As rumours swirl over whether Ron DeSantis sports heeled cowboy boots for a height boost — and late shows and fellow 2024 candidates mock his choice of footwear — the Florida governor has attempted to put his foot down and stop the conversation in its tracks.
Newsmax host Eric Bolling immediately brought up the footwear fiasco in a Thursday interview with Mr DeSantis, saying: “Can we get this off the table first?...There are these ‘gotcha’ people who want to talk about how tall you are, whether you’re wearing boots with heel extenders inside.”
Bolling then said that despite the chaos at the southern border and the wars in the Middle East, “they want to talk about how tall you are sir. Respond please.”
Mr DeSantis dug his heels in: “This is no time for foot fetishes. We’ve got serious problems as a country.”
“I know people want to try to divert onto other issues and I know Donald Trump and a lot of his people have been focusing on things like footwear,” he continued. “I’ll tell you this: If Donald Trump can summon the balls to show up to the debate, I’ll wear a boot on my head. This is a time for substance.” Mr Trump has not shown up for any of the presidential debates yet, and it appears unlikely that he will participate in the third debate, which is next week.
Mr Trump posted a meme on Truth Social earlier this month consisting of two photos of Mr DeSantis and one zoomed in photo of his funky-shaped boots, with text that read: “Tell me he’s not wearing hidden heels.”
Steven Cheung, a spokesperson for Trump’s campaign, also chimed in writing in a press release, “The embarrassing #BootGate story has longer legs than Ron DeSanctimonious.”
“No matter how hard Ron tries to click his heels three times, the misery still won’t go away as he continues to plummet in the polls and has become the butt of every single joke in the national media,” the release said.
Nikki Haley, who is now rivaling Mr DeSantis for the second-place slot behind Mr Trump in the GOP polls, also mocked the Florida Republican’s footwear. As a guest on “The Daily Show,” she joked: “I’ve always said don’t wear ‘em if you can’t run in ‘em so we’ll see if he can run in them.”
Even Stephen Colbert jumped on the cowboy boot bandwagon. Mr Colbert started Thursday’s episode of “The Late Show” by talking about kids enjoying Halloween so much that they want to keep wearing their costumes the following day.
“The next day, you’ll see some of the little ones still in their costumes. Isn’t that great?” Colbert said. “I saw this cute little fella going around in adorable cowboy boots. What was his name? Governor Ron DeSantis.”
Mr DeSantis has denied the heel rumours while speaking on Patrick Bet-David’s podcast: “No, no, no, those are just standard, off-the-rack Lucchese.”
