DeSantis convened his allies this week in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, to press them to raise money to support Trump, making the case over a seafood and steak dinner that they need to work together to prevent Democratic President Joe Biden from winning a second term. The governor and about 30 people then spent Thursday morning in a hotel conference room raising money for an outside group that supports the former president’s 2024 White House campaign.

Trump called into the gathering to thank members of the group for their work, according to four people familiar with the matter who were not authorized to publicly discuss the private session and spoke on condition of anonymity.

In what three people present described as a warm and gracious call to the group that was heard over speakerphone, Trump praised DeSantis and the effort, saying “Ron, I love that you’re back.”

A reconciliation helps both of them. Trump is trying to make up fundraising ground against Biden while DeSantis hopes to preserve a potential future White House run for which Trump’s supporters could be key.

DeSantis and his top donors raised more than $3 million on Thursday for the super political action committee Right for America, backed by big Republican donors such as Ike Perlmutter, who has agreed to match at least a portion of the DeSantis team’s fundraising rather than funneling money directly to Trump’s campaign.

That arrangement, reached after talks between the Trump and DeSantis camps, is designed to address concerns among DeSantis supporters about their money going to pay the former president’s legal bills, according to people familiar with the matter who requested anonymity to discuss the private talks. Trump notably blessed the structure when he called into the group’s meeting Thursday.

“This is where I want you to focus,” Trump said in a roughly 15-minute call, according to a senior political adviser to DeSantis who was not authorized to publicly discuss the private meeting and spoke on condition of anonymity.

DeSantis’ decision to push money to the PAC instead of giving directly to Trump’s campaign has raised eyebrows among some Trump campaign officials, according to a person familiar with the former president’s campaign thinking who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the arrangement.

Right for America is competing for donors with MAGA Inc., the chief super PAC backing Trump. Such groups are prohibited from directly coordinating with a presidential campaign, something that hamstrung DeSantis during his presidential run due to conflicts between his campaign and his support of Never Back Down, the largest super PAC backing DeSantis’ candidacy.

Other supporters of both men support the arrangement. Right for America is run by Sergio Gor, a longtime Trump ally who is close to the former president’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr. The two run Winning Team Publishing, which published two of the former president’s books.

“We are thrilled by the support we are receiving from Governor DeSantis,” Gor said in a statement. “We look forward to ensuring President Donald Trump is elected in November.”

Some DeSantis donors had been reluctant to give to Trump because they worried their money would help pay Trump’s lawyers in his criminal cases instead of being used directly to focus on beating Biden.

A number of big-name Florida contributors who have given to DeSantis remain hesitant about contributing to efforts to support Trump, said Al Hoffman, a Palm Beach County Republican donor and former Republican National Committee finance chair.

“I know that there are Republican conservative, big-money donors that are very reluctant to endorse Trump,” said Hoffman, who was also chairman of former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush’s 2002 reelection campaign.

DeSantis endorsed Trump when he dropped out of the race and promised in a face-to-face meeting with the former president in April to work for his campaign. The 45-year-old governor, who has won two terms and pushed a longtime swing state increasingly to the right, may run for the White House again and would need the backing of Trump voters in a future Republican primary.

DeSantis called his allies to Fort Lauderdale this week to raise money for Trump, telling them on Wednesday night that they needed to work to prevent a second Biden term.

The meeting was the kickoff for what is expected to be a coast-to-coast fundraising effort by DeSantis allies, with upcoming events likely in Texas, California, Washington state and perhaps New York.

Trump and DeSantis have also discussed a role for the governor at the Republican National Convention. Aides to DeSantis said it was Trump’s suggestion and was not contingent on any fundraising effort on DeSantis’ part.

Donors who discussed the Thursday event were struck by the collegiality between Trump and DeSantis during the call. One person who spoke on condition of anonymity about the closed-door gathering called the conversation “very gracious” and noted that Trump and DeSantis talked about golf, a favorite Trump pastime.

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MANCHESTER, N.H. (AP) — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis suspended his Republican presidential campaign on Sunday, ending his 2024 White House bid just before the New Hampshire primary while endorsing his bitter rival Donald Trump.

