After spending most of the week focusing on new Speaker of the House Mike Johnson and his radical fundamentalist beliefs, Stephen Colbert turned his attention to the hot political scandal of the moment: Ron DeSantis allegedly wearing lifts in his cowboy boots. The Florida governor has been plagued by reports that theorize he’s attempting to amplify his height through some boot-based chicanery, and Colbert had some fun with the topic by tying into Halloween.
“The next day, you’ll see some of the little ones still in their costumes. Isn’t that great?” Colbert said. “I saw this cute little fella going around in adorable cowboy boots. What was his name? Governor Ron DeSantis.”
“You see, DeSantis wears only cowboy boots,” Colbert continued. “And here’s the thing. Cowboy boots, they’re great — if you’re a cowboy. If you’re the governor of Florida, you look like a dork. Nobody believes he’s roping dogies in Tampa. Even though Dogie Style is Tampa’s number one strip club.”
The Late Show host then proceeded to get into the finer details of Liftgate.
“Now, the rumored scandal is, I don’t know if you heard this, the scandal is that DeSantis isn’t wearing the boots for fashion,” Colbert said. “No, America’s top cobblers believe that inside his boots DeSantis is probably wearing height-boosting insoles. No, this is a true scandal. This is the greatest political height scandal since we found out Lincoln wore that hat to hide his stove pipe forehead.”
“The theory goes, and follow me down the rabbit hole, you can tell DeSantis is wearing lifts because his foot is too far back in the boot, which makes the toes curl up. Ok, let’s check that. There he is giving a speech, zoom in on the boots,” Colbert said as a photo of DeSantis shows the governor’s toes are curling up in his boots. “Sweet Keebler Elf! Governor, are you wearing lifts, or are your toes just happy to see me?”
However, Colbert couldn’t help but note that the whole thing doesn’t make any sense because cowboy heights already boost your height.
“Why are you wearing lifts?” Colbert asked DeSantis. “If you’re wearing cowboy boots, you’re lifted already. I’m wearing cowboy boots tonight, right here, look at this. I’ve got cowboy boots on. Now, this is a good look. I’ll grant you that. Look how much height they already give me. I got like two inches of loft just from that heel. It’s ridiculous. I need supplemental oxygen up here. They make you walk funny. I feel like the world’s shortest Uncle Sam in a parade in these things.”