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Ron DeSantis Drops Out Of Presidential Race; Nikki Haley Versus Trump In New Hampshire. Aired 5-6p ET

Aired January 21, 2024 - 17:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[17:00:44]

JIM ACOSTA, CNN HOST: You're live in the "CNN Newsroom." I'm Jim Acosta in Washington. Good evening. Breaking news tonight, the race for the Republican nomination is down to just two candidates after Florida Governor Ron DeSantis suspended his presidential campaign just two days before the New Hampshire primary. This comes after his disappointing, distant second place finish in Iowa, where he spent the vast majority of his time and money.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RON DESANTIS, FORMER REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Now following our second-place finish in Iowa, we've prayed and deliberated on the way forward. If there was anything I could do to produce a favorable outcome, more campaign stops, more interviews, I would do it. But I can't ask our supporters to volunteer their time and donate their resources if we don't have a clear path to victory. Accordingly, I am today suspending my campaign.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: It's a devastating blow for the Florida governor who was once hailed as a potential heir apparent to the Republican Party. On his way out the door, he dealt one last jab to Nikki Haley, endorsing Donald Trump, despite questioning his electability time and time again on the campaign trail.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DESANTIS: Now, it's clear to me that a majority of Republican primary voters want to give Donald Trump another chance. He has my endorsement because we can't go back to the old Republican guard of yesteryear, a repackage formed of warmed-over corporatism that Nikki Haley represents. The days of putting Americans last, of kowtowing to large corporations, of caving to woke ideology are over.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: With the first of the nation primary just days away, Haley is now the lone Trump challenger in a party that is increasingly falling behind the former president. CNN's Steve Contorno has been following the DeSantis campaign for us. Steve, a stunning turn of events and there you are in Florida not following DeSantis out on the campaign trail or Iowa or New Hampshire, South Carolina, wherever. What more can you tell us? What was really the deciding factor here, do you think?

STEVE CONTORNO, CNN REPORTER: Well, you mentioned this was a stunning turn of events. And certainly, given the advantages he had coming into this race, it is quite astounding what he has squandered. The amount of money that he had, the momentum he had after that 19-point victory. You mentioned that some people in the party saw him as the future of the party. Rupert Murdoch's "New York Post" actually put that on its front cover the day after the election, writing, the future.

So, in that respect, yes, what happened a few hours ago is stunning, but as far as what's transpired in the days since what happened in Iowa, the writing has been on the wall. Most of his advisors over the last few days have been sort of in a morose state and acknowledging that there were few little paths to victory going forward. It was just a matter of time before DeSantis came to that realization himself.

And I'm told that he did meet with some advisors earlier in this week. He had a brief visit to Florida where he spent the day, huddled with his closest team and they basically sort of laid out the case. It was the first time that he really had entertained conversations about potentially dropping out. And over the next few days as they talked to donors and got a real sense of the financial picture and the limitations he would have going forward, it became very clear that there was not a path for him anymore.

So, he made this decision today with his wife, his closest advisor, Casey DeSantis. They moved. They came back to Florida after going to South Carolina yesterday, where they had tried to sort of manufacture another way forward, you know, skipping New Hampshire, going ahead to South Carolina. Maybe if they -- if they had done enough to bruise Nikki Haley there, it would give him a chance.

But instead, they're deciding at this time to suspend the campaign. He's going to look ahead to his next three years as governor. And then potentially he's already been planting the seeds a bit for what happens in 2028, Jim.

ACOSTA: Alright, Steve Contorno, thank you very much. Let's bring in CNN political director David Chalian. David, what do you think? Why do you think this happened so soon?

DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: Well, first of all, presidential campaigns end usually for one main reason, and that is that the money dries up. And the money dries up when you are not performing up to expectations. And that is what has happened here with Ron DeSantis.

[17:05:00]

You know, you fall 30 points behind Donald Trump in Iowa after you had spent like -- you just bet the whole farm on Iowa, if you will.

ACOSTA: Right. CHALIAN: And that was a really disappointing distant second place showing. So, he came out of Iowa with no momentum to build in New Hampshire, not a natural electorate for him anyway. And you know it's so intriguing. In South Carolina this week, he was answering questions and he was making the case, Nikki Haley appeals to independents and moderates, you can't really win a nomination race that way, I appeal to conservatives.