The decision leaves Trump and former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley as the last major candidates remaining in the race ahead of Tuesday’s New Hampshire primary. This is the scenario Trump’s foes in the GOP have long sought, raising the stakes for this week’s contest as the party’s last chance to stop the former president who has so far dominated the race.

But as some Trump critics cheered, DeSantis nodded toward Trump’s primary dominance — and attacked Haley — in an exit video he posted on social media.

“It’s clear to me that a majority of Republican primary voters want to give Donald Trump another chance,” DeSantis said in the straight-to-camera video, delivered in a cheerful tone, through forced smiles.

He continued: “I signed a pledge to support the Republican nominee and I will honor that pledge. He has my endorsement because we can’t go back to the old Republican guard of yesteryear, a repackaged form of warmed-over corporatism that Nikki Haley represents.”

Haley fired back during a campaigning stop in Seabrook, New Hampshire, just as DeSantis announced his decision.

“He ran a great race, he’s been a good governor, and we wish him well,” she told a room packed with supporters and media. “Having said that, it’s now one fella and one lady left.“

DeSantis’ decision, while perhaps not surprising given his 30-point blowout loss last week in Iowa, marks the end of an extraordinary decline for a high-profile governor once thought to be a legitimate threat to Trump’s supremacy in the Republican Party.

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He entered the 2024 presidential contest with major advantages in his quest to take on Trump, and early primary polls suggested DeSantis was in a strong position to do just that. He and his allies amassed a political fortune well in excess of $130 million, and he boasted a significant legislative record on issues important to many conservatives, like abortion and the teaching of race and gender issues in schools.

Such advantages did not survive the reality of presidential politics in 2024. From a high-profile announcement that was plagued by technical glitches to constant upheavals to his staff and campaign strategy, DeSantis struggled to find his footing in the primary. He lost the Iowa caucuses — which he had vowed to win — by 30 percentage points to Trump.

DeSantis’ allies said that private discussions began shortly after Iowa to decide how to bow out of the race gracefully.

The Florida governor notified top donors and supporters of his decision through a series of phone conversations and text messages between senior campaign officials to top donors and supporters on Sunday afternoon, according to two people who received such communications. They spoke on the condition of anonymity to disclose the private conversations.

DeSantis had returned to Florida by then after a rollercoaster weekend that included stops in New Hampshire and then South Carolina ahead of another scheduled stop in New Hampshire Sunday evening that was ultimately canceled. The campaign also canceled a series of national television experiences earlier in the day, blaming the cancelation on a miscommunication with DeSantis’ super PAC.

DeSantis was physically worn after spending weeks on the campaign with little, if any, time off, even as he stormed across frigid Iowa and New Hampshire, often without a winter coat.

He ultimately decided that he needed to endorse Trump given his popularity in the party, despite the deeply personal feud between them.

“While I’ve had disagreements with Donald Trump, such as on the coronavirus pandemic and his elevation of Anthony Fauci, Trump is superior to the current incumbent, Joe Biden. That is clear,” said DeSantis, who is in his second and final term as Florida’s governor, which ends in January 2027.

The endorsement was a stunning tail-between-his-legs moment for DeSantis, whom Trump has mercilessly and relentlessly taunted in deeply personal terms for the better part of a year now.

For Trump, whose team includes many former DeSantis staffers, the attacks have often felt more like sport than political strategy. Trump and his aides have blasted the governor as disloyal for running in the first place, mocked his eating habits and his personality and accused him of wearing high heels to boost his height.

DeSantis’ team joined Trump in attacking Haley as news of his departure rippled across the political landscape. Some doubt Haley, who was seen as splitting Republican votes and preventing a head-to-head match up between Trump, would benefit from DeSantis’ decision.

“She will not be the nominee,” key DeSantis supporter Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, told AP. “She will not be the president of the United States.”

Trump had already shifted his focus to Haley in recent weeks, but minutes after DeSantis’ announcement, the former president’s campaign released a new memo highlighting the pressure on Haley to win New Hampshire.

“Now that we are a mere 48 hours from the primary, the tone has shifted mightily. We see it, you see it, but make no mistake, if Nikki Haley loses in New Hampshire — there are only two options,” wrote senior advisers Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles.

