The move is widely seen as a stepping stone for DeSantis, who appears to be inching himself toward a potential 2024 presidential run. The move, meanwhile, may also put the DeSantis team on deadline.

Under federal election law, campaign operations that spend more than $5,000 must report the transaction within 15 days to election officials. In the case of DeSantis, who has yet to formally announce a presidential run, the move may trigger that very federal reporting requirement. If so, it would provide tangible evidence of the Governor’s greater ambition.

Speaking Monday to reporters, DeSantis vaguely addressed the move during a press conference in Sarasota.

“When I became governor, I basically disbanded the political operation…” said DeSantis of his 2022 gubernatorial reelection team.

He later continued: “But as the attacks have ramped up, we’ve had to create some cover for us not only in our office but out there, so there’s a variety of things that go into that.”

All this comes after DeSantis’ weekend visit to Iowa. There, he rebuked the GOP’s “culture of losing” and assured voters that Republicans can retake Washington if they provide a “positive alternative” to President Joe Biden.

“We must reject the culture of losing that has infected our party in recent years,” DeSantis said.

Those remarks drew the ire of former President Donald Trump, who decries DeSantis as an unloyal ally. Trump indeed provided DeSantis with a critical endorsement in 2018, which thrust the then little-known congressman into the forefront of the GOP gubernatorial primary in Florida. 

“He was dead, dead as a doornail,” Trump told The Messenger. “And I revived him. … I’m a loyal person. If that happened to me, I would never run against the guy that did that.”