Kellyanne Conway: The Never-Trumpers look so ridiculous now
Former Senior Counselor to President Trump Kellyanne Conway reacts to Trump’s victory in the Iowa caucuses
Former Senior Counselor to President Trump Kellyanne Conway joined "The Brian Kilmeade Show" on Fox News Radio on Tuesday, advising Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to drop out of the Republican presidential race and help the party unite behind Trump. DeSantis and former U.N. Amb. Nikki Haley finished far behind in Monday's Iowa caucuses as Trump cruised to a landslide victory.
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KELLYANNE CONWAY: I think [Trump] changed the way campaigning happens in Iowa as well. Sure, we love retail politicking, I'm a pollster of decades, I love getting with the people. But he had the fewest number of stops here in Iowa, about 25 events, where Vivek Ramaswamy had 10 times that. Nikki Haley, Ron DeSantis certainly had a lot of events. Nikki Haley had all the king's horses, all the king's men when it came to that last minute infusion of cash; the ads were nonstop. The vaunted ground game for Ron DeSantis, I think, helped him squeak out the second-place finish. But it's so distant from Trump. I think Trump … has all the top spots here.
Republican presidential candidates Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis. (Getty Images)
If I were Ron DeSantis, I would graciously drop out and say, I am a 45-year-old young man in politics, successful governor of the third-largest state. I'm going to help Trump win, and I'm going to help him beat Joe Biden, and then we'll see what the future brings. I think he should go the way of Vivek… that would be my advice. I think they're all sticking around in case Trump isn't the nominee for some reason.
But look, I heard Nikki Haley on "Fox & Friends" this morning say that it's a two-person race … She's right. It is a two-person race, but it's between Donald Trump and Joe Biden. And she cannot win the path to the Republican nomination. She cannot go through Democrat and independent voters. It just doesn't work that way. And as a Republican, as a conservative, I shouldn't want it to work that way. We want to make sure that the way the party is expanding now, where all the articles and the polling show President Trump is doing better among Hispanics, among African-Americans, among union households, among self-identified independents, among first time voters, and even among some young people and some groups of women than he has in the past, and that Republicans have in a while. Nobody wants to revert to the Romney-McCain model. It's a losing model, and it suggests that you're "electable." Donald Trump completely blew electability out of the water the way he did in 2016. I'd say the word around Donald Trump now is not electability. It's "inevitability."
DES MOINES, IOWA - JANUARY 15: Former President Donald Trump speaks at his caucus night event at the Iowa Events Center on January 15, 2024 in Des Moines, Iowa. Iowans voted today in the state’s caucuses for the first contest in the 2024 Republican presidential nominating process. Trump has been projected winner of the Iowa caucus. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
Former President Donald Trump cruised to an easy victory on Monday night in the Iowa caucuses, the lead off contest in the 2024 Republican presidential nominating calendar.
The Fox News Decision Desk made call for Trump at 8:31pm ET, a half an hour after the caucuses got underway across the Hawkeye State.
More than two hours after Trump's victory was called, the Fox News Decision Desk projected that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis would edge former ambassador to the United Nations and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley for a distant second place behind Trump.
Fox News' Paul Steinhauser contributed to this report.
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