“Option A: Nikki Haley drops out, unites behind President Trump, and commits to defeating Joe Biden,” they wrote. “Option B: Nikki Haley prepares to be absolutely DEMOLISHED and EMBARRASSED in her home state of South Carolina,” which votes on Feb. 24.

“Now, for some important advice,” they continued. “Choose wisely.”

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JANAN GANESH | Contributor

Neither man has an alternative career in audiobook narration awaiting him upon retirement. Ron DeSantis speaks in a sort of monotone nag. Rishi Sunak can sound adenoidal. If you share my belief that people are defined as much by their voice as by their looks, it is a miracle these two have got as far as the Florida governorship and 10 Downing Street. On first listen, Americans of a certain vintage would call one a Poindexter, while older Brits would regard the other as a swot.

And they’d be right. These are men of exam-passing, credential-hoarding diligence. Each is family-minded and has passed through the kind of established institutions that modern conservatives are meant to define themselves against. DeSantis is a product of the Ivy League and the US Navy. Stanford and Goldman Sachs gave us Sunak, who was also said to be the dutiful creature of Her Majesty’s Treasury in his time there.

The parallels go on. Sunak helped to bring down Boris Johnson as UK prime minister. DeSantis is challenging Donald Trump for the Republican nomination at the next US presidential election, and becoming ever more explicit about his failure to win the last one. (“Of course he lost.”) And so, to belabor the school metaphor, diehard fans of both those fallen leaders resent this pair for snitching in class.

Sunak is a sunnier character than DeSantis, who could illuminate a stage by getting off it. He is also the more reliable friend of Ukraine. Other than that, their oneness is striking. Inside both of these politicians is what Freudians would recognize as the same “conflict”. Having spent their lives amassing establishment bona fides, they now belong to movements that regard themselves as near-revolutionary. The outward awkwardness of each man is at least in part the result of having to flit between mental worlds. Trump and Johnson really are nihilists. The other two are just very, very conservative. In pretending otherwise, each comes across as a playground nerd acting the lad (or jock).

Rightwing grassroots smell this a mile off, and mind. But they might not have a choice. And so we come to the ultimate symmetry between Sunak and DeSantis. Both still have a chance of passing their electoral tests in 2024. The case that Sunak is underpriced (though still unlikely) to remain prime minister is one I have made before. It rests on: the limited value of voting-intention polls this far out from an election, the competitiveness of his personal ratings with those of the Labour party leader, and the historic rarity of Britain turning decisively left when it isn’t in a good mood, whether amid postwar demobilization (1945), cultural renewal (the mid-1960s) or economic boom (1997).

But it is worth putting in a word for DeSantis, too. Depending on your betting exchange or turf accountant of choice, £10 on Trump to be the Republican candidate pays out little over £13. The same wager on DeSantis returns £80. Trump should be strongly favored, no doubt, but this is quite the margin for a 77-year-old facing a battery of criminal charges, including the almost magnificent “Conspiracy to defraud the United States”.

It is not that I predict a plea deal for Trump to withdraw, or a new stinginess among donors who see his legal bills mounting, or a health scare. But DeSantis must look at the historic record and see that a big part of becoming president is just sticking it out. Bill Clinton and Barack Obama weren’t leading the primaries at the start of 1992 or 2008 respectively. Trump himself didn’t break clear of other Republicans until November 2015. If “events” transpire, DeSantis is still there.

And if he does get to face the general electorate, he and Sunak will be perverse beneficiaries of the men they slew. Because Trump and Johnson are so beyond the pale in tactics, it is possible for others to be ferocious in doctrine without seeming extreme. As long as a conservative politician doesn’t break the law, or threaten the constitutional order, they can get away with more strident policies and rhetoric than a swing voter might have tolerated a decade ago. (Remember that Mitt Romney was considered a hardliner in 2012.)

Sunak gave a well-intentioned but reckless subsidy to dine out during the pre-vaccine phase of the pandemic. DeSantis picks cultural fights that are sometimes warranted but more often exhausting. Yet each man will seem at least house-trained compared with recent leaders of their party. “Rightwing, but not feral,” is quite the commendation now. A political scientist might say that the Overton window of acceptable ideas has widened. In plainer speech: voters are grateful for small mercies.