He said, for instance, I went to all these Iowa caucus sites on Iowa caucus night, and you know what they told me, the Trump voters, they told me they are with me in 2028. Well, you know, that to me indicates that you have this monster of a blockade if you are Ron DeSantis, and that is Donald Trump. You're appealing to a lot of the same voters and trying to make yourself the Trump alternative, except these are not voters looking for a Trump alternative. They want to double down on Trump, and they were talking to those same kinds of voters.

ACOSTA: Yeah, I mean, as you said, I mean, he hit all 99 counties in Iowa and had that disappointing result. And I suppose there is some wisdom, if you can find any in all of this, in getting out before the New Hampshire primary, right? You don't want to take a beating in the New Hampshire primary, finish a distant third, and then stumble into South Carolina and who knows what happens after that. I mean, I suppose that the writing was on the wall.

CHALIAN: There's no doubt. He was sort of not part of the New Hampshire conversation. He had already faded so substantially because he had pulled himself off the air, largely, in New Hampshire, he wasn't, even in the final weeks, when they put everything into Iowa. And so, what happened is, you're right, he would have been very much a third distant. I mean, we had a poll out this morning, Jim. It showed him with six percent support in New Hampshire.

ACOSTA: Right.

CHALIAN: So, he was sort of a non-factor. And so how do you build momentum off of a non-factor in New Hampshire when you've got weeks to go before the South Carolina primary, where all the polling shows Donald Trump pretty significantly ahead. And of course, it's Nikki Haley's home state.

So, the path ahead for DeSantis, as he acknowledged in his remarks today, there was no clear path ahead to this nomination. And so, he just acknowledged the reality of the situation. There was no point to stay in this race for him.

But my God, the year of 2023, you go back a year ago now, he was actually really in contention with Donald Trump's impulse.

ACOSTA: Oh, yeah.

CHALIAN: Donald Trump had come off of those 22 midterms in a somewhat weakened political state. People thought a lot of the candidates he backed caused the Republicans to lose key races. Here's this guy who comes off this 19-point re-election victory. And as Steve said, it just was squandered month after month after month. It was like a textbook example of how not to run a presidential campaign. That is what DeSantis leaves behind.

ACOSTA: And it seems, and we saw this in 2016, David, when we covered that race, a fractured field helps Donald Trump. And here we are yet again, right before the New Hampshire primary. This race is down to two candidates. Donald Trump --

CHALIAN: Yeah, fractured no more, right?

ACOSTA: Fractured no more. Donald Trump and Nikki Haley. I mean, I can't remember a primary contest where it was down to two candidates this early. That's usually around Super Tuesday or something like that.

CHALIAN: Exactly. In fact, there's never been a non-incumbent Republican who has won both Iowa and New Hampshire. So, if Donald Trump wins New Hampshire on Tuesday, he will be the first non- incumbent Republican, although he says pseudo-incumbent, I realize. He was once president to win both of those early contests.

But now, Jim, to your point, okay, it was a splintered feel along. Donald Trump was able to benefit from that. Now it's a one-on-one race. Donald Trump is still dominant. So even in the one-on-one, and we'll see what the results are at New Hampshire, Nikki Haley is going to have to make an argument for why she deserves to continue to be funded in large dollars and has momentum to move forward in this race.

ACOSTA: And guess what? After New Hampshire comes South Carolina, well, we know Nevada comes next. She's not even --

CHALIAN: She's not even competing for delegates in Nevada, by the way, because they're doing a caucus and a primary. Primary has no delegates, and she's not competing in the caucus.

ACOSTA: But I guess the point I was going to get to was, if the next big contest is South Carolina, and the polls show Trump ahead in South Carolina, she may be at the same crossroads that Ron DeSantis is today at that point.

ACOSTA: Precisely. You're going to have to make a calculation if you're Nikki Haley. Do I want to be embarrassed in my home state? You know, that is a question as you plot your own political future. So, we will see how Nikki Haley performs on New Hampshire. We got 48 hours to go. She's obviously gonna run through the tape on New Hampshire.

She has said -- she said it -- I was with her in Amherst, New Hampshire on Friday, New Hampshire will not be the end of the road of her campaign. We will see, as you say, how she calculates the best path forward from there.

ACOSTA: All right, David Chalian, very interesting stuff. I didn't think it was going to happen this quickly, but the bottom falls out -- when the bottom falls out, it falls out.

CHALIAN: Yeah.

