Trump PAC says DeSantis put ‘pudding fingers’ into benefits

A Trump-aligned super PAC is taking grimy politics to a new level, hitting Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for sticking his “dirty fingers” into senior programs — and allegedly using them to eat pudding as well, according to a stomach-churning ad released Friday.

“Ron DeSantis loves sticking his fingers where they don’t belong, and we’re not just talking about pudding,” the ad’s narrator says, referring to a reported incident from 2019 where the 44-year-old Florida governor ate chocolate pudding with three of his fingers while on a private plane ride to Washington, DC.

“DeSantis has his dirty fingers all over senior entitlements like cutting Medicare, slashing Social Security, even raising the retirement age,” the narrator intones over footage of a man in a navy blue suit and red tie scarfing down the dessert with his bare hands.

The revolting ad features headlines of a series of articles on DeSantis’ congressional voting record. The reports state that he “voted to cut Social Security 3 times” while a member of Congress, and tried to “raise the retirement age to 70.”

While serving as the representative for the Sunshine State’s 6th Congressional District between 2013 and 2018, DeSantis did cast votes for non-binding resolutions that backed the cut as well as the retirement age change.

Non-binding resolutions do not change law and the bills referenced were not passed.

“Tell Ron DeSantis to keep his pudding fingers off our money,” the narrator concludes. “Oh, and someone get this man a spoon.”

The ad is part of a $1.5 million weekly ad buy from Make America Great Again Inc., a source told The Post. The pro-Trump super PAC is running the ad on CNN, Fox News and Newsmax, the source added.

The former president has focused heavily on messaging his support for senior benefit programs as he seeks the 2024 Republican nomination.

“Cut waste, fraud, and abuse everywhere that we can find it, and there is plenty of it,” Trump said in January as congressional Republicans began negotiating with Democrats over the debt ceiling. “But do not cut the benefits our seniors worked for and paid for their entire lives. Save Social Security. Don’t destroy it.”

In his 2020 budget proposal, however, the 76-year-old GOP front-runner supported cutting Social Security by $25 billion and Medicare by $845 billion over the next decade, according to National Review.

In addition to the policy criticism, the former president has also bestowed a variety of bizarre nicknames on DeSantis, including “Ron DeSanctimonious,” “Shutdown Ron,” and — reportedly — “Meatball Ron,” though Trump later denied he had ever or would ever use it.

Following DeSantis’ landslide re-election this past November, Trump dismissed him as an “average REPUBLICAN Governor with great Public Relations.”

“[He] didn’t have to close up his State, but did, unlike other Republican Governors, whose overall numbers for a Republican, were just average—middle of the pack—including COVID, and who has the advantage of SUNSHINE, where people from badly run States up North would go no matter who the Governor was, just like I did!” he said at the time.

DeSantis, who has yet to announce a widely expected presidential run, rebutted claims that he would back future cuts to entitlement programs in a Fox News interview last month.

“We’re not going to mess with Social Security as Republicans,” he told Fox News at the time. “I think that that’s pretty clear.”

In a separate interview the same month, the Florida governor also disputed that there was proof of the pudding incident.

“I don’t remember ever doing that,” DeSantis told Post columnist Piers Morgan. “Maybe when I was a kid but it’s interesting, there’s a lot of people who when they go at you, sometimes they have really good ammunition, like ‘You’re a crook, you did this, you did that.’

“For me, they’re talking about pudding, and I’m like, ‘Is that really the best you’ve got? OK, bring it on!’”