DeSantis uses fake Winston Churchill quote as he ends disastrous presidential campaign

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis endorsed former President Donald Trump on Sunday after ending his beleaguered presidential campaign. Meg Kinnard/AP

• Florida Governor Ron DeSantis dropped out of the GOP presidential race on Sunday.
• The one-time rival to Trump used a purported Winston Churchill quote in his announcement video.
• According to the International Churchill Society, the quote is fake.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis ended his 2024 presidential campaign on Sunday and endorsed former President Donald Trump.

Much like his disappointing campaign itself, arguably one of the worst in history, DeSantis’ video announcing the suspension missed the mark by including an apparently fake Winston Churchill quote.

“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts,” DeSantis wrote in a tweet accompanying his video, attributing the quote to Churchill.

But as many people quickly pointed out, the International Churchill Society debunked the legitimacy of the quote over a decade ago.

“Not only did Churchill never say those words—he never said the similar words more usually attributed to him, which are: ‘Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts,'” the society wrote in 2013.

They added that they based the conclusion “on careful research in the canon of fifty million words by and about Churchill, including all of his books, articles, speeches and papers.”

A DeSantis spokesperson did not immediately respond to Business Insider’s request for comment.

The Florida governor was seen as Trump’s strongest opponent in the early days of his campaign, but DeSantis’ numbers took a nosedive in the months that followed.

He pinned his hopes on last week’s Iowa caucuses but lost to Trump by 30 percentage points.

“I can’t ask our supporters to volunteer their time and donate their resources if we don’t have a clear path to victory,” DeSantis said in Sunday’s announcement. “It’s clear to me that a majority of Republican primary voters want to give Donald Trump another chance.”