ACOSTA: All right, David, thank you very much. Much more on the breaking news. Ron DeSantis dropping out, how the remaining candidates, Trump and Nikki Haley are reacting and there are lots of reactions all across the board. We'll get to that straight ahead.

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[17:14:11]

ACOSTA: We are continuing to follow the breaking news this evening. Ron DeSantis is suspending his campaign for president. Let's discuss more now with former Trump administration advisor, Matt Mowers, CNN political commentator and Democratic strategist Maria Cardona and CNN political commentator and Republican strategist Alice Stewart. Alice and Maria are the hosts of the podcast, "Hot Mic from Left to Right." Guys, great to see you.

Matt, I'll start with you first since you're from New Hampshire, you're a New Hampshire guy. What do you think of this news? Are you surprised by it? Did DeSantis really not have a choice?

MATT MOWERS, FORMER TRUMP ADMINISTRATION ADVISER: Yeah, I'm not too surprised. I mean, after he barely squeaked into second place in Iowa, all this did was maybe give him four more days on the campaign trail. Had he come in third, I think this is a decision that probably would have come Monday night. And the fact is he really didn't have any core support here outside some very vocal supporters who've been with him since the beginning.

[17:15:02]

He's been polling at and, you know, CNN's poll today that was released, six percent. And this has been a long time coming. I mean, one thing I think has not been focused on enough is how the Trump team really methodically tore apart Ron DeSantis since his re-election in November of 2022. If you go back to the fall, I remember talking to folks around President Trump and they said Ron DeSantis is the only one they had any inkling of a concern about.

And they unleashed upwards of $47 million or upwards of almost $25 million of that $47 million spent against him, and just slowly but surely winnowed away his support. It shows the challenges of pulling where he was so far out from the primary, not to mention the fact he was trying to develop (ph) sea legs as a candidate. You know, he had a lot of awkward encounters early on the campaign trail, particularly here in New Hampshire. And you know, it's just been hard for him ever since.

ACOSTA: Yeah, and Alice, I mean, you worked on a lot of Republican campaigns. What went wrong for Ron DeSantis. We heard him said a couple points, well, I didn't do enough, mainstream media was, you know, kind of suggested he was in the Fox bubble too much. Is there anything that you would pick apart and say okay, you know what, this is where he went wrong?

ALICE STEWART, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yeah. Look, I think there's a laundry list of things that will be hammered out in the post-mortem of this campaign and this is a classic case of the bigger they are the harder they fall. And he started out with tremendous amounts of money, large staff, high expectation, big hopes but the problem was it was not managed well.

And he had a lot of people, there was an internal struggle between the people that worked from his Florida governor's staff to the new people that came in and ran this campaign from the political action committee side. And that is really unprecedented in a presidential campaign. So, there were internal struggles speaking with the campaign late this afternoon.

Look, they are -- the ones that are there are proud of the work they did. They say they came into a campaign in the middle of the summer that was a complete disaster. And they did everything they could to turn things around. They just didn't have enough time and just enough opportunity to do so. But at the end of the day, they're proud of the work they did. They do say that, look, as the governor said, there just was not a path forward.

ACOSTA: Yeah.

STEWART: And, you know, the last-minute attempts to do more national media just wasn't enough. And speaking with those on the Hill and on the trail, my understanding that Texas Congressman Chip Roy was one of those instrumental in having a really difficult heart to heart with him and acknowledging there was no path forward.

ACOSTA: Interesting.

STEAWRT: And it's a good time to suspend.

ACOSTA: Very interesting. And Maria, Nikki Haley is now the last person standing against Donald Trump. You know, and DeSantis took a parting shot at her, I don't know if you saw this, today when he ended his campaign. I mean, one last shot at Nikki Haley. Let's watch it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DESANTIS: We can't go back to the old Republican guard of yesteryear, a repackaged form of warmed-over corporatism that Nikki Haley represents. The days of putting Americans last, of kowtowing to large corporations, of caving to woke ideology are over.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: You know, Maria, Ron DeSantis was always comfortable going after Nikki Haley, but not Donald Trump, the guy that is on a path to the nomination right now.

MARIA CARDONA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: And I think that was essentially the problem, one of the biggest problems all along. Jim, it's actually quite simple what happened to Ron DeSantis. Ron DeSantis was never well liked. His campaign was never well run. And as a result, his super PACs ended up not being well resourced for those reasons. His strategic message was also never well received.

