- Gov. Ron DeSantis says he did not eat a chocolate pudding with his fingers.
- DeSantis was rebutting a claim about his eating habits that a former staffer made to the Daily Beast.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis wants people to know that he's never eaten a chocolate pudding with three fingers.
The governor denied a claim made by a former DeSantis staffer in a story from the Daily Beast. The staffer commented that DeSantis has less than stellar eating habits and social skills.
TV host Piers Morgan brought up the chocolate pudding incident in an interview with DeSantis on Fox News, joking that it was a "very serious allegation," and calling it the "new Watergate." A clip from the interview was posted to Morgan's Twitter account on Thursday.
DeSantis replied to the chocolate pudding accusation, saying that he does not "remember ever doing that."
"Sometimes they have really good ammunition, like you're a crook, you did this, you did that. For me, they're talking about pudding?" DeSantis told Morgan.
"Like is that really the best you've got?" DeSantis added. "Okay, bring it on!"
—Piers Morgan Uncensored (@PiersUncensored) March 23, 2023
DeSantis was rebutting claims from sources who spoke to the Daily Beast's Zachary Petrizzo and Jake Lahut. The unnamed sources said the chocolate pudding incident happened in March 2019, on a private plane ride to Washington, D.C., from Tallahassee.
An unnamed ex-staffer also told The Beast that DeSantis would sit in meetings and eat "like a starving animal who has never eaten before."
DeSantis has not officially announced his run for a 2024 presidential candidacy. He is slated to be former President Donald Trump's biggest rival for the GOP nomination, should he choose to run.
A spokeswoman for DeSantis did not immediately reply to Insider's request for comment sent outside regular business hours.