DeSantis, Ron

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      DeSantis Drops Out, While Haley Is Still In

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      More from our inbox:Diverse Life ExperiencesSaving Landmarked Places of WorshipBooks as DecorationRon DeSantisNicole Craine for The New York TimesNikki Haley is the last woman standing in the Republicans’ presidential race, but she faces a tough challenge in toppling Donald J. Trump.Ruth Fremson/The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “DeSantis Decides to End Campaign for White House” (front page, Jan. 22):When I saw the news that Ron DeSantis was dropping out of the 2024 presidential race and endorsing Donald Trump, I felt a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. Not that I’m a fan of Mr. DeSantis; hardly, I’m not even a Republican. But, for the sake of our democracy, a part of me had hoped that Mr. DeSantis or Nikki Haley, or the two of them together, might have waged a distinct and spirited enough campaign to overcome the angry, populist, cultlike sway that Mr. Trump holds over G.O.P. voters.It’s becoming increasingly clear that both campaigns have fallen short. Meanwhile, a slew of Republican political leaders will continue to stick their heads in the sand about the dangers that Mr. Trump poses to the nation and instead endorse and proudly campaign for a man they know is not fit to be the leader of the free world.Watching all of this unfold is proving to be a grotesque and terrifying portrait of human behavior.Cody LyonBrooklynTo the Editor:As Ron DeSantis fades from the national scene after running one of the most incompetent presidential campaigns in memory, we should remember some of the damage he inflicted on his home state, Florida, to gain national attention.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More

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      The Lost DeSantis Moment

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      For months, he routinely led Donald Trump in head-to-head polls and gave a possible glimpse at a post-Trump Republican future.Ron DeSantis after winning re-election as Florida governor in 2022. Scott McIntyre for The New York TimesRon DeSantis began the 2024 campaign as a formidable candidate, with early poll numbers that rivaled or even exceeded the likes of Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama.In the end, that early strength meant only that he had more room to fall.There are countless reasons Mr. DeSantis fell apart and ultimately ended his campaign Sunday — including that his opponent proved once again to be a juggernaut. Perhaps Mr. DeSantis might have won the nomination in most other years, if he hadn’t been going against a former president.But rather than dwell on his losing campaign, it’s worth returning to his apparent strength at the outset — that brief moment when Mr. DeSantis, or at least the idea of Mr. DeSantis, routinely led Mr. Trump in high-quality head-to-head polls.In the eight years since Donald J. Trump won the Republican nomination, this was the only moment when Republican voters appeared willing to go a different direction. Mr. DeSantis didn’t capitalize on the moment, but nonetheless it’s the only glimpse we’ve had into the post-Trump Republican Party. We saw something that might bring it about, and we saw what it might look like.What brought it about: the midtermsOver the last eight years, Mr. Trump has said and done countless things that might have doomed any other politician. He’s been impeached twice. He encouraged what turned into the Jan. 6 riot. He’s been charged with multiple federal crimes. None of it really made any difference in his support.That is, until November 2022. The disappointing Republican showing in the midterms damaged Mr. Trump in the polls, and Mr. DeSantis surged to take a clear lead in head-to-head polls that lasted for months.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More

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      Ron DeSantis Made Smiling Look Hard