And so, what it seems like to me is after he won his election for governor, his re-election for governor, he became the golden boy. But at the end of the day, he was always really just a GOP mirage. Everyone who was dying to turn the page from Trump focused all of their hopes and dreams and promises on Ron DeSantis. And so he was like this glistening, beautiful, a glittering thing in the desert. But when you got really close up to him, there was no there there.

He was more like a lifeless political carcass, even from the moment that he announced his campaign. Let's remember what a debacle that was on Twitter.

ACOSTA: Yeah.

CARDONA: And so, he never really got off the ground because there was so much pressure put on him to be the golden boy that was gonna take the Republican Party from the stranglehold of Donald Trump into the promised land. And he was never able to do it. And so, the parting shot that he gave Haley to me kind of underscores also his lack of political acumen. He didn't need to do that.

[17:20:00]

And I think one of the reasons why he did it is because he is still in the throes of Donald Trump, even after this was the man who essentially destroyed him before he got out of the gate.

ACOSTA: Yeah.

CARDONA: He wants to either be his V.P., he wants to be in the cabinet -- ACOSTA: Right.

CARDONA: -- and wants to have hope for some kind of political revival.

ACOSTA: Yeah. And Matt, I wonder, you know, in terms of tactics, you know, Ron DeSantis spent a lot of time in the run up to the primaries and caucuses getting underway, going after woke-ism, going after targets like Walt Disney. And at the end, he went from Space Mountain to It's a Small World.

I mean, it just did not work. And I wonder, did -- does that message really just not resonate with Republicans as much as maybe folks think on social media and that sort of tow snapping --

MOWERS: Right.

ACOSTA: -- corners of the far right. It just doesn't resonate with voters.

MOWERS: Now that's exactly right especially here in New Hampshire. I mean, at the end of the day we're the live free or die state, you know. We like government to be smaller and out of the way, let businesses run themselves.

And that was what was always fascinating to me, is that, you know, I think Ron DeSantis and his team early on may have misread the room. They kind of thought their support was going to come from the hardest of hardcore Trump supporters when in reality he was picking up, you know, a lot of the non-Trump supporters, the non-Trump voters --

ACOSTA: Yeah.

MOWERS: -- folks who were a little bit more centrist or even center right. And yet he was still moving to the right to try to out maneuver Donald Trump ideologically for Iowa. You know, they made this miscalculation early on in the campaign that somehow, they had a, you know, deal a death blow to Donald Trump in Iowa, which is a caucus state, low turnout affair, the hardest of hardcore party activists participate in it.

And so, in order to try to even have a chance there, they had to move to the right, which really killed all of his appeal to the independent voters and then moderate Republican voters he would need in a state like New Hampshire, where you do have a plethora of other voters to target that aren't so committed to supporting Donald Trump.

And I'll just add one other quick thing. The other thing we don't talk about enough is that Ron DeSantis tried to say, I am Trump without the drama and that I can beat Joe Biden, he'll lose to Joe Biden. Well, the electability argument went out the window when poll after poll started showing that Trump was leading Biden in a lot of these key swing states.

A lot of voters said, well, if that's the case, I'm not going to go with new Coke (ph). I'm just going to go with the original because I seem to like that enough and that guy I think can win.

ACOSTA: Yeah.

MOWERS: And so that's been the challenge to Ron DeSantis there.

ACOSTA: Yeah, Alice. I mean, it seems like Republican voters want Trump and the drama.

STEWART: Well, clearly, and that hit on a key point here. Look, DeSantis did try to paint himself as Trump-like. And the reality is, and many GOP leaders here in New Hampshire will acknowledge, you know. If people wanted anything remotely associated with Trump, they will go with Trump. So now we have the head-to-head matchup with the authentic Trump and an alternative to Trump. And that is certainly what Nikki Haley has wanted and, you know, many voters want.

Here's the key interesting aspect of New Hampshire. We had the New Hampshire Secretary of State put out the latest numbers of the voters here in the Granite State. Registered Republicans, there are 267,000 registered Republicans. Registered Democrats, there are 261,000. The undeclared or independent voters, 344,000. And as we've had an education in New Hampshire politics, those undeclared voters can vote in a Republican primary on Tuesday, 344,000 of them.

And if they are put off by the tone and tenor and the far-right messaging of Trump, they will more than likely come out for Nikki Haley. So, I think that votes well for Nikki Haley. The problem is, Jim, we've seen our polls. CNN poll shows Trump is 50 percent, Nikki Haley down to 36. She has a large margin to make up. And then the question is, where is her campaign staff after that?

But I think given the unique nature of how New Hampshire politics in the voting process is and who can vote in a Republican primary, that benefits her. And I would -- I have said this afternoon, she had a very, very difficult shot to beat Trump. And now that DeSantis is out, she just has a very difficult shot. But then again, the chances are a little bit better with DeSantis out of the race.

ACOSTA: Yeah. I mean, Maria, does Nikki Haley have a chance at this point? If she loses New Hampshire after coming in third in Iowa, do you want to risk losing your home state of South Carolina? I mean, that has to be a conversation going on inside the Haley campaign, I would think.

CARDONA: Yeah, Jim, Alice and I were on your show before the holidays and we were talking exactly about this scenario.

And I said exactly what you just said, which is, I think the conversation that Nikki Haley's going to have after she loses New Hampshire to Donald Trump with or maybe not DeSantis still in the race is whether she drops out before being handed a huge embarrassment by Donald Trump in her home state.

[17:25:00]

I still think that's the case. Even more so now that you have her colleague, Tim Scott, who came out to endorse Donald Trump over her.

ACOSTA: Right.

CARDONA: And look, I think she was smart in her comments earlier to our colleague, Dana Bash, when she tried to explain the reason why she doesn't have a whole lot of support within the elected official class of South Carolina or even in Congress. And, you know, she talked about how it's because she really passed an agenda that put the people first and not elected officials first. And I think she's smart to try to do that.

But the fact of the matter is, she was governor of the state. And if you, number one, are not even able to get any of your elected colleagues to support you over your opponent, and number two, the polls show your opponent is already trouncing you, I really don't see a path forward for her. I don't think she's going to win New Hampshire. And if she certainly doesn't win New Hampshire, I don't know that she wants to be embarrassed in her home state of South Carolina.

ACOSTA: All right, well -- and Maria, this is why you're so good at this. All of you are so good at this. But Maria, you have teed up what we're going to be talking about in our next block. That is, we're going to show some of Dana Bash's interview with Nikki Haley. That's coming up. Much more on all of this breaking news out of New Hampshire, out of the campaign trail, Ron DeSantis dropping out of the presidential race. He has suspended his presidential campaign. More on all of this when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[17:31:00]

ACOSTA: Breaking news, just a short while ago this afternoon, Ron DeSantis suspending his campaign. Our Dana Bash was able to grab a quick one-on-one interview with Nikki Haley to get her take on all of this. She's the latest Trump challenger, the last one I should say, standing at this point as New Hampshire voters get going to the polls on Tuesday. Here's part of that conversation.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NIKKI HALEY, (R) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Look, I have said, I think that Ron ran a good race. I know it's personal to get into a race. It's personal to get out of a race. He has been a good governor and he added a lot to the campaign, and we wish him well.

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Okay. When he -- when he dropped out, part of what he said was he reminded everybody that he signed a pledge to support the republic -- Republican nominee on to that pledge, he meeting Donald Trump has my endorsement because we can't go back to the old republican guard of yesteryear or repackage form of warmed-over corporatism that Nikki Haley represents. That's tough stuff on his way out the door.

HALEY: You know, and it's interesting because there's no proof to that. These fellas say this because they want people to believe it. But what's amazing to me is they think they can lie to the American people and the American people are going to believe it. Prove it. Prove one thing that they've said.

Prove the fact that Donald Trump says I want to cut social security or raise the age. I've never said that. Prove the fact that Donald Trump says I want to raise gas taxes. I've never said that or done that. Prove that Ron DeSantis says that I'm a corporate -- whatever he says I am. I've never done that.

I was in South Carolina. We fought for the people every day. There's a reason that you don't see the legislature lining up behind me in South Carolina. It's because I fought to get them to vote on the record. I fought to have them do ethics reform. I vetoed half a billion dollars- worth of their pork projects.

And then you see Congress. The reason Congress doesn't support us is I've pushed for term limits. I've pushed for mental competency tests. I've said if they don't give us a budget on time, they don't get paid. I don't get that political elite. That's what we need to be talking about, not the corporate stuff that they're talking about. The fact that they all side together against the people is what I'm doing. I'm going to continue to fight for the people.

