Ron DeSantis Takes to Fox News To Deny Eating Pudding with His Hands

Florida governor Ron DeSantis would like to set the record straight: he probably didn’t messily devour pudding with his bare hands, like a total animal.

The story originally broke earlier this month, when an anonymous source told The Daily Beast that DeSantis once opened a cup of chocolate pudding on a flight from Florida to Washington, D.C., and then ate it using three of his fingers like a spoon.

The source also said that DeSantis has messy eating habits in general. “He would sit in meetings and eat in front of people, always like a starving animal who has never eaten before … getting shit everywhere,” the source said.

Now, in a recent Fox News appearance, DeSantis disputed the pudding story, claiming that he “doesn’t remember ever doing that.”

Would he necessarily remember it, though? I’ve known countless men who chewed with their mouths open or talked with their mouths full. Once I worked for a guy who ate a piece of toast with no plate underneath it, managed to coat the entire counter in crumbs, and then blithely walked away. Why would he need to eat neatly? There were a bunch of women around who would clean up after him, including me. When dudes reach a certain level of power and ego, concepts like “manners” and “hygiene” and “not making the people around you puke” just kind of wash away.

DeSantis then tried to dismiss the allegation as an effort to derail his expected 2024 presidential campaign, telling Fox News, “There’s a lot of people when they go at you, sometimes they have really good ammunition, like ‘you’re a crook, you did this, you did that.’ For me, they’re talking about pudding? Like is that really the best you’ve got? Okay, bring it on.”

Oh, Ron, we’ve got more ammunition. We’ve got plenty. How about the time you laughed at someone being tortured at Guantanamo? Or your Stop W.O.K.E. Act, which would put a gag order on professors who want to tell the truth about racism in the U.S., and which a federal judge called “positively dystopian?” Or your temper tantrum against Disney after then-CEO Bob Chapek spoke out against Florida’s homophobic “Don’t Say Gay” law? And there’s plenty more!

If this guy gets the presidency, his sloppy eating habits will be the least of our worries.

(featured image: Mario Tama/Getty Images)