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      And just like that, Ron DeSantis’s quest for the presidency is kaput. In a short video on Sunday, the Florida governor looked natty in a blue suit and red tie, every hair perfectly in place as he papered over his deeply imperfect campaign. He touted his own leadership and, perhaps with an eye toward running again in 2028, endorsed the Republican kingmaker, Donald Trump. It wasn’t a terrible performance, especially under the circumstances. But watching DeSantis’s now-famous awkward smile and listening to his unnatural cadence, it was hard not to think: Yeah. I can see why this guy’s candidacy is deader than disco.I am not being mean here. OK, I am being a little bit mean, but in the service of a serious point. Mr. DeSantis is a successful governor of a major state and a smart guy with a picture-perfect family. But he is also one of those unfortunate political creatures who do not wear well, whose early promise and poll numbers fade over time: The more people saw him, the less they seemed to like him. On the presidential campaign trail, he was robotic and awkward, rude and arrogant, with the interpersonal skills of poorly designed A.I. He struck people as an all-around odd duck, and not in a good way.For a modern presidential contender, this is the kiss of death. Popular policies, a savvy campaign strategy, a message that speaks to the moment — these things matter. And DeSantis had much to offer a conservative Republican base: his angry populism, his vilification of all the right people (Dr. Anthony Fauci, George Soros, migrants, teachers’ unions), his record of achievement in Florida. Let us grant him all that, and more. But if the messenger has a likability problem, the rest tends to get overshadowed.For all of DeSantis’s apparent G.O.P. pluses, he was constantly tripping over his personal minuses. His tone-deaf remarks, like when he told a kid in Iowa that his Icee probably had a lot of sugar in it. His inability to hide his discomfort when interacting with regular Americans. The creepy smile that popped up in pretty much every debate. That quickie lip lick, where the tip of his tongue would suddenly burst into view. His visible impatience. His trouble making eye contact. His fidgeting. His explosive, gaping laugh. The peculiar rhythm of his speech — sometimes too fast, sometimes stilted, and never quite right. It was … a lot. But also not enough, lacking a certain quality that says, “I am human.”A big part of the presidency involves convincing people to believe in you, rallying support for your priorities, conveying competence, caring, strength, hope, determination, courage. You are, chiefly, a leader — not a manager, a policy wonk or a political strategist. And getting people to follow you is much harder if they find you personally off-putting.This wasn’t Team DeSantis’s only problem, of course. His campaign’s failures, of strategy and of luck, were rich and multifaceted. But underneath them all ran this foundational flaw. To quote Mr. Trump, a viciously shrewd observer of human nature, “The problem with Ron DeSanctimonious is that he needs a personality transplant, and those are not yet available.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More

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      GOP Donors Face Dilemma as DeSantis Drops Out