There were 14 people in this race, and now there are two. I'm going to finish this so Joe Biden and Donald Trump are not an issue at all, that we actually put them in the past and we go forward, because our country deserves it and Americans want it. They're tired. I don't think we need to have two 80-year-olds sitting in the White House when we basically got to make sure that we can handle the war situation that we're in. We need to know they're at the top of their game. We need to know that they can take care of our national security and our economy. Right now, I don't know that people feel like that with either one, so that's why we're giving them a choice.

BASH: What's your message to Ron DeSantis's supporters who are still out there? Let's just start in New Hampshire. He at our -- at our latest poll this morning, he was at 6%. So, we're not talking about a big slice of the electorate, but they are out there. He just endorsed Donald Trump. What's your message to them about why they should vote for you?

HALEY: I think that they love America, and I think they want a new generational leader. And so, I am telling them that I am that new generational leader, and I'm the conservative that can get it done. And we're going to go and make sure that we get spending under control. We're going to get our kids on reading again and have transparency in the classroom. We're going to secure our border once and for all, no more excuses. We're going to bring law and order back to this country.

But guess what else we're going to do? We're the only one in a general election that beats Joe Biden. Even if you look at the poll yesterday that came out in New Hampshire, general election, Trump loses to Biden by seven points here in New Hampshire. I beat Biden. Look at every swing state. I beat Biden. I beat him by up to 17 points.

This is the fact we don't want a President Kamala Harris. That should send a chill up everybody's spine. So instead, look at the fact that we could actually win. And I think that's what Ron DeSantis's supporters want. They don't want to lose. They don't want a President Kamala Harris. And they also want a new generational leader. We give them all of that.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ACOSTA: Of course, Nikki Haley is not the only candidate reacting to this campaign shakeup. More analysis after the break. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[17:39:14]

ACOSTA: We are following the major shakeup in the race for the republican presidential nomination. Ron DeSantis ending his disappointing campaign just 48 hours before voters in New Hampshire head to the polls.

Joining us now, CNN's senior political analyst John Avlon and Margaret Hoover. She's with us as well. Guys, great to see you both. I guess I should show this on screen. We have a new poll out today, CNN poll on New Hampshire, and this particular poll shows the field narrowed to Trump and Nikki Haley. I don't know if we can show that to our viewers if we have it ready, but this, I can tell you what it says, because I have it right here in front of me. It says Trump 54, Nikki Haley 41, other 3%. So, I guess we anticipated that something like this might happen. But guys, now that DeSantis is out of the race, Trump is still very much in the driver's seat here.

[17:40:02]

MARGARET HOOVER, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR, PBS HOST: He is, Jim, and Governor Sununu told me this week on the "Firing Line," the other program that I host, that enthusiasm is going to be everything in the outcome because Republicans are pulling for Trump in this race in New Hampshire and its unaffiliated voters of which New Hampshire has 40% of the electorate, 30% Republican, 30% Democrat, 40% unaffiliated, have to show up in equal numbers or more than Republicans in order for Nikki Haley to have a prayer.

And there isn't the kind of enthusiasm on the ground, which was also true in Iowa --

ACOSTA: Yeah.

HOOVER: -- that is predicted to take Nikki Haley over the top. And so that's the final thing I think to look for in these last hours. This is a two-person race.

JOHN AVLON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Yeah.

HOOVER: And Donald Trump is consolidating and pulling ahead very early

ACOSTA: Yeah.

AVLON: But --

ACOSTA: Go ahead, John.

AVLON: -- I mean, you know, we should say that, you know, Nikki Haley won 63% of moderates in Iowa. Donald Trump has a real problem with moderates. He has a real problem with, you know, centrist independents, and that's the bread and butter of New Hampshire's political culture.

And this is the last best chance the Republican Party has to have an off ramp from re-nominating a guy who tried to overturn our democracy, who has been indicted on 91 counts. And --

HOOVER: (INAUDIBLE).

AVLON: -- you know -- yeah. I mean, you know, who's counted. And now it's actually a two-person race and the contrast between the two candidates and their philosophical visions, the implications for the country and the world couldn't be more clear.

ACOSTA: Yeah, but, I mean, Margaret, what is the path for Nikki Haley? Even if she finishes, okay, five or six points behind Donald Trump and has a better than expected night in the New Hampshire primary, you know, the South Carolina primary is looming a few weeks after that and all of the polls indicate that Trump is way out in front there in her home state.

