Following the presidential candidate’s numerous cringeworthy missteps and awkward moments on the campaign trail, The Onion asked Republicans to describe their strangest interaction with Gov. Ron DeSantis, and this is what they said.
Yara Smith, Surgeon
“He tried to give me a thumbs-up, but he just held his fist out and stared at it for a long time like he was trying to remember how giving a thumbs-up worked. Finally he just signed in frustration and left.”
Celeste Baker, Homemaker
“He picked my baby up by the ears.”
Marco Rubio, U.S. Senator From Florida
“He’s always kicking the stall door open when I’m in the bathroom, pants around his ankles, and yelling, ‘Piss fight!’”
Anthony Ruiz, Barber
“He saw his reflection in my mirror and tried to fight it.”
Douglas Tyson, Retired
“As he walked up to me, he spat a quarter that I guess he had been holding in his mouth into his hand, which he then held out, saying, ‘Put ’er there.’”
Luke Coffman, Bartender
“I asked for a selfie, and he started giving me the Heimlich maneuver.”
Tyler Winship, Electrician
“He compared my hand to a bug. I was trying to shake hands with him, and he shouted, ‘Get that bug away from me!’ Then he looked down at his own hands and screamed, ‘I have two bugs eating my arms. Get these five-legged bugs off my arms!’ He might just think that hands are bugs.”
Grant Woodward, Client Services Manager
“He kept telling me that he was my sensei and that I should bow to no other master.”
Rhonda Kordas, Teacher
“He asked me for my vote. It was unnerving.”
Merle Davis, Blogger
“He pulled me real close to him and whispered that he had been dead for at least 10 years and was nothing more than an animated corpse.”
Rick Phillips, Sergeant, U.S. Army
“I tortured guys with him at Guantánamo. Not awkward. Just plain old fun!”
Frank Larson, Accountant
“He once came up to my wife and me at a restaurant, wordlessly dipped his finger in my water, and kept it there for a while, making intense eye contact with me. When he abruptly left, I noticed the glass was empty. Other than that, he was nice.”
Reince Priebus, Former White House Chief Of Staff
“No matter how many times I met him at a sacrificial ritual, he acted as if we’d never been introduced. Like, dude, I’ve let you use my ivory dagger a bunch of times.”
Marcus Danielson, Construction Foreman
“He did raspberries on my belly until my tummy was too tender to take anymore.”
Jake Fischer, Woodworker
“He came up to me and said, ‘Hi, my name is Don DeSantis. Sorry, I meant John DeSantis. No, sorry, I meant Juan DeSantis. No, definitely not, sorry again, I meant Antoine DeSantis. No, no, no, no, okay, sorry, one last time, I’ll get it right: Hi, my name is Quran DeSantis.”
Kasey Perkins, Nurse Practitioner
“He wiped his nose on my son.”
Mimi Jeffries, Teacher
“There were 12 identical copies of him, and they all stared at me, drooled, and stuck their hands in my mouth.”
Casey DeSantis, First Lady Of Florida
“I asked him if meatballs sounded okay for dinner, and he burst into tears.”
Hank LaRoux, Foreman
“He performed every single song in Les Misérables in a row. All of them. Just straight through, no breaks, with reprises and everything. And it was like 90 degrees out, so as soon as he finished, he immediately passed out. I had only asked him if he enjoyed the tour of our steel mill.”
Eustace, American Bison
“He tried to pet me on my head, even though everyone knows American bison such as myself like to be pet on the lower back.”
Danielle Morton, Retired Teacher
“He was my student in the fourth grade. He brought me the same apple every day but asked for it back at the end of every class. He didn’t stop, even when it was rotten and mushy, covered in flies and maggots, until he moved on to the next grade and started the whole thing over again with a fresh apple.”
Andy Redford, Restaurant Server
“He came to my restaurant and demanded to be force-fed through his rectum.”
Ty Martindale, Jeweler
“DeSantis came to me in the night and asked in my dead mother’s voice if he could count on my vote.”
Tom Emerson, Roofer
“He said, ‘Quick, name your top 10 Disney characters who are most likely to be rapists,’ and before I could think of one, he said, ‘Goofy, Lumière, Happy the dwarf, Scar, Phoebus, Gaston, Kaa, Horace from 101 Dalmatians, the evil queen from Snow White, and Cruella de Vil.’ Then I was about to say one, and he got really upset and said, ‘Jafar, oh my God, I forgot Jafar!’ and he started crying because he forgot Jafar. This is outside an International House of Pancakes, mind you, and here’s the governor of Florida crying because he forgot Jafar. And I tried to say real quiet, ‘It’s okay, Governor, there can be 11. There can be 11 Disney rapist characters.’ But he kept sobbing and said, ‘No, it has to be 10, but Jafar needs to be on there. Jafar is a groomer! Groomer Jafar!’ And finally I just had to get in my car and drive away. Gov. DeSantis was still there, crying about Jafar.”
Clifford Hill, Real Estate Broker
“He looked me dead in the eye and said, ‘I haven’t taken a shit in three weeks.’”
Tabitha Garza, Home Health Aide
“He asked if I was an immigrant, and I said yes, and he asked to see my green card, so I let him see it, and then he took out a pink eraser and started trying to erase the things printed on it. He kept saying, ‘In Ronny’s Florida, you don’t exist no more.’ But it was in pen, so it obviously didn’t erase at all. He tried for a long time, though.”
Lee Rubelsky, Attorney
“I offered him a cigar, and he started eating it.”
Carolina Zapata, Farm Worker
“He revealed his belly to me and began squishing it to look like a mouth and speaking in a high-pitched voice. He did this while forcing me on a plane to Martha’s Vineyard.”
Mackenzie Rexall, Unemployed
“He kept telling my baby, ‘You’re never gonna have to learn math, little darling. I’m making math illegal.’”
Ron DeSantis, Governor Of Florida
“He’s a pretty, pretty princess!”
Belinda McMurphy, CrossFit Instructor
“We were at a seafood boil, and he took my hand and he stuck it in the boiling water. He held it there and looked me dead in the eye and said, ‘This is what America feels like right now.’ Then he took my burned hand out of the boiling water, pulled me to the floor, and pinned me to the ground. He sat on me and carved at my hand with a plastic knife and fork, like he was carving up my hand to be eaten, and he said, ‘This is what my presidency is going to feel like. Vote DeSantis.’”
