Florida Governor Ron DeSantis showcased his trademark smile during the Republican presidential debate, and it went about as well as his past attempts at flashing his pearly whites.
DeSantis went viral during the first debate over the summer with his awkward attempt to smile, then again this week when his smile included an odd flash of the tongue during a TV interview.
During the third 2024 Republican presidential debate on Wednesday night, DeSantis started with the tongue version of his awkward smile, then seemed to catch himself:
DeSantis’ smile has been the talk of the town in recent days with Washington Times opinion editor Charles Hurt, discussing DeSantis’ struggle to connect with voters, writing in this week’s column: “[W]hen you have to take actual laughing lessons and you have to practice smiling, it’s a problem.”
“Someone needs to tell DeSantis that no smile is better than a fake smile,” the National Review’s Rich Lowry wrote on the magazine’s debate liveblog.
Furthermore, DeSantis’ critics on X, formerly known as Twitter, joined in to troll him:
