On social media, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis stands accused of wearing lifts to make himself appear taller… and rival candidates are pouncing.
Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, a presidential candidate, said on The Daily Show Wednesday, “I’ve always talked about my high heels. I’ve never hid that from anybody.”
Former president Donald Trump, a rival candidate, has gone on Truth Social to post a meme with the caption, “Tell me he’s not wearing hidden heels.”
Then on Thursday, DeSantis offered to take off his boots… under one condition.
If Trump attends the GOP’s next primary debate, then DeSantis promises to take off his shoe.
“I’ll tell you this. You know, if Donald Trump can summon the balls to show up to the debate. I’ll wear a boot on my head,” DeSantis told Newsmax’s Eric Bolling on Thursday.
DeSantis went on to accuse rival candidates of trying to distract from the issues. “I know Donald Trump and a lot of his people have been focusing on things like footwear,” he said. “This is a time for substance. This is a time for us to debate the issues that matter to the American people.”
The previous day, DeSantis went on the PBD Podcast to deny wearing lifts.
“No, no,” DeSantis said, when asked about the rumors. “Those are just standard off-the-rack, Lucchese [boots].”
However, three “expert shoemakers,” speaking to Politico, suspected DeSantis of wearing lifts, although none of them could prove it.
Two of the experts noted that DeSantis had bent and stretched the boots in the wrong places.
“Instead of the leather hugging the inside arch of his foot, as it should, it looks like his foot is being lifted up and stretching out the leather,” Texas shoemaker Graham Ebner told the magazine Tuesday.
“The vamp seam — the horizontal seam that sits near your ankle — curves up at the front because this is where your ankle bends. You wouldn’t make a boot so that the ankle bends at the tops, especially on a cowboy boot, because the decorative stitching makes this area weaker,” London shoemaker Nicholas Templeman said. “If you put your foot into a regular pair of Western cowboy boots, that area is just going to be your shin, which doesn’t bend.”
A third shoemaker, the Texas-based Zephan Parker, said that DeSantis appears to have shortened the heel on the outside in order to accommodate the heel inserts on the inside.
“On a ready-made boot, they’ll cut down the heel about half an inch to accommodate the lifts, which looks to be what happened here,” he said.
He added that a normal-sized heel, when paired with heel inserts, would turn off-the-rack boots into “five-inch stilettos” that are “too much for the common man.”
All three shoemakers agreed that DeSantis appears to have gained about 1.5 inches.
Haley remains skeptical. When asked whether she suspected DeSantis of wearing heels, she said, “I don’t know. We’ll have to figure that out.”
“Bootgate” continues. Ron DeSantis says “if Donald Trump can summon the balls to show up to the debate, I’ll wear a boot on my head”. (Video: Newsmax) pic.twitter.com/OXicVAV6Z3
— Mike Sington (@MikeSington) November 3, 2023
obsessed with the theory that Ron DeSantis's shoes look so weird because they're hiding 4 inch heels inside pic.twitter.com/hZRSuNpW0n
— Jeremiah Johnson 🌐 (@JeremiahDJohns) October 6, 2023
The Horn editorial team