00:00 All eyes were on this primary on Tuesday in New Hampshire.
00:05 However, it was something that Ron DeSantis had long given up on.
00:08 We've seen him, in the wake of his second place in Iowa, head straight to South Carolina,
00:13 which is not happening for another five weeks, and spends most of his time campaigning there,
00:18 effectively abandoning New Hampshire, because he thinks that that was more of a two-horse race
00:22 between Donald Trump and Nikki Haley.
00:25 Now, there were rumblings early on Sunday that he had been having meetings with his closest advisers,
00:32 and they were planning when to drop out of this race, whether that would happen before or after
00:38 the New Hampshire primary on Tuesday, and it obviously was made clear that they needed it to happen
00:43 before that New Hampshire primary.
00:45 Now, not only that, he also cancelled a planned event that was meant to take place at 5 p.m. local time
00:52 on Sunday, another campaign event, and there was perhaps a couple of foreshadowing moments early on Sunday
00:58 when he also backed out last minute of a couple of appearances on the big Sunday political shows
01:03 here on U.S. television with NBC and CNN, so a couple of rumblings there as well.
01:08 Now, it ultimately became very clear to Ron DeSantis that he didn't really have a path forward.
01:14 He got a surprise second place in Iowa.
01:16 We were expecting him to be in third, but he knew that there was going to be no path through New Hampshire,
01:21 which is why he was focused on South Carolina, but ultimately he's decided that there's no path forward
01:26 whatsoever for his campaign.
01:28 His entire campaign he'd been trying to out-Trump Trump.
01:31 That is basically what his M.O. was, and he realized that that was a losing battle.
01:36 Trump was so far ahead in the polls of both him and Nikki Haley that he saw fit to pull out of the race
01:43 on Sunday.
01:44 We heard from him on Twitter.
01:46 He posted a video on Twitter in which he said, "I am today suspending my campaign.
01:51 I'm proud to have delivered on 100% of my promises, and I will stop not now."
01:55 What he said next is important.
01:57 It's clear to me that the majority of Republican primary voters want to give Donald Trump another chance,
02:02 and they want his presidency, which was stymied by relentless resistance.
02:06 They see Democrats using the lawfare this day to attack him.
02:11 So he is starting to churn that language, which he's used not as vocally as Nikki Haley or Chris Christie in the past.
02:19 He has been against Trump on certain issues, but he is starting to push back a bit more.
02:24 Now going the opposite way and saying that Donald Trump deserves the endorsement.
