DeSantis Just Made an Intriguing Promise if Trump “Can Summon the Balls” to Join the Next Debate

This is Totally Normal Quote of the Day, a new feature where we pull a particularly wild statement from the news as a reminder of just how extremely normal everything has become.

“I’ll tell you this: If Donald Trump can summon the balls to show up to the debate, I’ll wear a boot on my head.” —Ron DeSantis, Thursday.

The next Republican presidential debate is Wednesday in Miami, and Donald Trump is not expected to be there, yet again. The reasoning is straightforward: Why take the risk of legitimizing his rivals, or becoming a target onstage, or just flubbing, when you’re already in a category of your own? Without Trump’s presence, the other GOP candidates come off as minor league players.

The situation is particularly frustrating to DeSantis. The Florida governor, barely breaking double digits in the latest polling, has tried hard to cling to—or recapture—the moment early in the year when he looked like a genuine challenger. (He’s still performing the best of the B-listers, with Nikki Haley and Vivek Ramaswamy just hanging on behind him. Former Vice President Mike Pence has already dropped out of the race, recognizing the reality of the situation.) While the candidates have had to come up with different approaches to the almost impossibly difficult task of luring Trump supporters without alienating the party’s base, DeSantis has finally come around to attacking the front-runner. Meaning he can challenge Donald Trump to “summon the balls” for something.

But there’s a particular reason for this challenge: It became clear this week that DeSantis is almost definitely wearing lifts in his boots. This news allowed Haley to tease DeSantis about his “heels”—something Trump had already done in a TruthSocial post in early October.

For what it’s worth, the Florida governor appears to be a perfectly average (or even above-average) height and claims to be 5-foot-11. Trump, meanwhile, is 6-foot-3.

DeSantis has made an effort to address the lifts news cycle: “This is no time for foot fetishes,” he said in a Thursday night appearance on Newsmax. Later, he added: “I know Donald Trump and a lot of his people are focusing on things like footwear. I’ll tell you this: If Donald Trump can summon the balls to show up to the debate, I’ll wear a boot on my head.”

Unfortunately for DeSantis, a painfully socially awkward man, in a game of schoolyard taunts he’s going up against an expert. We’ll see what Trump makes of the challenge—if he deigns to respond to it. But luckily for DeSantis, the Florida governor won’t have to face any kind of retort in person.