‘Rumor and conjecture’: Trump reportedly considers South Florida Democrat Jared Moskowitz to head FEMA

U.S. Rep. Jared Moskowitz, the Broward-Palm Beach county Democrat, is reportedly under consideration by President-elect Donald Trump to head the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

CNN reported that Moskowitz “is a top contender” for FEMA administrator during the coming Trump administration, citing “two people with knowledge of the president-elect’s consideration.” It said “another person close to the Trump transition team confirmed Moskowitz is in the mix.”

Moskowitz tamped down the speculation via text Tuesday morning. “All rumor and conjecture. I have no plans on leaving Congress.”

His comment allows for plans to change. People close to Moskowitz either didn’t respond or declined to comment.

Moskowitz has been sending positive signals toward the incoming administration since the election, though he’s been a fierce Trump critic in the past.

During the 2022 Democratic congressional primary, he was unequivocal. “Donald Trump is the gravest threat to this country and democracy everywhere, and every Democrat in this country must ensure he never returns to power,” Moskowitz said.

He introduced legislation to change the name of the federal prison in Miami to the Donald J. Trump Federal Correctional Institution after Republicans sought to rename Washington Dulles International Airport after Trump.

“Everyone knows President Trump loves to write his name in gold letters on all his buildings,” Moskowitz said in an April statement. “But he’s never had his name on a federal building before and as a public servant I just want to help the former president. Help us make that dream a reality.”

Since the election, Moskowitz has extended olive branches toward the incoming administration.

As soon as Trump appointed Florida’s Susie Wiles as his White House chief of staff, Moskowitz praised the move on social media. “She is brilliant, tough, strategic. She will serve the country well,” Moskowitz wrote.

When Trump nominated then-U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz, the Panhandle Republican, Moskowitz appeared on cable TV to describe his colleague as “fiercely competent” — and revealed that Gaetz helped him get appointed state emergency management director in 2019.

And Moskowitz became the first Democrat to join the DOGE caucus, a Republican effort to show support for the incoming Trump administration’s effort to slash government spending, improve efficiency and cut regulations. DOGE stands for a committee led by billionaire Elon Musk and businessman Vivek Ramaswamy that they’re calling “Department of Government Efficiency.”

Disaster experience

In 2023, Moskowitz introduced legislation that would have made FEMA an independent agency, pulling it out of the Department of Homeland Security. Under that scenario, if it ever became law, the agency administrator would report directly to the president, not to the secretary of homeland security.

And he’s pushed for additional funding for the agency to more effectively respond to natural disasters.

Moskowitz has relevant disaster and political experience.

He ran the Florida Division of Emergency Management during most of Gov. Ron DeSantis’ first term, and was widely seen as effective in the role. He was at the forefront of the state’s response to the COVID pandemic, and even changed his social media handle to “Jared MASKowitz” at the height of the crisis.

He earlier was general counsel for AshBritt Inc., a national disaster response company based in Deerfield Beach.

It also gave him experience working in an important job, often in high-stress situations, as a Democrat working for a Republican elected official with a strong personality.

The DeSantis-Moskowitz pairing worked. DeSantis later appointed Moskowitz to fill a vacancy on the Broward County Commission.

And when the governor’s office drew a new map of congressional district lines and told a compliant state Legislature to approve it, the 23rd Congressional District it created aided a Moskowitz victory because of territory included in its boundaries.

Helping Republicans

If Trump appoints Moskowitz, and the congressman accepts, the move would be a political gift for Republicans.

It would immediately reduce the Democratic ranks by one vote in the House, where Republican control is exceedingly tight. Republicans will start the new Congress on Jan. 3 with a 219-215 majority, but Trump also has tapped two Republicans for administration roles, which would reduce the majority to 217 until special elections are held.

More significantly in the longer term, a Republican could easily win a special election to fill a vacancy in Florida’s 23rd Congressional District, which takes in northern Broward and much of the coast extending south through most of Fort Lauderdale and a share of southern Palm Beach County.

Moskowitz won his two elections by the smallest margins of any congressional victory in the state. He received 52.5% of the vote in November, two years after he won his first term in the House with 51.6% of the vote.

Trump lost the district by 2 percentage points and won by 1 percentage point in 2022, showing the territory is competitive.

Many potential contenders could emerge. Among them are former state Sen. Lauren Book, a Broward Democrat, and at least another half-dozen current Democratic state legislators and county commissioners.

On the Republican side, contenders could include state Rep. Chip LaMarca, the only Republican elected to a partisan office from Broward County, and Joe Kaufman, who lost the November election to Moskowitz and has previously run for Congress several times elsewhere in Broward.

Moskowitz background

There are parts of Moskowitz’s background that some Trump supporters wouldn’t like.

In the House, he has been a fierce Democratic partisan in events held by the Republican led House Oversight Committee, where he has defended President Joe Biden and sparred with Committee Chair James Comer.

When he was a state representative from northwest Broward, he was instrumental in passage of Florida’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas School Safety Act, passed after the massacre at the Parkland school. It raised the age to purchase a rifle from 18 to 21, created a statewide waiting period for long-gun sales and made it easier for law enforcement to seize weapons from people suspected of being dangerous, provisions that are anathema to many in the Republican Party base.

Moskowitz, a former Parkland city commissioner, is a graduate of Stoneman Douglas.

He was endorsed for Congress by a range of major environmental, labor and anti-gun violence organizations along with prominent figures including former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Given the DeSantis appointments, Moskowitz’s main challenger in the 2022 Democratic primary, Ben Sorensen, as well as some Democratic activists, expressed concerns that Moskowitz wouldn’t sufficiently stand up to Republicans.

Then U.S. Rep. Ted Deutch, the longtime Democrat in the district who wasn’t running for reelection, defended Moskowitz’s Democratic bona fides on social media. “Suggesting that Jared Moskowitz is a supporter of Donald Trump or Ron DeSantis or their policies is unfair and untrue. Jared is a lifelong Democrat fighting for Democratic values.”

Moskowitz said at the time that, “I’m the only one who has fought Republicans in the arena, and knows what we’re up against. I mean democracy is on the line. This is serious. Republicans have undermined the media, they’ve undermined truth, they’ve undermined democracy,” Moskowitz said. “I have seen behind the curtain, by the way, and what’s going on in the Republican side, and it is scary.”

Earlier this year, he endorsed Torey Alston, a Republican candidate for Broward School Board. Alston was appointed by DeSantis along with Moskowitz to fill County Commission vacancies. Moskowitz withdrew the endorsement under pressure from outraged Democrats; Alston lost the election.