Donald Trump performed a Monty Python-esque impression of Ron DeSantis at a rally on Saturday night as he mocked his Republican rival for wearing lifts in his cowboy boots.
Mr Trump told the crowd at Claremont, New Hampshire, that he thought Mr DeSantis was “wearing ice skates” at the third Republican primary debate on Wednesday night.
It is the first time Mr Trump, who is 6ft 2in, has commented on speculation that Mr DeSantis, thought to be 5ft 11in, has started to wear height-boosting shoes.
“And I’m not wearing lifts, either, by the way,” Mr Trump said to cheers from the crowd. “I don’t have six-inch heels.
“Actually the greatest moment of the debate was when Ron was walking – or Ron DeSanctimonious was walking – off the stage and his feet,” Mr Trump said, making a downwards diagonal motion with his right arm.
“Because his cowboy boots, they have a high heel but on the inside you’ve got a big deal going on.”
Mr Trump then left the podium flailing his arms up and down in a manner reminiscent of Monty Python’s Ministry of Silly Walks.
“He’s walking off stage like he’s trying to balance himself,” he said. “I thought he was wearing ice skates. What difference does that make?”
Mr DeSantis’s posture when wearing cowboy boots in recent weeks has fuelled speculation on social media that he is wearing lifts to increase his stature.
Zephan Parker, a bootmaker at Parker Boot Company in Houston, Texas, told Politico in late October that Mr DeSantis “is wearing lifts, there’s no doubt”.
Graham Ebner, a bootmaker from Austin, Texas, agreed, saying: “Three things stick out to me. The instep, the toe spring and where the ball of his foot is sitting in the boots.”
Mr DeSantis’s campaign has vehemently denied suggestions he is wearing shoes that boost his height.
The Florida governor told the PBD Podcast in October that his cowboy boots were “just standard, off-the-rack Lucchese boots”.
‘Grave threat from within’
Mr Trump also used his rally to attack the Left, vowing to “root out” the “radical Left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country.
“The threat from outside forces is far less sinister, dangerous and grave than the threat from within,” he said in the address on Veterans Day.
He accused President Joe Biden and the Democrats of causing inflation, rigging elections and taking the country to the brink of a third world war.
Mr Trump also praised China for giving drug dealers the death penalty, saying it was the solution to America’s opioid crisis.
“President Xi in China controls 1.4 billion people with an iron hand, no drug problems,” he said.
“You know why they have no drug problems? Death penalty for the drug dealers.
“You want to solve your drug problem, you have to institute a meaningful death penalty.”
Mr Trump has previously called for the death penalty for drug dealers even though it would have applied to Alice Johnson, a woman whose 21-year sentence he commuted when president in 2018.
Mr Trump repeated his praise for Mr Xi later on in the rally, musing that no Hollywood actor could do him justice.
“There’s nobody in Hollywood that can play the role of President Xi – the look, the strength, the voice,” he said.
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