Gov. Ron DeSantis and Attorney General James Uthmeier said Tuesday that a state board made up of the governor and the Florida Cabinet will vote to dedicate land at Miami Dade College next to the Freedom Tower to house the presidential library of Donald Trump.
Their announcement came shortly after the Miami Dade College’s Board of Trustees approved the transfer of property earlier on Tuesday, as reported by the Miami Herald.
The governor’s office said in a press release that he and the Cabinet, meeting as the Board of Trustees of the Internal Improvement Trust Fund, will propose an item to convey a 2.63 acre parcel for the Donald J. Trump Presidential Library. That board consists of the governor, the attorney general, the chief financial officer, and the commissioner of agriculture. It is responsible for the acquisition, management, protection, and disposition of state lands.
All are elected independently statewide and all are Republicans.
“President Trump has achieved results for the American people and made a lasting impact on our nation’s history,” DeSantis said in a press release. “No state has better delivered the President’s agenda than the Free State of Florida, and we would be honored to house his presidential library here in his home state.”
“I’ll be voting yes!” Uthmeier added in a video posted on X. “Surviving two assassination attempts, securing the border, and rebuilding our nation’s military are just a few stories this great library will tell.”
The video goes on to show Uthmeier walking near the Freedom Tower, located on Biscayne Boulevard in downtown Miami. The Freedom Tower was added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places in 1979, and declared a U.S. National Historic Landmark in 2008 for its role in hosting people fleeing communist Cuba for Florida following the 1959 Cuban revolution.
“I can think of no better location to tell the story of Donald Trump,” Uthmeier says in the video. “A story of strength. One of redemption, one of victory, and one of sacrifice for the American people. It is the greatest political comeback story in history.”
Uthmeier is running unopposed for the Republican nomination of attorney general but has not been endorsed by the president ahead of the 2026 election. There has been speculation that “people close to Trump” have been courting Florida House Speaker Daniel Perez to challenge Uthmeier next year.
It’s not a surprise that Trump’s library will be located in South Florida. Officials close to the president, including Eric Trump and Steve Witkoff, the U.S. special envoy to the United Nations, had been discussing possible sites in the region for months, NBC News reported earlier this year. The story reported that officials at Florida Atlantic University and Florida International University were lobbying to land the site.
The Florida Legislature earlier this year passed legislation (SB 118) that banned local governments in the state from interfering with any plans to construct a presidential library in Florida. The bill passed 36-3 in the GOP-controlled Senate and 89-20 in the GOP-controlled House.
‘Irony’
One of the Democrats who opposed the measure, Rep. Angie Nixon (D-Jacksonville), at the time found “irony” in what the House was doing.
“If we are going to support bringing this library here, we should support returning citizens all across the board, and not attack returning citizens, especially when they want to do things like vote, because we have one of the biggest returning citizens a/k/a felons in the administration right now,” she said, referring to Trump being found guilty in May 2024 in a New York courtroom on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to cover up hush money.
She referred to the 2018 constitutional amendment that legalized felons in Florida who had completed their sentence to be able to vote. However, an implementing bill in the following legislative session significantly narrowed the number of felons who can actually vote.
The president ultimately received an unconditional discharge. That meant that while the conviction stands, he will face no additional penalties, such as prison time, fines, or probation.
Florida Phoenix is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Contact Michael Moline for questions: [email protected]. Follow Florida Phoenix on Facebook and Twitter.
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The announcement came shortly after the Miami Dade College’s Board of Trustees approved the transfer of property
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