Donald Trump set aside months of criticism and mockery of Ron DeSantis on Sunday night, celebrating his onetime Republican rival as his newest supporter after the Florida governor ended his presidential campaign and endorsed the former president. For Trump, it\u2019s become a familiar ritual to welcome the backing of someone who once tried to take him on. Nonetheless, it was notable at Sunday\u2019s rally in New Hampshire to see Trump praise DeSantis without calling him \u201cDeSantimonious\u201d or \u201cDeSanctus,\u201d putting an end to perhaps the most bitter rivalry of Republicans\u2019 2024 campaign.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just want to thank Ron and congratulate him on doing a very good job,\u201d Trump said at the outset of his remarks. \u201cHe was very gracious, and he endorsed me. I appreciate that, and I also look forward to working with Ron.\u201d Trump described DeSantis as \u201ca really terrific person.\u201d Earlier in the day, DeSantis said via video that he would be ending his campaign two days before New Hampshire\u2019s first-in-the-nation GOP primary. But, Trump\u2019s glee Sunday night aside, it wasn\u2019t the warmest of endorsements.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s clear to me that a majority of Republican primary voters want to give Donald Trump another chance,\u201d DeSantis said, offering matter-of-fact analysis through a forced smile without adding plaudits for Trump. \u201cI signed a pledge to support the Republican nominee, and I will honour that pledge,\u201d he continued, before adding a dig at the remaining contender, Nikki Haley. DeSantis described the former UN ambassador and onetime South Carolina governor as a stand-in for \u201cthe old Republican guard of yesteryear, a repackaged form of warmed-over corporatism.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trump seemed unbothered by DeSantis\u2019 approach, striking a tone of camaraderie as fellow political combatants. \u201cI will tell you it\u2019s not easy,\u201d Trump said Sunday night in Rochester. \u201cThey think it\u2019s easy doing this stuff, right? It\u2019s not easy.\u201d Brenda Moneypenny, a 64-year-old from Alton, waited in the cold for two hours to see Trump on Sunday night. She whipped out her driver\u2019s license to prove her last name and explained she is a registered independent who often votes Republican. Moneypenny said she has considered Haley, especially because of the chance to elect the first woman to the presidency. But she never considered DeSantis.<\/p>\n
\u201cToo flim-flamsy,\u201d Moneypenny said of the governor. \u201cHe needs better campaign people. He doesn\u2019t have anybody that\u2019s doing him any favors right now.\u201d Ultimately, she settled on Trump: \u201cTried and true,\u201d she said. The former president seemed to revel in skewering DeSantis throughout the campaign, often making clear it was a personal grudge because he considered the governor\u2019s decision to run in the first place an act of disloyalty.<\/p>\n
Trump endorsed DeSantis, then a congressman, in a competitive 2018 GOP primary for Florida governor. DeSantis went on to win the nomination and the general election. By the time DeSantis won a landslide reelection four years later, though, he was positioning himself for his own White House campaign. As recently as November, Trump came to Florida and addressed a boisterous crowd at a state GOP meeting standing in front of a sign that read: \u201cFlorida is Trump Country.\u201d That evening, Trump did not mention DeSantis until more than 30 minutes into his speech. Even then, it was to brag about polls showing his advantages over the governor.<\/p>\n
\u201cI endorsed him, and he became a rocket ship in 24 hours,\u201d Trump said, claiming that DeSantis had begged for his endorsement. \u201cNow he\u2019s like a wounded falling bird from the sky.\u201d Trump never did debate DeSantis or any other 2024 rival. He has said he wouldn\u2019t until one proves they are a legitimate threat to him winning the nomination. DeSantis concentrated his campaign in recent months in Iowa, where he finished in second place in last week\u2019s caucuses \u2013 30 percentage points behind Trump and barely ahead of Haley. Haley, meanwhile, has long prioritised New Hampshire as a potential springboard ahead of her home-state South Carolina primary next month.<\/p>\n
In Iowa, APVoteCast surveys of caucusgoers suggested DeSantis\u2019s supporters were much more likely than Haley\u2019s to consider themselves conservatives who would back Trump no matter what if he wins the nomination and faces President Joe Biden in November. If that trend holds in New Hampshire, then Trump could expect at least some boost from DeSantis dropping out, and whatever he gets could stretch out his margin and frustrate Haley\u2019s ability to claim any momentum. Indeed, Trump\u2019s aides have said they expect DeSantis\u2019 support around the country will shift heavily to Trump.<\/p>\n
Trump noted Sunday that he won New Hampshire\u2019s 2016 primary by about 20 points. He lost the battleground state twice in general elections. On Monday, he plans to be in New York at a civil defamation trial stemming from a columnist\u2019s claims he sexually attacked her. Then he is scheduled to return to New Hampshire for an evening rally in Laconia.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Donald Trump set aside months of criticism and mockery of Ron DeSantis on Sunday night, celebrating his onetime Republican rival\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":26091,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[8784,5171,168,8783,3313,3144,8785,8786,296,3530],"class_list":["post-26090","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-civil-trials","tag-criminal-cases","tag-donald-trump","tag-dropped-out","tag-endorsement","tag-florida-gov-ron-desantis","tag-insurrection","tag-new-hampshire-primary","tag-nikki-haley","tag-us-2024-presidential-elections"],"reading_time":"4 min read","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26090","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26090"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26090\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26091"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26090"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26090"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26090"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}