Parents around the country are struggling today with assembling Christmas presents, but few of them are in the national spotlight as they do so.
Ron DeSantis' recurrent riffs on his difficulties putting together toys from China have become a talking point in the presidential campaign.
The Donald Trump campaign is spotlighting his rival's latest attestations to his frustrations as being a sign that the Florida Governor "was acting strange and uninspired as he whined about the frustration of building shoddy Chinese made toys during Christmas."
"Channeling his inner elf, along with his curly boots to match, Ron should consider buying American products instead this holiday season. Maybe someone should gift him the LEGO set of the White House, because it'll be the closest thing he'll come to 1600 Pennsylvania," snarked spox Steven Cheung.
The Governor made the most recent comments in Washington County, Iowa. They continue a trend of DeSantis denunciations of the imported playthings.
"I get frustrated because it's Christmas time," DeSantis said. "We'll get the kids these toys, right. And some of them require, like, a lot of assembly."
"So I'm like, the instructions will be like two point font and it's not even very good stuff and I'm just trying to find a new screwdriver and this and all that and they don't have all the parts," DeSantis added. "So it's like it's an inordinate amount of time to be able to get the kids whatever they get and then it ends up breaking in two days anyways and it's because it's cheap stuff that comes from China and it's just frustrating, but the elites in this country have allowed it to happen."
But there's more.
During an event in Prosperity, South Carolina, the 2024 presidential candidate and Florida Governor pivoted from a discussion of banning Chinese vapes to explaining how toys from the country have wreaked havoc with DeSantis family Christmases.
"We get the kids these toys and they're all made in China. A lot of them are and literally they break within, like, a couple of days," DeSantis vented, calling the products "the cheapest stuff I've ever seen in my life."
He explored a similar theme in Iowa in October.
"These toys made in China, literally, they break within 48 hours. It's the cheapest stuff imaginable," DeSantis said.
"A lot of times they don't even have the full parts, and I burned a lot of hours putting together dollhouses and all this stuff. The worst feeling is you sink two hours into it and then there's a part missing and you can't complete it," he added.
In Texas this Summer, DeSantis said, "This cheap stuff from China, you know, when my wife and I get our kids Christmas presents, and the stuff made in China breaks, it's like you can't even last two days after Christmas without the toys breaking. And so, it's really, really cheap stuff."
During remarks in January in Bonita Springs, the Florida Governor warned St. Nick against Chinese toys, the highlight of comments denouncing the "hostile" regime in Beijing.
"And I'm just thinking to myself like, 'OK, you get it from China because it's cheaper to pay.' But if it doesn't even last a week, then what difference does it make? So a lot of these things we got? Santa Claus may need to not do Chinese toys because let's just make it here … honestly anywhere, but not China."
Back in 2021, meanwhile, DeSantis lamented not the quality of the toys, but whether issues at ports would stop them coming in at all.
"You see all of these problems with the shipping and not being able to get goods. We don't even know if the kids will get toys for Christmas," the Governor said in Niceville.
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