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      Ron DeSantis’s exit, and Nikki Haley’s struggle to make headway against Donald Trump, are forcing Republicans to make a tough choice.The narrowing race for the Republican presidential nomination is creating tough choices for anti-Trump donors.Sophie Park for The New York TimesIt’s down to Trump and Haley now The effort to pick anyone but Donald Trump as the Republican presidential nominee took another big, if expected, blow on Sunday when Ron DeSantis dropped out of the race and endorsed the former president. (Other former hopefuls, including Vivek Ramaswamy and Tim Scott, have also endorsed Trump.)The Republican faithful are coalescing around Trump in a way that raises questions about the next move by the wealthy donors who have sought to stop him.Nikki Haley is now the only potential roadblock to a Trump nomination. DeSantis came into the race as the most daunting opponent to the former president, but his misstep-laden campaign never turned into a serious threat. Among his strategic errors was betting that “anti-woke” fights, including his battle against Disney, would resonate with voters. (Politico reports that a top DeSantis fund-raiser had proposed a legally untested way for the campaign to remain afloat, but the Florida governor eventually yielded to electoral reality.)Haley has embraced her status as the last anti-Trump candidate standing: “May the best woman win,” she said on Sunday. But polls put her some 15 percentage points behind Trump in New Hampshire, as voters head to the polls tomorrow.It’s a sign that the influence of big-money donors is limited. DeSantis’s war chest was financed largely by deep-pocketed benefactors. And in recent months, Haley has drawn support from a bipartisan group of anti-Trump moguls, including the hedge fund billionaire Stanley Druckenmiller and the Democratic investor and LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman. (JPMorgan Chase’s Jamie Dimon has publicly exhorted people of all political stripes to back Haley.)But as The Times’s Ken Vogel notes, winning over the moneyed class hasn’t guaranteed electoral success for years. Just ask Jeb Bush.What will those anti-Trump donors do? Some are continuing to back Haley: Several Wall Street titans, including Druckenmiller and Henry Kravis, will host a fund-raiser for her on Jan. 30, a week after the Republican and Democratic New Hampshire primaries. And Americans for Prosperity, a super PAC backed by the Koch business empire, said it would continue to back Haley through at least Super Tuesday in early March.But if Haley loses badly in New Hampshire, how long will business leaders accustomed to success stick with a failing bet? Ken Langone, a co-founder of Home Depot and one of her backers, said recently that he wants to see how she does tomorrow before giving more money.In other election news: The top outside political group backing President Biden raised $208 million last year. And Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is heading to the Midwest this week to tout Biden’s economic record as data points increasingly turn positive.HERE’S WHAT’S HAPPENING The war in Gaza hits the Middle East’s economy. Three months in, the conflict has cost Egypt, Lebanon and Jordan more than $10 billion in economic losses, and risks pushing 230,000 into poverty. Meanwhile, international support for Israel is fraying as casualties in Gaza mount and as attacks by Houthi rebels on commercial vessels in the Red Sea are driving up shipping costs.Exxon Mobil sues climate investors to stop a proxy fight. The fossil-fuel giant asked a federal court in Texas to throw out a proposal from Follow This and Arjuna Capital that calls for speeding up the company’s efforts to cut greenhouse gases. A decision could clarify S.E.C. guidance on which shareholder proposals can be put up for a vote by company shareholders.Another Boeing model comes under regulatory scrutiny. The F.A.A. said on Sunday that airlines should inspect the door plugs on Boeing 737-900ER planes “as an added layer of safety.” Confidence in Boeing’s engineering and quality control has fallen after hundreds of Boeing 737 Max 9s were grounded in the wake of a door panel tearing off an Alaska Airlines jet in flight.S&P 500 futures are up again on Monday. After hitting a record on Friday, the benchmark index looks set to extend those gains. Last week’s rally was driven by investor bets on interest rates cuts and the artificial intelligence boom buoying tech stocks.Could Macy’s get hostile? Macy’s has rejected a $5.8 billion takeover bid from the investment firms Arkhouse Management and Brigade Capital that valued the struggling department store chain at roughly 20 percent above its closing share price on Friday.The investor group is now threatening to take the offer to shareholders. With a potential hostile bid looming, here are DealBook’s questions about what may come next.How would Arkhouse and Brigade pull off a deal? Macy’s board cited doubts about the investment firms’ financing when it rejected the proposal on Sunday. The company said the firms had proposed to pay 25 percent of the offer in equity. The rest would most likely be from debt such as leveraged loans, the market for which has been tight thanks in part to high interest rates.Could the rejection open the door to other bids? Arkhouse’s 2021 offer for Columbia Property Trust led to another buyer entering the picture. Macy’s has not reached out to prospective buyers, people