Ron DeSantis Ends 2024 Campaign Using Fake Winston Churchill Quote
One early instance of the quote being misattributed to Churchill comes, ironically, from a 1939 ad for Budweiser — a company DeSantis has criticized
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis suspended his 2024 presidential campaign on Sunday using a quote falsely attributed to Winston Churchill — and one that actually came from a Budweiser ad.
In a post shared to X, DeSantis, 45, captioned a video of his announcement with, “Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts. - Winston Churchill."
The problem, at least according to the Churchill society, is that he "never said those words."
“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”
- Winston Churchill pic.twitter.com/ECoR8YeiMm— Ron DeSantis (@RonDeSantis) January 21, 2024
A 2013 post on the society's website notes that the quote is often misattributed to Churchill, but that he never actually said it. "We base this on careful research in the canon of fifty million words by and about Churchill, including all of his books, articles, speeches and papers," the society says.
According to the Churchill Society, Churchill did say two other, somewhat similar quotes: Churchill did say: “No one can guarantee success in war, but only deserve it,” and “Success always demands a greater effort.”
Related: Ron DeSantis Suspends His 2024 Presidential Campaign, Endorses Donald Trump
Newsweek reports that one early instance of the quote being misattributed to Churchill comes, ironically, from a 1939 ad for Budweiser — a company DeSantis has criticized in the recent past.
DeSantis last year claimed to be launching an inquiry into Bud Light’s parent company, AB InBev, over its partnership with transgender actor and influencer Dylan Mulvaney last spring.
DeSantis' criticism of Bud Light was one of the many anti-“woke” cultural wars he waded into throughout his campaign, which ended over the weekend after spending some $19 million, per FEC data, and netting just 23,420 votes total.
Related: Ron DeSantis Goes After Bud Light in Latest Culture Wars Attack as He Slips in 2024 Polls
In suspending his campaign, the Florida governor offered an endorsement of former President Donald Trump.
“Following our second-place finish in Iowa, we’ve prayed and deliberated on the way forward,” DeSantis said, in announcing his campaign's end. “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."
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"We don’t have a clear path to victory. Accordingly, I am today suspending my campaign," he continued.
“It’s clear to me that a majority of Republican primary voters want to give Donald Trump another chance,” DeSantis then noted, adding: “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.”
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