron DeSan­tis of Flori­da will join Pres­i­dent-elect Trump next week­end at the annu­al Army-Navy col­lege foot­ball game, two sources famil­iar tell Fox News.

The team­ing up of DeSan­tis and Trump — for the sec­ond time this month — comes as mul­ti­ple sources have con­firmed that the pres­i­dent-elect is con­sid­er­ing nom­i­nat­ing the gov­er­nor as defense sec­re­tary as a pos­si­ble replace­ment for Pete Hegseth, Trump’s embat­tled cur­rent pick to steer the Pen­ta­gon.

But the move also comes as Trump on Fri­day took to social media to write that “Hegseth is doing very well. His sup­port is strong and deep, much more so than the Fake News would have you believe.”

DeSan­tis, a pop­u­lar con­ser­v­a­tive gov­er­nor and a Navy vet­er­an who served in the Iraq War, waged a bit­ter bat­tle last year and ear­ly this year with Trump dur­ing a very com­bat­ive and divi­sive GOP pres­i­den­tial nom­i­na­tion race. But the two Repub­li­can heavy­weights seemed to make peace after the pri­maries, and DeSan­tis helped raise funds for Trump dur­ing the gen­er­al elec­tion. 

TRUMP CONSIDERS DESANTIS AS POSSIBLE HEGSETH REPLACEMENT 

DeSan­tis, who was re-elect­ed in a land­slide in 2022 but is term-lim­it­ed and can­not run for re-elec­tion in 2026, is “very much” in con­tention to replace Hegseth, mul­ti­ple sources told Fox News.

GET TO KNOW DONALD TRUMP’S CABINET: WHO HAS THE PRESIDENT-ELECT PICKED SO FAR?

Anoth­er source told Fox News’ chief polit­i­cal anchor and “Spe­cial Report” host Bret Baier that it was the pres­i­dent-elect him­self who float­ed the gov­er­nor’s name, and that Trump and DeSan­tis dis­cussed the idea as they met Tues­day while appear­ing togeth­er in Flori­da at a memo­r­i­al ser­vice for fall­en law enforce­ment offi­cers in Palm Beach Coun­ty.

The report­ing from Fox News and oth­er orga­ni­za­tions this week came as Hegseth con­tin­ued meet­ing with Repub­li­can sen­a­tors as he made his case for con­fir­ma­tion as defense sec­re­tary.

WATCH: HEGSETH PUSHES BACK AGAINST REPORTERS

Hegseth, an Army Nation­al Guard offi­cer who deployed to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and who pre­vi­ous­ly was a Fox News host, is fac­ing a series of drink­ing and sex­u­al mis­con­duct alle­ga­tions. He has denied alle­ga­tions that he mis­treat­ed women and has vowed that he won’t drink “a drop of alco­hol” if con­firmed as defense sec­re­tary.

A seem­ing­ly defi­ant Hegseth told reporters on Thurs­day after­noon that “this will not be a process tried in the media. I don’t answer to any­one in this group. None of you, not to that cam­era at all. I answer to Pres­i­dent Trump, who received 76 mil­lion votes on behalf … and a man­date for change. I answer to the 100 sen­a­tors who are part of this process and those in the com­mit­tee. And I answer to my Lord and Sav­ior and my wife and my fam­i­ly.”

Trump, in his social media post, argued that Hegseth “will be a fan­tas­tic, high ener­gy, Sec­re­tary of Defense … , one who leads with charis­ma and skill.”

The Army-Navy game is sched­uled for Dec. 14 in Lan­dover, Mary­land. It will be the 125th game in the sto­ried foot­ball series between the two mil­i­tary ser­vice acad­e­mies. 

Trump attend­ed the game as pres­i­dent-elect in 2016 and three addi­tion­al times dur­ing his first admin­is­tra­tion.