familiar with the matter tell DealBook. But the retailer indicated in a statement that it would “be open to opportunities that are in the best interests of the company and all of our shareholders.”The list of prospective suitors is short, given the challenges facing the retail sector and the scarring memories of buyouts-gone-bad like with Sears.What is Macy’s turnaround plan? The retailer’s shares have fallen about 30 percent over the past five years, as the company lost significant market share, forcing it to close stores and lay off staff — including an announcement last week that it would cut 2,350 jobs.All eyes are on Tony Spring, who takes over as C.E.O. next month after having led Bloomingdale’s, Macy’s much-healthier higher-end brand. But duplicating that kind of success could be challenging, given Macy’s large and underperforming store base and its different shopper demographics.Taking the temperature of tech C.E.O.s Tech sector C.E.O.s are more optimistic about the economy this year, especially the potential for artificial intelligence and the I.P.O. market. But they also remain wary that geopolitical tensions could disrupt trade and increase headwinds in the capital markets, SoftBank’s latest annual survey of its portfolio companies shows.DealBook got an exclusive first look at the report, which includes start-ups backed bySoftBank’s two Vision Funds and its Latin America fund.Hope is returning after a dismal two years. Almost half of the C.E.O.s surveyed were more upbeat about the economy than they were a year ago and expected to raise capital this year.The improvement in sentiment is from a low base, cautioned Alex Clavel, co-C.E.O. of SoftBank Investment Advisers, which manages the funds. Last year was a hangover from 2022, when the fund-raising “faucets were turned off,” he said. Hopes didn’t pan out that I.P.O.s at the end of 2023 — including of the SoftBank-backed Arm — would lead to a flow of new listings, but 37 percent of C.E.O.s said public listings would pick up in the second half of 2024.A.I. excitement is high, even if it’s unclear how it will be deployed. “There is an increasing sense that 2024 is the year when we go from A.I. enthusiasm to A.I. impact,” Clavel said. A third of the C.E.O.s said they had increased A.I. investment by 50 percent last year and were using it to make products more cheaply or to improve efficiency.But some are proceeding cautiously. Clavel said one company has used A.I. to cut costs significantly but is holding off on more changes “because it’s going to be too unsettling” for the work force.The C.E.O.s said tensions with China were the top geopolitical risk. Still, that obstacle hasn’t significantly affected their businesses yet. The biggest concern for 2024: that wider instability, including war in the Middle East, could sap investor interest in I.P.O.s or raise energy costs in Europe.“I have lost confidence in the determination and ability of the Harvard Corporation and Harvard leadership to maintain Harvard as a place where Jews and Israelis can flourish.” — Larry Summers, the former Treasury secretary and ex-president of Harvard, after the university announced a new antisemitism task force on Friday. The committee is set to be co-chaired by Derek Penslar, a professor of Jewish history who Summers said was “unsuited” for the role in part because of his position on the extent of the school’s antisemitism problem.The week ahead On the agenda this week: earnings, inflation and central bank decisions.Tomorrow: Netflix, Procter & Gamble, Johnson & Johnson and Lockheed Martin release quarterly results. Also, the Bank of Japan is expected to maintain its ultra-loose monetary policy; the markets predict the country will exit its negative rates regime as soon as March.Elsewhere, the Academy Awards nominees are set to be announced.Wednesday: The Dutch chips-equipment manufacturer ASML, Tesla and AT&T report earnings.Thursday: It’s decision day for the European Central Bank, which is expected to hold steady on interest rates. On the other side of the Atlantic, U.S. fourth-quarter G.D.P. is set to be published.In earnings, LVMH, Intel, Visa and a slew of airlines including American, Southwest and Alaska Air Group are due to report.Friday: The Personal Consumption Expenditures report, the Fed’s preferred inflation gauge, will be released.THE SPEED READ DealsSony ended a $10 billion deal to combine its Indian assets with Zee Entertainment, a Mumbai-based media company. (Reuters)Macquarie, the big Australian investment firm, has raised 8 billion euros ($8.7 billion) for its latest European infrastructure fund. (FT)What Citigroup’s exit from the $4 trillion market for municipal bonds, a field it once dominated, means for the business of financing state and local governments. (WSJ)Artificial intelligenceEleven Labs, an A.I voice-cloning start-up, raised $80 million in new funds from investors led by Andreessen Horowitz at a valuation of more than $1 billion. (Bloomberg)How Japan is turning to avatars, robots and A.I. to tackle its labor crisis. (FT)Best of the rest“‘America is Under Attack’: Inside the Anti-D.E.I. Crusade” (NYT)American clothing makers are pushing to change a trade rule that effectively lets foreign manufacturers ship directly to U.S. consumers without paying tariffs. (NYT)The Chinese electric carmaker BYD is going upmarket with a Lamborghini-style E.V. to step up its fight with Tesla. (WSJ)We’d like your feedback! Please email thoughts and suggestions to dealbook@nytimes.com. More

