Donald Trump held a political rally in New Hampshire on Sunday night and as he was getting started on stage, he took a minute to say something about opponent Gov. Ron DeSantis suspending his campaign earlier in the day.
DeSantis was an early favorite to challenge Trump in the primary, and the contest became bitter and vicious right from the start.
DeSantis continued to sink amid withering criticism from his Republican rivals and concentrated media focus. After coming in a distant second in Iowa earlier this month, DeSantis began to focus on South Carolina as Haley and Trump vied for New Hampshire.
On Saturday DeSantis began to cancel his Sunday media appearances, and in a move that happened very swiftly, announced the suspension of his campaign and endorsed Trump on Sunday.
Speaking at his New Hampshire MAGA rally, Trump abstained from saying “Desanctimonious” or “Meatball” or the many other insult names he’d made popular for DeSantis in the press and instead praised the Florida governor for running a “great campaign.”
“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,” said Trump. “He did. He ran a really good campaign.”
The MAGA audience which has been cheering Trump calling DeSantis a liar and fraud for months applauded the remarks about the great campaign.
“I will tell you, it’s not easy. They think it’s easy doing this stuff, right? It’s not easy,” said Trump.
“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 said. “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.”
Trump thanked DeSantis again and congratulated him on dropping out.
“So I just want to thank Ron and congratulate him on doing a very good job,” said Trump. “It’s a tough situation. It’s a tough thing to do.”
Watch the clip above, via the Donald Trump campaign on Rumble.
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