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Andrea Widburg | Contributor

Following the dismal midterm showing, there’s a lot of blame to go around. While I can and will sum up the issue, I want to focus more narrowly on the way in which the entire Republican machine is turning from Trump, who is now anathema, to Ron DeSantis, who is the new god. Considering that we still have a long time before the primaries and then the 2024 election, this kind of decision-making is premature and dangerous—and that’s why we’re being forced into it.

Here’s a short list of leading blame topics: (1) The GOP was useless; (2) American voters (especially the young ones), after 60 years of non-stop propaganda in the media, entertainment, and schools, no longer value freedom and the Constitution; (3) brainwashed women voters believe that fulfillment lies in a career and an appointment with the abortionist; and (4) Trump anointed weak candidates in pivotal elections.

Oh, and here’s what I believe is the most significant factor: mail-in ballots. In states with mail-in ballots, the Secretary of State mails ballots to every person on the registrar’s list. It’s irrelevant that many have moved, are dead, or are manifestly fraudulent (see all of Jay Valentine’s articles on the subject). At apartment buildings, you may see dozens of ballots sitting in piles in the lobby, addressed to people who long since moved away.

The ballots then get mailed back in again. The Secretary of State has no idea who filled out the ballots or popped them in the mailbox. He or she doesn’t care that 1,000 are returned from the same 30-unit apartment building or temporary homeless shelter. The ballots are then taken from their envelopes, effectively removing all identification, and “counted.”

This is a process without any brakes on fraud. And if the current crop of ballots doesn’t provide a victory for the Democrats, it’s perfectly easy to slip in a few more ballots that are untethered to a real person to tip the “correct” candidate into the winning pile.

Shenanigans with computers, ballot harvesting, and traditional voter fraud are also useful for gaming the vote. All in all, our system would have made Boss Tweed proud back in the heyday of Tammany Hall’s corruption in old New York.

But whether the vote fraud that is now woven into our system ever gets straightened out (and if Democrats control both houses, it won’t) is a matter for another post. What I want to talk about is the sustained attack on Donald Trump, along with Ron DeSantis’s simultaneous elevation to political sainthood.

Both candidates have tremendous strengths and some weaknesses. I would happily vote for either if he were at the top of the ticket. But as far as I’m concerned, that’s a matter to be considered in a few months, when the primaries heat up. Yes, Trump sent out intemperate tweets, but that’s because he’s under sustained attack and he’s a counterpuncher…and it’s that attack that I want to talk about and warn you against.

I do not believe the attack against Trump is organic. That is, it’s not because the same voters who turned up enthusiastically at his rallies have suddenly decided he’s soiled. Indeed, aside from Oz in Pennsylvania, Trump mostly had an excellent track record. People still resonate to Trump, and that still helps candidates.

However, the entire GOP has swung against Trump. For example, the editorial board at the New York Post (a paper I consider mostly excellent), announced “Don’t believe Trump — this midterm miss is all because of him.” Wow! That’s harsh, but it’s also consistent with what we’re seeing all over the Republican side of the aisle.

At the same time, we’re told that DeSantis is the new savior. Indeed, that very enthusiasm for DeSantis has die-hard Trump supporters believing that DeSantis is nothing but a Trojan RINO—and that’s even though DeSantis was one of the original freedom caucus members. Sundance, who is always an interesting read, routinely writes about this concern.

However, it’s just as likely that DeSantis’s support from the GOP crowd has very little to do with him and everything to do with the GOP/NeverTrump determination to destroy the man who threatened to upset the Republican establishment’s cozy relationship with Democrats in D.C.: All of the perks and money; none of the responsibility for governing.

If I’m correct, the moment the GOP/NeverTrump team manages to take out Trump, it will turn on DeSantis as well. Given DeSantis’s focus on freedom, he’s just as dangerous to the establishment as Trump was. If we conservatives aren’t careful, the RINO/NeverTrumps will play us so well that all of the conservatives are knocked out in the primaries, and we end up with Evan McMullin at the top of the 2024 Republican ticket.

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