John Oliver mocked Florida GOP Governor Ron DeSantis and his “bizarre dating tactic” during a 25-minute segment on HBO’s Last Week Tonight.
Mr DeSantis is expected to go up against former President Donald Trump in the fight for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.
Mr Trump has tried out nicknames for his prospective opponent, calling him “Ron DeSanctimonius” and is reportedly considering the more straightforward “Meatball Ron”.
The New York Times reported last month Mr Trump has insulted the governor in “casual conversations,” calling him “Meatball Ron,” which the papercalled “an apparent dig at his appearance”.
“I hate to say it, but Trump’s still got it,” Oliver said. “It’s perfectly stupid, childish and hurtful in a way that’s genuinely difficult to articulate.”
During the programme, Oliver reviewed Mr DeSantis’s attacks on LGBT+ people, the press, voting rights, and other issues.
But the late-night host also shared what he found to be “the most bizarre dating tactic I have ever heard”.
A former classmate of Mr DeSantis at Yale, Charles Finch, wrote in his pandemic memoir What Just Happened: Notes on a Long Year, that the future governor would tell women he was on a first date with that he liked Thai food, but he would call it “thigh food” to see if his date would correct his mistake.
If she corrected him, Mr DeSantis would leave because “he didn’t want a girlfriend who corrected him,” Mr Finch added.
“If that is true – wow!” Oliver said. “Just imagine being on that date.”
“You’re out at dinner, and out of nowhere, your date tells you he really likes ‘thigh’ food. You think, ‘wait, did he just call Thai food ‘thigh’ food? I must have misheard,’” Oliver said as he launched into the hypothetical scenario. “But then he goes on to say he knows a great thigh food restaurant in the area while staring very intently at you, almost studying your reaction.”
“So as politely as you can, you say, ‘wait, do you mean ‘Thai’ food? Like, from Thailand?’ And then suddenly, his face drops, and he says ‘sorry, I forgot I have a doctor’s appointment tonight,’ and he leaves, leaving you with the check, and the greatest first-date disaster story of all time,” he added.
Oliver went on to note that “then in 2012, he was elected to Congress. While there, a former colleague says he always had his earbuds in, to keep people away”.
“And if you’re picking up on a theme of ‘Ron DeSantis doesn’t like hearing anyone’s voice but his own,’ you’re onto something. Because since becoming Florida governor, he’s made ‘shutting down dissenting voices’ something of a feature,” the host added.
Oliver said at the end of the show that “it’s important to consider DeSantis in his own right. If Donald Trump never existed – and let’s just all just pause and enjoy that hypothetical for a second – if Donald Trump never existed, and you were forced to learn about Ron DeSantis, from scratch, with no basis for comparison, what you’d see would horrify you”.
“Because you’d be discovering a petty autocrat and a bully. A man with no interest in hearing dissent, questions, or the correct pronunciation of ‘Thai food’. And all in all, a man who is – and I do not use this term lightly – a f***ing meatball,” he concluded.
