Former president and 2024 Republican front-runner Donald Trump kicked off Sunday night’s New Hampshire campaign rally with a nod to his now-former opponent, Florida’s Governor Ron DeSantis, who suspended his own presidential campaign earlier that same day.
DeSantis quickly became the “it guy” among staunchly right-wing voters who were no longer interested in the former guy who’s ridden with scandal, wrapped up in more lawsuits and investigations than we can count, and the subject of a whopping 91 criminal indictments. The FL governor was basically Trump 2.0, minus all the court hearings.
Suffice it to say, the battle between Trump and DeSantis, who used to be quite good friends, got pretty damn ugly, pretty damn quickly, as we all know Donald Trump cannot bear to have someone challenge him, much less someone who’s supposed to be on his side, like Ron. Despite the favoritism among some of the Conservative crowd, DeSantis came in at an embarrassingly distant second in Iowa’s crucial caucus earlier this month. Refusing to accept defeat just yet, the FL governor turned his attention to South Carolina and his other opponent, Nikki Haley, while Trump put high-heeled shoes on the ground in New Hampshire.
Ultimately, Ron’s plan didn’t work and in a series of quick movements on Sunday, the FL governor began to cancel his media appointments for the say before making a very sudden announcement that he was not only suspending his campaign but throwing the weight of his endorsement behind the guy who’s been making potshots at him for months now.
Stay up-to-date with the latest news!
Subscribe and start recieving our daily emails.
Apparently, this was enough to inspire Donald to abstain from names like “Desanctimonious” or “Meatball” Ron during last night’s MAGA rally in NH, and instead heaped his praises on the right-wing FL governor for running a “great campaign” — now that he’s not running it anymore, of course.
“Before we begin, I’d like to take time to congratulate Ron DeSantis and, of course, a really terrific person who I’ve gotten to know, his wife Casey, for having run a great campaign for president,” Trump told supporters in the Granite State last night. “He did. He ran a really good campaign.”
Wouldn’t you know, the very same crowd that’s been cheering every “Meatball” insult for months on end fell right in line and applauded in response to Donald’s cue about Ron’s “great” campaign.
“I will tell you, it’s not easy. They think it’s easy doing this stuff, right? It’s not easy,” the former president said.
“But as you know, he left the campaign trail today at 3 p.m., and in so doing, he was very gracious and he endorsed me. So I appreciate it,” he added. “I appreciate that, and I also look forward to working with Ron and everybody else to defeat Crooked Joe Biden. We will have to get him out. We have to get him out. He’s put our country at great peril, at great peril.”
“So I just want to thank Ron and congratulate him on doing a very good job,” Trump declared. “It’s a tough situation. It’s a tough thing to do.”
Something tells me that weird speech of his would’ve been a hell of a lot different if Ron’s white flag hadn’t come complete with the endorsement package.
See the video here:
Trump: I would like to take time to congratulate Ron Desantis… He endorsed me and I appreciate that pic.twitter.com/8frBsWa6SN
— Acyn (@Acyn) January 22, 2024
Featured image via Flickr/Gage Skidmore, under Creative Commons license 2.0
