If there was ever a sign that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis could actually be a genuine political rival to former President Donald Trump for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination, this story about chocolate pudding might actually be it.
No, seriously. The parallels between DeSantis and Trump have always been a little far-fetched for a litany of reasons, but it’s hard to argue that this story of sugary treats doesn’t at least portend a potential 2024 showdown between the two.
Noted leftist rag The Daily Beast recently published an article on DeSantis titled, “The GOP Campaign Trail Is Already Getting DeSantis-Proofed,” which among a litany of eye-rolling criticisms (DeSantis is, apparently, demanding and exacting on the campaign trail), included one critique that was absolutely, positively Trumpian.
Daily Beast reporter Jake Lahut (who also has a byline on the article) tweeted out about “the pudding incident.”
WARNING: The following tweet contains an image with language the reader may find offensive
Trending:
The pudding incident, which former DeSantis staffers describe as a common instance of him not reading the room (in this case, a very intimate flight cabin): https://t.co/KEwA7F9Pgr pic.twitter.com/s29MjZB4Ml
— Jake Lahut (@JakeLahut) March 16, 2023
“He would sit in meetings and eat in front of people,” one former DeSantis staffer (so surely, without an ax to grind) told The Daily Beast. “Always like a starving animal who has never eaten before… getting s*** everywhere.”
While that appeared to be a general critique of DeSantis’s alleged table manners, Lahut then included a screenshot from the article that included a chocolate-laden controversy:
Is the liberal media grasping at straws?
Yes: 97% (32 Votes)
No: 3% (1 Votes)
“During a private plane trip from Tallahassee to Washington, D.C., in March of 2019, DeSantis enjoyed a chocolate pudding dessert — by eating it with three of his fingers, according to two sources familiar with the incident,” the article read.
Listen, eating pudding with your fingers like a three-year-old child is weird. Period. If those “two sources familiar with the incident” are, in fact, telling the truth about the incident, hopefully DeSantis’s pubic decorum has improved since then.
Regardless, an isolated incident from years ago involving a sugary snack hardly resembles an actual critique for a potential presidential candidate.
And yet, that’s exactly where the establishment media found itself in 2017, when outlets found themselves lambasting then-President Trump for getting two scoops of ice cream, compared to one scoop for others.
Or again in 2020 when outlets attacked Trump for eating ice cream at all.
So what do Trump and DeSantis have in common, aside from their likely mutual interest in running for president in 2024? They’re both really good presidential candidates.
Fiery personalities, solid policy, and a general aversion to “wokeness” are just some of the traits that Trump and DeSantis share — and it’s a fact that’s driving the establishment media crazy.
Because what do you attack a president for if you can’t attack them in any traditional sense? You just make up perceived shortcomings and run them as headline news.
Conservatives can’t fall for it.
While some in the establishment media are trying to portray this as some sort of Trump versus DeSantis ultimatum, it’s more an embarrassment of riches than a traditional embarrassment for Republicans. Having two presidential candidates, both of whom are leaps and bounds better than the current president, is something Democrats can only dream about.
So let the left stay transfixed on ice cream and chocolate pudding.
Republicans will just continue churning out top-notch presidential candidates.