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      Haley Gets a Trump Matchup, but Now Faces the Trump Machine

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      As Nikki Haley celebrated Ron DeSantis’s departure from the Republican primary, Donald J. Trump turned his firepower toward his final rival.With only about 48 hours left to campaign in the New Hampshire primary, Nikki Haley finally got the two-person race she wanted.It might not live up to her expectations.For months, it has been an article of faith among Ms. Haley’s supporters and a coalition of anti-Trump Republicans that the only way to defeat Donald J. Trump was to winnow the field to a one-on-one contest and consolidate support among his opponents.That wishcasting became reality on Sunday afternoon, when Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida ended his White House bid.And yet, as the race reached the final day, there was little sign that Mr. DeSantis’s departure would transform Ms. Haley’s chances of winning.Ms. Haley quickly learned that the role of last woman standing against Mr. Trump meant serving as the last target for a party racing to line up behind the former president.Two former rivals in the race — Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, and Mr. DeSantis — both endorsed the former president. The head of the party’s Senate campaign arm proclaimed Mr. Trump to be the “presumptive nominee.” And Mr. Trump’s campaign strategists vowed that she would be “absolutely embarrassed and demolished” in her home state of South Carolina, the next big prize on the calendar.Campaigning across New Hampshire on Sunday, Ms. Haley and her supporters celebrated the DeSantis campaign’s demise.“Can you hear that sound?” she asked more than 1,000 gathered in a high school gymnasium in Exeter, N.H., her best-attended event in the state. “That’s the sound of a two-person race.”Thirty-five miles north, in Rochester, N.H., Mr. Trump told his crowd to expect a victory so decisive it would effectively end the primary. “That should wrap it up,” he said.Mr. Trump during a campaign rally at the Rochester Opera House on Sunday in New Hampshire.Doug Mills/The New York TimesMs. Haley’s supporters in the state said they were feeling that pressure. Some worried aloud that she had pulled punches with Mr. Trump for so long that her aggressiveness in the primary’s final weekend would be inadequate to persuade flinty New Hampshire voters that she had enough fight in her to win against the brawling former president.One Republican activist backing Ms. Haley said he kept his lawn sign in his garage because Mr. Trump’s victory felt inevitable. Another Haley backer, Fergus Cullen, a former chairman of the New Hampshire Republican Party, described his support for the former governor as unenthusiastic. He said he could not bring himself to defend Ms. Haley on social media or lean on friends and family to vote for her.“Too little, too late,” Mr. Cullen said about Ms. Haley’s prospects. “She had to inspire and engage unaffiliated voters, and I just haven’t seen her doing what she needs to do to reach that audience and turn them out in the numbers that she needs.”Most polls during the past week showed Mr. Trump up by a dozen points or more. A Suffolk University/Boston Globe/NBC10 Boston daily tracking poll of New Hampshire voters showed Mr. Trump steadily adding to his lead over Ms. Haley, with a margin of 53 percent to 36 percent on Saturday.Ms. Haley’s performance on Tuesday is likely to determine the future of her campaign — and possibly her political career. Anything short of a victory or narrow defeat would put pressure on her to drop out rather than face three weeks of punishing ads from the Trump campaign in her home state, where she is already behind.Her best shot at survival is high turnout from New Hampshire’s independent voters, who make up 40 percent of the state’s electorate, while Republicans account for about 30 percent.The New Hampshire secretary of state has been predicting record high turnout on Tuesday, a scenario that both campaigns were claiming would bolster their chances of success.Ms. Haley’s team believes a turnout surge would mean more participation from independent and moderate voters who are more likely to support her. They looked to Senator John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign as a model. Mr. McCain won the state’s primary by dominating independent voters and battling to a draw among Republicans, according to exit polls.Ms. Haley, however, appears to be trailing by a large margin among Republicans, according to public polls. In the tracking poll, Ms. Haley led independents, 49 percent to 41, but was nearly 20 points behind Mr. Trump overall largely owing to his wide margin from Republicans, 65 percent to 25 percent.Ms. Haley on Sunday with supporters in Derry, N.H.Ruth Fremson/The New York TimesMs. Haley’s donors and allies argued Mr. DeSantis’s departure could reel in more donations and help her sharpen the contrast between herself and the former president. Both Ms. Haley and Mr. DeSantis struggled to find ways to criticize Mr. Trump without turning off Republicans who may be open to alternatives, but are still fond of him.But some longtime political operatives in the state suggested there might not be enough anti-Trump Republicans and moderate independents to make the numbers work.“Haley has consolidated the non-Trump vote, but overtaking him is the Rubik’s Cube no one has been able to figure out yet,” said Matt Mowers, a former Republican House candidate from New Hampshire who was endorsed by both Mr. Trump and Ms. Haley.As she delivered her stump speech on Saturday with new urgency, Ms. Haley’s attacks on Mr. Trump were sometimes softened by including Mr. Biden in the critique.“What are Joe Biden and Donald Trump both talking about?” Ms. Haley asked, at her rally in Exeter. “The investigations that they are in, the distractions they have, the people they’re mad at, their hurt feelings, and they have not shown us one ounce of vision for the future — not one.”Jane Freeman, 55, a retired flight attendant and undeclared voter in Exeter, scrunched her forehead and let out a sigh when asked about Mr. DeSantis’s endorsement of Mr. Trump.“Trump is a tricky thing,” said Ms. Freeman, who voted for the former president in 2016 and in 2020 but now supports Ms. Haley. “I really wish he would have waited,” she said of Mr. DeSantis. Still, she said Ms. Haley had the right momentum and was continuing to win voters. “I am nervous, but truly, truly hopeful,” she said.Anjali Huynh More

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      Ron DeSantis Drops Out of 2024 Presidential Race and Endorses Trump