HOOVER: Well, that's right. It doesn't count, though, until the voters vote.

AVLON: Yeah.

HOOVER: And so, if she does actually close this gap -- I mean, right now, all the polling suggests this is a 10 to 15-point gap between the two. If she -- if there's huge enthusiasm, if 300,000 New Hampshire voters come out and Nikki Haley is able to close that gap in a strong second finish and that would be, I think, four to six points, as you just said, she's got a -- she actually does then have momentum going into South Carolina, which, to your point, is a very difficult race for her. But I think it's a fight she's willing to have.

AVLON: Absolutely.

HOOVER: In her own backyard, a state she knows, I mean, that's a place where she will -- she will fight to the end. But I think it does take a strong second finish in New Hampshire.

AVLON: Yeah or -- I mean, you know, really reshuffling the deck requires winning. Um, but -- but I mean, you know, South Carolina is still -- still a month out. You know, Tim Scott, center for South Carolina, who she appointed, of course, endorsed Donald Trump. But I was struck by the absurdity of his argument that Donald Trump can unite the nation. You say a lot of things about Donald Trump, his ability to unite the nation is negative.

ACOSTA: Yeah.

AVLON: Uh, and so there's sort of this perpetuation of unreality, uh, that you see, uh, by people contouring themselves to endorse him and -- and get a board the train without perhaps realizing, you know, the full implications of what they're doing, where they've got to just sort of say things that are self-evidently not true.

Again, people vote, polls don't -- and New Hampshire is -- I mean, we saw this in the past when John McCain blew out George W. Bush after an Iowa win. That's a long time ago, different Republican Party, but it's indicative of the kind of character that New Hampshire has rewarded in the past.

HOOVER: And it's not just George W. Bush. It was John McCain. It was Bill Clinton. It was --

AVLON: Well, come back, kid. Yeah.

HOOVER: Yeah. I mean, this is New Hampshire in the history. It's surprising.

ACOSTA: Well, John, to your point, Trump was in New Hampshire last night speaking to supporters. Listen to what he had to say about Hungarian leader Viktor Orban.

AVLON: Oh, yeah.

ACOSTA: Let's listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(APPLAUSE)

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: There's a great man, a great leader in Europe, Viktor Orban. He's the prime minister of Hungary. He's a very great leader, very strong man. Some people don't like him because he's too strong. It's nice to have a strong man running your country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: That thing at the end there, nice to have a strong man running your country, John. I mean, he throws out these -- I mean -- I mean, you don't -- these are dog whistles anymore.

AVLON: (INAUDIBLE).

ACOSTA: Yeah.

AVLON: No! This isn't a dog whistle. Donald Trump loves dictators. He never loses a chance to praise them. If you think Donald Trump is going to be, you know, strong defender of democracy at home and abroad, you're delusional. It's a green light for Putin to take over Ukraine. He loses no time. You say you're hawkish on China. Well, how come Donald Trump praises China's president for life, Xi, every chance he gets?

And so, this Orban stuff is absurd. But don't underestimate how dangerous it is. If you think that you're standing for liberty and democracy, that's not consistent with a candidate campaigning, praising autocrats and dictators around the world.

[17:45:00]

That's what you're signing up for.

HOOVER: I just say one more thing. Donald Trump said a lot of crazy, crazy sort of things that were intended almost for entertainment the first time he ran, and he didn't have an organized infrastructure of policy sophisticates who came into the White House necessarily with him, although he did have a bunch of grownups trying to help keep the guardrails on.

This time is different, Jim. We saw in Iowa, he ran there and he had a very sophisticated political operation. What's also happening simultaneously is he's building a very sophisticated policy apparatus to take the reins of the government on day one in a direction that reflects the rhetoric that he's espousing now.

So, he's not just saying crazy things out of nowhere. He's saying things that are reflected by a series of policy advisors who are ready to implement policies --

AVLON: Yeah.

HOOVER: -- that are far outside the mainstream of what Republicans ever stood for, let alone the country.

AVLON: Yeah. And so, I think, you know, I said it's what you're signing up for, it's what you're enabling. The Republicans who are getting on board because they think he's inevitable right now are enabling that kind of an America and those kinds of policies at the hand of which a guy who is praising dictators every chance he gets. When someone tells me who they are, believe me.

