There’s a video currently circulating on social media that appears to show Ron DeSantis sounding like a child, proclaiming, “mmm hungwy” when a burger is placed in front of him. And while the short video is admittedly funny, it’s completely fake.
The viral video has has been watched over 2 million times on Twitter alone, with many users expressing mixtures of disgust and amazement that DeSantis would be making what appears to be baby-talk. The Florida governor has been previously criticized for acting odd at public events and having no real ability to connect with regular voters.
But the video is actually from a series called Bad Lip Reading, where videos are edited to make the audio more humorous. For example, that same edited video, which is available on YouTube, shows DeSantis appearing to say “this is disgusting” and “should we dance?” when walking into a small town diner.
The portion of the clip where DeSantis is made to say “mmm hungwy” is at the roughly 22-second mark.
Other nonsensical sayings from the video include, “here’s a rat carcass” and “well, the worms went bad.”
How did this particular fake video get passed off as believable on social media? It’s been cropped in a way to take out the Bad Lip Reading watermark, which is in the upper right corner. The viral video is more narrow and doesn’t have any indication it was fake. And to make things worse for the 2024 Republican hopeful, DeSantis has a reputation for being somewhat awkward at campaign events.
Bad Lip Reading first became a known entity in the 2012 presidential election and is run by an anonymous content creator in Texas. The channel has over 8.1 million subscribers and creates a plausible—though absurd—soundtrack set to real videos of politicians and pop culture figures.
DeSantis is still struggling in the polls, with former president Donald Trump still in a commanding lead for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. And it’s not clear whether DeSantis truly has what it takes to convince enough voters that he’s the guy who can beat President Joe Biden.
Trump is favored by 49% of Republicans, with DeSantis currently in a distant second place with 21%, according to an average of polls by FiveThirtyEight. Nationally, among Americans of all political leanings, most people dislike DeSantis with 45% saying they dislike him, and just 35% saying they like him, according to the latest polling average.
And while DeSantis supporters insist it’s still early, the first Republican debate is scheduled for next month and the Iowa caucus is in January 2024. It’s not really that early.
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