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      Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida suspended his campaign for president on Sunday and endorsed former President Donald J. Trump, marking a spectacular implosion for a candidate once seen as having the best chance to dethrone Mr. Trump as the Republican Party’s nominee in 2024.His departure from the race just two days before the New Hampshire primary election leaves Nikki Haley, the former governor of South Carolina, as Mr. Trump’s last rival standing.Mr. DeSantis’s devastating 30-percentage-point loss to Mr. Trump in the Iowa caucuses last Monday had left him facing a daunting question: Why keep going? On Sunday, he provided his answer, acknowledging there was no point in soldiering on without a “clear path to victory.”“I am today suspending my campaign,” Mr. DeSantis said in a video posted after The New York Times reported he was expected to leave the race, adding: “Trump is superior to the current incumbent, Joe Biden. That is clear. 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.”Mr. DeSantis had flown home to Tallahassee late Saturday after campaigning in South Carolina. He had been expected to appear at a campaign event in New Hampshire on Sunday afternoon, but it was canceled.Even before Mr. DeSantis made his announcement, Mr. Trump had begun speaking about his candidacy in the past tense. “May he rest in peace,” Mr. Trump said of Mr. DeSantis at a Saturday evening rally in Manchester.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More

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      Trump Says He Will Retire ‘DeSanctimonious’ After DeSantis Endorses Him

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      It didn’t take long. A little over an hour after Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida dropped out of the Republican presidential primary and endorsed Donald J. Trump, the former president doled out his version of a consolation prize.“Will I be using the name Ron DeSanctimonious?” he said after brief remarks at his campaign headquarters in New Hampshire. “I said that name is officially retired.” The nickname, a staple of his social media posts and speeches for much of the past year, had run its course, he told the person who asked him whether he would continue using it.His campaign struck a conciliatory tone in a statement, saying “we are honored by the endorsement.” It was a note that Mr. Trump echoed at his rally later in the evening.“He was very gracious, and he endorsed me, so I appreciate that,” Mr. Trump said at the rally.The primary contest is now a two-person race between Mr. Trump and Nikki Haley, who was his ambassador to the United Nations and has also become a target of his name-calling.Mr. Trump’s playground taunting has bedeviled his opponents and amused his supporters since his 2016 campaign, when he frequently used derisive nicknames for Republican rivals like Senator Ted Cruz and former Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida, and then for Hillary Clinton, his Democratic opponent. He did the same in 2020 to Democratic contenders including Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, as well as to the eventual winner, President Biden. More

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      Trump Thanks DeSantis for Endorsement, Calling Him ‘Gracious’

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      Former President Donald J. Trump on Sunday thanked Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida for endorsing him after suspending his campaign, calling Mr. DeSantis — once a top rival whom Mr. Trump spent significant time bashing in his speeches — “gracious.”Speaking to a packed house at a historic theater in Rochester, N.H., Mr. Trump called Mr. DeSantis’s wife, Casey, a “really terrific person.” And he said that Mr. DeSantis “ran a really good campaign.”“I will tell you, it’s not easy,” Mr. Trump said. “They think it’s easy to run this stuff, right? It’s not easy.”He went on: “But as you know, he left the campaign trail today at 3 p.m.,” adding, “And in so doing, he was very gracious, and he endorsed me, so I appreciate that.”For months, Mr. Trump made attacking Mr. DeSantis a focal point of his campaign speeches, particularly in Iowa. He bashed Mr. DeSantis as disloyal, called him a poor governor and suggested he was a political opportunist whose positions had shifted as he ran for president.But after Mr. Trump’s dominant victory in the Iowa caucuses, in which Mr. DeSantis finished a distant second, Mr. Trump shifted his sights to Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor who is his closest-polling competitor in the New Hampshire primary race.In speeches this past week, Mr. Trump mostly swiped at Mr. DeSantis in casual asides that suggested he wasn’t worth the time.“You notice I haven’t mentioned the name of Ron DeSanctimonious yet,” Mr. Trump said at a rally in Manchester on Saturday, using a derisive moniker he bestowed on the Florida governor last year. “I think he’s gone.”Sunday was perhaps the first day in months that Mr. Trump did not use that nickname. Earlier in the day, he told supporters at his campaign headquarters in Manchester that he would stop using that nickname after Mr. DeSantis left the race.“Will I be using the name Ron DeSanctimonious?” Mr. Trump said. “I said that name is officially retired.” More