DeSantis catches flak for referring to Arab male garb as ‘man dresses’

Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) caught flak for derisively referring to Arab men’s clothing as “man dresses” during the fourth Republican presidential debate.

When talking about his time serving in the military in Iraq, DeSantis compared the difficulty in identifying terrorists to identifying cartel members coming across the border. He was responding to a question about how he would identify cartel members after saying he would give the order to shoot drug traffickers “stone dead.”

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“When I was in Iraq, the Iraqis… al Qaeda wasn’t wearing a uniform,” DeSantis said. “You’d see anyone walking down the street — they all had man dresses on. You didn’t know if someone had a bomb and IED attached or not. And so you had to make a judgment based on intelligence, based on positive identification, but we’re going to be able to get the intelligence on these cartel people.”

The remark was decried as insensitive by many on social media.

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“Is the GOP ok with Desantis calling every male in the Middle East wearing man dresses? I guess middle eastern men can’t wear traditional clothing,” former Florida Democratic state Rep. Matt Willhite said in a post on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.

“DeSantis talking about “man dresses” while wearing heels is something else lol,” user @briana__gomez said, referring to rumors that DeSantis has lifts in his boots.