Now this is a campaign founded on speaking the truth.
Not just when it's easy,
but when it's hard. Not just to the Democrats,
but to our own side.
And not just to other campaigns and candidacies,
but to ours. And so I will stick to the
truth tonight.
The first hard truth, and this one.
Hard for me, I gotta admit.
But we've looked at it every which way and I
think it is true that we did not achieve the
surprise that we wanted to deliver tonight and I think
that that's just a hard fact that we're going to
have to accept as a campaign.
And the question then is what do we do that
is right for our country and so poor and I
we we actually.
Didn't make this contingency plan before everybody told us to,
he said. No, we're not doing that.
But we talked about it tonight.
We took a little bit of time in our apartment
in Des Moines before coming here to make some hard
choices.
And I wanted to make a couple of announcements tonight
to get the business out of the way.
And then I want to tell you where we're going.
As of this moment, we are going to suspend this
presidential campaign.
And this is going to have to.
There is no path for me to be the next
president,
absent things that we don't want to see happen in
this country.
And I think that I am very worried for our
country.
I think we are skating on thin ice as a
nation.
We have done everything in our part to make and
done.
Everyone of us in this room has done our part
to save this country and I am so proud of
everyone of you who have lifted us up.
But we're a campaign founded on the truth and so
that's why we've made that decision today.
And I'm also making the decision that this has to
be an America First candidate in that White House.
As I've said since the beginning,
there are two America First candidates in this race.
And earlier tonight, I called Donald Trump to tell him
that I congratulate him on his victory.
And now going forward, he will have my full endorsement
for the presidency.
And I think we're going to do the right thing
for this country.
And so I'm going to ask you to follow me
in taking our America First movement.
To the next level. It did not begin in 2016.
It began in 1776.