ACOSTA: And the head of the NRSC, Steve Daines, the Republican Senate Campaign Committee, put out a statement just a short time ago saying that it's time for -- essentially saying it is time for the party to line up behind Donald Trump, that the GOP primary process is effectively over. And -- I mean, Nikki Haley is still in the race.

AVLON: New Hampshire hasn't voted yet.

ACOSTA: Yeah.

AVLON: It's a profile and cowardice every single day and careerism.

ACOSTA: And isn't there something, I mean, remarkable here? Either one of you can respond to this. I talked about this with David Chalian earlier. That you have this race down to two people before the New Hampshire primary. I mean, typically, that's a dynamic we see playing out around Super Tuesday.

HOOVER: Yeah. I mean, what you have, Jim, essentially is, as Governor Sununu even admitted, you essentially have an incumbent running within their party.

AVLON: That's the point.

HOOVER: And so, the party recognizes that he's in the poll position and they realize that if they're going to be empowered in their jobs -- I mean, it's the politics of patronage in a way, right? They're just -- they're signing up and they're getting in line with the person who is likely to win because he is the incumbent within the Republican Party.

AVLON: And I think that's what I think folks underestimated. They saw the wake of January 6th and attempt to overturn our democracy and said, well, clearly, that's got to be a deal breaker if you consider yourself a law and order party of patriotism. But what we ignored is that he is effectively the incumbent.

And so, that's really the dynamic of this race. Now, it's down to Nikki Haley, if you want to change, or more of the same in a very dystopian direction frame.

ACOSTA: All right, John and Margaret, great to have you both on. Thanks for jumping on the breaking news for us. We really appreciate it, as always. Thanks so much.

HOOVER: Thanks, Jim.

AVLON: Thanks.

ACOSTA: Straight ahead, how President Biden's campaign is reacting to Ron DeSantis dropping out of the race for president. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[17:52:33]

ACOSTA: Democratic National Committee says Ron DeSantis is the latest GOP member to fall in line behind Donald Trump after the Florida governor withdrew from the 2024 race just hours ago.

Now, as our Kevin Liptak reports, the Biden campaign is looking forward to the one-on-one contest with Trump as election day draws closer. He joins me now from Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. Kevin, I mean, we should note Nikki Haley still in the race. It's not a one-on-one just yet. But the White House looks like they're looking past all of this to that one-on-one contest with Donald Trump.

KEVIN LIPTAK, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Yeah, very much so. I think in reality, they've been looking past the nomination contest for some time now as it has become clear that Donald Trump is the very likely Republican nominee.

And even in their statement today, Democrats didn't really say all that much about DeSantis. It was really more about Trump himself saying that DeSantis had pinned his entire campaign's hopes on the same extreme MAGA agenda both Donald Trump and Nikki Haley are still running on.

And really in the end, President Biden's advisors are very eager for this to become a one-on-one race. President Biden and President Trump, they do have their own internal research that suggests many undecided voters still just don't believe Donald Trump will be the Republican nominee.

And until that point, it makes it very hard to make a choice argument, a contrast argument with President Trump. They really think it will be easier for President Biden once Trump is the nominee to start going after him and really making an impact in voters' minds, whereas right now the contest is Joe Biden versus a Republican candidate kind of in the abstract.

So, they are very much looking forward to that point, and they can really sort of hammer Trump for all of the dangerous things that they say that he would implement if he were to return to the White House.

And you will see them start doing that next week. We will see President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris in their first joint campaign appearance on Tuesday. The focus there will be on abortion and reproductive rights. They really do feel like this is a galvanizing issue for their voters heading into next year's election. And the argument they're planning to make is that President Trump, through his three Supreme Court nominations, is as much responsible for the overturning of Roe versus Wade as anyone else. And that is, in fact, something that Trump himself has made an argument on the campaign trail. So, certainly, the Biden campaign not really losing much sleep over DeSantis.

[17:55:00]

They haven't really attacked him or paid him much mind for the last several months. They are very much looking forward to this contest directly with President Trump in the coming year, Jim.

ACOSTA: All right, Kevin Liptak, thank you very much. And then there were two, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis dropping out of the race for president, throwing his support behind Donald Trump. What this means for the days and weeks and months ahead, that's next. You're live in "CNN Newsroom."

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ACOSTA: You are live in the "CNN Newsroom."

[18:00:00]

I'm Jim Acosta in Washington. Good evening.

We are continuing to follow tonight's breaking news.